Country diary: Watching the cows, chewing on memories of protest and parenting | Nicola Chester

Woolton Hill, Hampshire: I visit an old friend in an old haunt, where a small herd of Shetlands has been set to work Thirty years on from the impassioned action of the road protests, the Newbury bypass soars above us on the old railway embankment. I can’t entirely accept it even now, having been part of the campaign. Today, walking in The Chase, the nature reserve that lies adjacent, the roar of traffic slips into a background hum, aided by other memories I’ve built up here. Many of those have been with my dearest friend, Sarah. She volunteers as a “cow watcher” for the National Trust, and I’ve come with her as she checks their whereabouts and wellbeing. They are conservation grazers; keeping coarser scrub in check, spreading seed and poaching areas, and encouraging greater biodiversity and plantlife. The reserve was once common land, with a sheepwash and blanket mill that gave this village its name, Woolton Hill. It was enclosed for hunting in 1819 and eventually became a National Trust property in 1944. It’s also been my playground. I remember trees like spilled pencils after the great storms of 1987 and 1990, and later more felled trees when it was clipped by the Newbury bypass;

Apr 8, 2026 → Apr 8, 2026