BLOG: Llangenny Land CiC
Kate Dufton Llangenny Land CiC
Imagining the past to remember the future?
Llangenny Land is a new Community Interest Company (CIC) set up in 2023 to enable the community purchase of a woodland area along the riverbank in Llangenny in the Vale of Grwyney. The purchase was funded via community contribution and now by a share issue with each shareholder resident in the community having equal voting rights. We are lucky in the hospitality and generosity, time and foresight of those in the pub and village who enabled all this to happen.
The land purchased begins just by the bridge in the centre of Llangenny village and is a much-loved stretch of nearly six acres comprising woodland; a remnant of parkland from the old Pendarren Estate; a small, sloping meadow; and a SSSI riverbank with public footpath running along the Grwyne Fawr and into the hills. The woodland comprises large oak trees, ash (with die back), hazel, holly and a number of conifers including some old Scots pines and we need a full tree survey. The initial care of the wood has focussed on the invasive laurel with grant support for training and equipment purchase for those with a head for heights who worked on a steep bank with ropes and ladders and incredible persistence. I look forward to the flourishing of wildflowers I am sure I remember from 20 years ago.
It wasn’t a mistake in the heading to imagine the past to remember the future. We are currently working on a management plan and having a bit of a neuroscience interest I found myself thinking about the idea that we use the same parts of the brain to bring together memories or to make our new ideas for the future and that our memories could help imagine a more detailed idea of future possibilities.
So maybe a bit like squirrels burying their nuts for the future in our next newsletter we will be in inviting memories to inform the development of the management plan. We hope to gather memories of flowers and ferns and trees, birds, moths and butterflies, otters and foxes, fish and more – both recent and long-ago memories. We would like to identify some local favourite flora and fauna and understand what they may need to thrive. We also hope for memories of fun and perhaps of crafts that took place in the woodland. Some need not be specific to this land and personal stories will be very welcome. We hope to have some community talks and tales around a campfire or while working in the woodland as would have happened with our ancestors.
One possibility is to name parts of the land for easy reference – for example, the waterfall area, the old oak field, the orchard meadow. We might find Welsh names or names which come from our memories. Similarly, our survey of the trees and features would be enhanced by any memories. All this information will help create our baseline plan, that will grow and adapt just as the land and trees have done in the past.
There was a conversation arising from Guy Shrubsole’s book The Lost Rainforests of Britain. Could this wood be a rainforest fragment? On the Lost Rainforests map the woodland is just outside the Oceanic Climate zone that delineates rainforest, but in the future we could hold sessions exploring if there are Rainforest indicators in the woodland like mosses, liverworts, lichens.
We are also exploring the possibilities to connect with owners of nearby woodland who share a similar vision so that the community as a whole share in managing and maintaining this much loved area of the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. As the footpath runs along the river a little further along there is the scout’s field. Could we work together sharing energy and equipment? Llangenny Land CIC is set up so that it is possible other pieces of land could be purchased if funds could be found. Similarly, might we find ourselves connecting to other projects and ways of caring for the land. The community energy project is at the stage of feasibility study and there is intention for the project to support biodiversity. One of us might be doing a forest bathing course which is another way to connect with the trees and each other.
On a practical level we would like a secure storage unit equipment for the group, as we have chain saws and tools via grant funding, but having somewhere to make a cuppa and provide a compost loo is also on our list. The sketch plans are for this to be partly camouflaged and in keeping, simple and secure. This will most likely need grant funding but will be a key support for our community engagement.
(image Llangenny 1884. ref peoplescollection.wales)
