You may have read in the agenda for the upcoming Parish Council Meeting that there was a meeting between some Parish Councillors and the head gardener at the Hall regarding the state of the verges at the entrance to the Hall.

Details of the meeting can be found below.

Grass verges in Oxborough

Councillors and staff at the National Trust’s Oxburgh Hall have met to discuss the wild verges within the village.

The verges that border Oxburgh Estate do not belong to the National Trust. They are in the ownership of Norfolk County Council, up to Oxburgh’s boundary wall. The County Council confirms that the legal obligation falls on them to maintain the verges. As most of the verge falls within the 30mph limit village boundary, it is considered urban under the County Council’s categorisation, and should by their policy receive mowing four times between May and September each year. Having said that, the County Council is clear that they do not maintain for appearance, and that their policy is to mow a 1-metre visibility strip only for health and safety. Since the impact of Covid, and due to resourcing issues, it has been observed that the County Council has ceased to mow the verges within the village (not just ours). Under the County Council’s published rules, the Parish Council or, if not taken on by the Parish Council, the adjacent property holder may undertake mowing on behalf of the County Council provided certain health and safety requirements are observed.

In recent years Oxburgh Estate has grown to 215 acres, with 21 acres of formal gardens. There is therefore now a far greater demand on staff and volunteers than when the National Trust first took on the care of Oxburgh Hall. When covid measures closed the estate for a period of more than a year and a half, all volunteer service was suspended and the garden was cared for alone by the resident gardener and her husband as a volunteer. As you can imagine, the closure and the lack of volunteers and visitor footfall within the estate saw a considerable decline in the condition of the gardens and parkland. Regrettably, today, there are fewer than 15 volunteers for the gardens and due to retirement and staff changes, Oxburgh’s Outdoors Team are relatively new in post. Since 2021 they have been working steadily and diligently throughout the 21 acres of the Grade II listed gardens to bring them back to good condition and presentation standard. This has required the National Trust to prioritise.

During this period, the National Trust also published its statement on climate change.  The outcome of that report has been to shift the Trust’s approach to garden and estate management to a more ecologically responsible approach. It means less intensive ways of gardening and presenting their estates, to take steps to monitor and improve biodiversity of plant, insect and other species. This has meant Oxburgh has moved to less intensive mowing, and a concerted effort to rewild certain parts of the gardens and parkland as a matter of policy. 

As the County Council has not been mowing the verges and they have been left wild, and for the reasons given above, they have remained wild. Last year, the National Trust began mowing a 1 metre visibility strip as the County Council would do and have otherwise permitted the rest of the verge to remain wild as most of the other verges in the area are. Under the Trust’s present vision and policy, the preference is to maintain the verges as wild. However, the relationship with the village and with the Parish Council is important to the National Trust. 

Therefore, the National Trust’s ideal solution under the current pressures and resource restraints would be for the Parish Council or a volunteer from the village to be willing to take on the verge mowing in the way it is done for the immediately adjacent church area. However, as a compromise, it’s been agreed:

1. A National Trust volunteer will rough cut the entire width of the verge on the same schedule as the County Council would follow, being four times between May and September. 

2. The first cut was carried out once the recent extreme dry conditions were relieved, otherwise, with our flinty soil, we risked striking a spark and causing a fire. 

3. Cllr Chapman confirmed if we would top the verge in this way, he would volunteer to mow it at times in between.