BEAUTIFUL BATTLE

Biodiversity

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Natural Areas

Beautiful Battle works closely with Battle Town Council and Rother District Council in supporting nature conservation. This involves creating and maintaining natural areas to encourage wild flowers and wildlife. Below are some of the key areas around Battle. They include country walks, meadows, churchyards, wildflower banks etc

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George Meadow
Situated behind the High Street adjacent to the Abbey car park

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Lake Meadow
A National Trust site at the top of Marley Lane and Upper Lake

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Guild Shaw
Situated behind the High Street at the end of Western Avenue near the cricket ground.

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Mansers Shaw
Accessed via the footpath between the end of Saxonwood Road and Asten Fields

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St Mary's Churchyard
Picture taken in Spring 2007

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Battle Cemetery
Wild Orchids in the cemetery wildflower bed May 2007

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Kingsmead Open Space
At the top of Caldbec Hill behind the windmill. This historic site is where the armies of King Harold gathered before the Battle in 1066

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A2100 Wildflower Bank
Bank of Springtime flowers near to the junction with Netherfield Road. It includes Primroses, Ajuga, Anemone, Ladies Mantle, Ox-eye daisies and Speedwell

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Beech Farm Meadow
The meadow is situated on the main road to Netherfield and has been progressively enhanced over the last 5 years. We are exploring the possibility of using seed from this meadow to create a wildflower meadow at the Kingsmead Open Space above.

Protecting the Environment
 
Beautiful Battle, in collaboration with other organisations, are promoting a number of initiatives that will help save natural resources. These include Ivyland Farm's exciting Environmental Project, and joint initiatives with the Battle Town Council on rainwater harvesting and recycling greenwaste for composting material.

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Ivyland Farm Environmental Project
 
Ivyland Farm, part of Plumpton College, has constructed what they call their "Living Classroom". The key features of this "carbon friendly" building are as follows
  • Internal walls constructed from rammed earth
  • Rainwater for toilets is collected via the roof in an underground tank
  • Solar panels will heat water used in the building
  • A wood fired boiler will heat rooms via radiators
  • High performance room insulation (thermal glass, lambs wool cavity insulation, paper beneath floors, cork above ceilings).
  • There are also plans to install a "Green Roof"for wildlife habitats

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Rainwater Harvesting Tank
Experience from the drought conditions in 2006 demonstrated the limitations of water butts for watering floral displays in areas the size of Battle town centre
 
It has been calculated that the volume of the water falling on the roofs to the Cemetery chapel and adjoining workshop is about 60,000 litres per year. 
 
To minimise the use of mains water for watering the town's displays in 2007 we have  recently installed a second hand 5,000 litre tank to harvest the rainwater from the middle two roofs of the chapel and workshop. The water collected is pumped from the tank into a portable bowser that is then used for watering the town’s hanging baskets and the main planters in Abbey Green.
 
We will use the experience from this pilot scheme to develop further rainwater harvesting schemes to provide even more of the water we need for floral displays

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Composting

All green waste from Beautiful Battle and Town Council projects is recycled by taking the waste to the cemetery for composting. This includes all the debris from the Market Square maintenance contract. The Almonry now has its own compost heap but when full the residue is taken to the cemetery for recycling.

 

In a survey by Rother District Council it was found that 54% of Battle residents already used home composting. This was more than in Rye and Bexhill.

 

Rother District Council held a “Recycling Roadshow” in Battle on 12th April to further promote the need to increase the town's performance on all types of recycling. New green “wheeliebins” will be in use from June to further improve the recycling of greenwaste. Beautiful Battle has visited the local Veolia recycling centre at Mountfield to establish what happens to the green waste when it has been collected. The green waste is taken from the recycling centre for processing at Beddingham where it is treated for a minimum period of 15 weeks. It is then sold as compost for agricultural use or put in bags to be resold for domestic garden use. Some of the recycled composted material was also sent to St Leonards-on Sea for use in the land reclamation project at the old Pebsham rubbish tip.

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