Wild Ken Hill

Overview

Wild Ken Hill runs along the coast of west Norfolk, between the arable land of the Ken Hill estate and the wader-rich mudflats of the Wash. The Buscall family relaunched it in 2019 with a deliberately awkward proposition: do not choose between farming and nature, do both, properly, in different places.

It has become one of the most cited examples in the British land use argument, partly because of Springwatch and partly because it has published its reasoning rather than just its results.

The Three-Part Land Use Model

The lighter, poorer land is rewilded. The better arable ground is farmed regeneratively, with reduced tillage, cover crops and attention to soil carbon. The coastal marshes stay under traditional conservation management, because that is what the waders and the designations need.

The point of the model is that these three approaches are not rivals. Each suits a different piece of ground, and together they produce food, carbon storage and biodiversity from one holding.

Rewilding in Practice

On roughly a quarter of the site, free-roaming ponies, cattle and pigs do the management. Their grazing, trampling and rooting keep the land open in some places and let scrub build in others, producing the messy structure that farmland birds and invertebrates need.

Beavers, absent from Norfolk for centuries, were brought back into an enclosure and have been building the wet, tangled habitat that follows them everywhere they go.

Springwatch & Public Profile

BBC Springwatch was based at Wild Ken Hill for the 2021 and 2022 series, with Autumnwatch and Winterwatch broadcasting from the site up to 2023, putting the project and its arguments in front of millions of viewers. The programme has since moved elsewhere, but the profile stuck. Rewilding Britain's case study on the project looks past the television and at the business: how the change affected revenue, profit and jobs on the farm.

Visiting & Supporting Wild Ken Hill

Wild Ken Hill runs guided safaris and walks, including beaver walks and coastal wader tours. Booking a place is the most direct way to support the work. Details are at wildkenhill.co.uk.

Related Grange Project Content

Read our guide to beavers and our debate on rewilding and farming, or return to the rewilding organisations hub.