The Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

The Chilterns Commons Project, funded by the Heritage Lottery and other partners including the Chiltern Society, has now finished and a final report summarising the project's achievements has been published.

The Chilterns Commons Project finished today where it all started, Totternhoe Knolls.

The Chilterns Commons Project has provided 800 training places to those who own and manage commons in the area across 43 workshops.

Topics have varied from how to research local history, to ecology and site management, and have included specialist skills such as first aid and brush cutter use.  The final course, today, taught volunteers how to identify trees in winter - an essential skill for site management.

The Chilterns Commons Project has spent £120,000 carrying out practical work on local commons.

Our Common Heritage, a collection of six essays about the social history of Chiltern commons, was launched today.

At a packed conference, the audience of 140 listened enrapt to the essay authors and other local experts as they turned the spotlight onto a diverse range of subjects all connected by the region’s commons and our forbears’ dependence upon them.  They discovered more about the impact of religious nonconformity on life and attitudes of a generally rural population, the drovers who criss-crossed the Chilterns for decades, the legacy of WWI at Berkhamsted and more. 

Tree surgeons have given new life to 60 ancient beech trees in Maidensgrove Scrubs, part of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust's Warburg Reserve near Henley.

Thanks to funding from the Commons Project more kids are discovering their local common.

Imagine…, an exhibition of art inspired by commons in the Chilterns, is now open.  

The Chilterns Commons Project is holding an art competition called Imagine… In association with the competition, we're running free half-day art and photography workshops on commons in August.

Over the last few months, artist James Aldridge, has been helping Year 4 at Chorleywood School learn all about their local common, its history and wildlife.  They've learned lots while being creative and having fun.

Volunteers surveying Moorend Common have discovered a rare green and bronze beetle

Artists young and old are being given a year to create a piece inspired by their local common and enter this free competition. 

Thousands of years ago Neolithic people buried their dead on Dunstable Downs at Five Knolls. Centuries later, erosion by footsteps and bicycles had caused deep scars in these ancient burial mounds. This damage has now been repaired preserving this precious heritage for future generations.

Children from West Wycombe Combined School have produced and acted in a film about the history of West Wycombe Hill.

'What a great day out. Utterly, utterly charming.' (Facebook feedback). 1400 more people have got the message that commons are here for all of us to walk and play on, watch wildlife and have picnics on, learn from and study for their fascinating history and stories.

The Chilterns Commons Project has funded work to protect fragile archaeology on the Ashridge Estate preserving it for the future.

Huge amount achieved in first year of Commons Project.

The recent snow brought out the creative side of the people of Cholesbury who celebrated the recent cold snap with a snow sculpture festival.

The Chilterns Commons Project is mapping one of the few remaining sites of WWI troop training trenches in the Chilterns to help preserve it and provide a permanent commemoration.

History buffs are needed to help survey some of the last identifiable trenches used for training officers in the First World War.

There is a silver lining to this summer’s storm clouds!  The weeks of heavy rain have filled the ponds on Nettlebed common to the brim.

For centuries wood from trees on Chilterns commons were used by local people to heat their homes. The beech trees were cut low to the ground, left to re-grow and then the branches cut again a few years later – a traditional practice known as coppicing. This was carried out on Maidensgrove Scrubs, common land which is now within the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust's Warburg Nature Reserve.

An historic pond on Nettlebed Common has been restored after falling into neglect over many years.

150 people packed into the Green Park conference centre on 28th January to hear all about the latest research into the history of Chilterns' commons.

Greenmoor Ponds in Woodcote are all that's left of what was once a large area of common which stretched from Exlade Street to Mapledurham. The ponds were vitally important as a source of water for local residents as well as for animals which grazed on the common.