We are a charitable organisation safeguarding the welfare of all horses and ponies. We not only provide sanctuary to animals who have been mistreated, but we are also a valuable resource to horse lovers everywhere. We have been operating for many years and celebrated our 40th anniversary in 2012.

Recently, we celebrate 40 years at the Brownbread Horse Rescue centre in the high Weald of Sussex. In about 1974 one of our fields of 10 acres had so many ant hills that it was almost impossible to use farm machinery on it, so we ploughed it up and re-seeded with selected grass seeds and clovers. This was the only field of the 60 acres that was ever disturbed. Consequently, the majority of the farm has been down to pasture, with some of the hay fields being cropped for hay late in the season.

This management of the land has resulted in the farm having one of the highest numbers of flora and fauna species for any Wealden meadow farm. Yes, throughout the summer the fields are a blaze of multi-colours teeming with the buzz of myriads of insects. After 38 years, even the 10-acre field has reverted to a rich pasture of variable delights for the rescued horses. Of course, we keep down the ragwort whose seeds are very long-lived, but we also leave those few ragwort plants that have the cinnamon caterpillars munching away; biological control is always preferred and those moths will do a sterling job next year; let’s hope they hang around.

The government’s department, “Natural England” has visited over several years and wondered excitedly at the fervent, rich pasture, so much so that they are now putting the farm into the higher level scheme. Oh, yes, this means certain requirements in the way we manage the farm, but these are usually common sense, like not cutting hedges when birds start nesting but, otherwise, more or less carrying on what we have been doing successfully over the years. One of the requirements for entering the scheme was that the archaeological interests, if any, on the farm should be researched.