It was the threat of housing development on this site, immortalized by Matthew Arnold in his poem Thyrsis, which brought the Trust into being.  The Old Berkeley Golf Course, the first piece of land acquired by the Trust, was bought to protect the views of the ‘Dreaming Spires’ available from the top of the field. The land had previously been Lord Berkeley’s private golf course, and eagle eyed observers can still pick out some of the features of the old course.

To one side of the field, and accessed across it, is the delightful Abraham Wood.

In 2006 the Trust, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment/Waste Recycling Group and many neighbours and members, bought Chilswell Fields - a further 68 acres of land within the Dreaming Spires View. This land, which runs from the bottom of the Old Golf Course and into the view cone, and the Golf Course are now grazed as one holding.

With funding from Natural England the Trust is carrying out an acid grassland restoration project to restore the plant diversity on the slopes.

In 2009 the Trust was delighted to be able to purchase a further piece of land, adjacent to the Chilswell Fields, on which stands (reputedly) the Signal Elm (actually an oak) made famous in Thyrsis.

Return to the main Land and Properties page