Scores of volunteers working to restore Royal Forest of Knaresborough for the whole community
The volunteers behind Harrogate and Knaresborough's first-ever community-owned have launched a seasonal card highlighting the area's rich heritage.
The card shows a winter scene of Knaresborough Castle as seen from the former Royal Forest of Knaresborough in the Middle Ages, painted by James McKay, Chair of Long Lands Common, who is carrying out research into the history of the Forest.
The team at Long Lands Common have launched the card to boost funds in their effort to raise the last £68,000 remaining to pay off the bridging loan taken out to pay for the purchase of Knaresborough Forest Park.
It’s been a busy year for everyone involved with the project.
The weekend saw more than 100 volunteers benefited from a break in the cold weather to plant 1,800 trees in National Tree Planting Week, in the next phase of woodland creation at the 30-acre site acquired three years ago.
Tree planting on the site is funded by White Rose Forest, the community forest for North and West Yorkshire.
This week’s activities form part of a larger scheme on Long Lands Common to create new areas of woodland, hedgerow, ponds, an orchard, coppice woodland, wildflower meadow and new permissive access paths.
The first woodland block was planted in March 2023, and the saplings are already thriving and outgrowing the tree guards.
This latest phase, two more woodland blocks, also funded and supported by White Rose Forest with delivery partner YORgreenCIC, saw the planting of a mixture of native species: oak, wild cherry, birch, rowan, lime, sweet chestnut, alder, aspen, willow, hawthorn, hazel and holly.
Ian Fraser, woodland officer for Long Lands Common, said: “We are extremely grateful to White Rose Forest for enabling us to undertake this crucial work, to provide a new woodland for the local community and to contribute to nature recovery locally, part of the massively important national effort to reverse nature depletion.”
The seasonal cards are available at The Red Box post offices in Starbeck and Bilton, Wild Orchid on Knaresborough High Street and Classy Chaos vintage shop in Green Dragon Yard in Knaresborough.
More information: https://www.longlandscommon.org/