Upper River Thames Heritage Project

In March 2005, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of £49,000 to support the Upper River Thames Heritage project. It was initiated by the Environment Agency and the Waterways Trust who invited the Great Western Community Forest to investigate the willow trees along the River Thames which were dying from a fungal disease called ‘willow scab’. The funding enabled the project to investigate how the trees could be brought back into management, thus retaining the landscape character of the River.

The area covered in the project runs from Neigh Bridge near the Lower Mill Estate in the western Cotswold Water Park to Shifford Lock in Oxfordshire, some 40 kilometres of the Upper Thames corridor.

Part of the project also encompassed detailed research into the living landscape and heritage of the area and involved consultants form the University of Gloucester and hundreds of people who live in and around the Upper River Thames area.

The project is delivered by a partnership of over 30 organisations. The Project Planning Grant (PPG) phase was concluded in April 2006 and the Landscape Strategy (PDF, 246Kb) for the project area was the key output of the PPG phase. The Phase 1 application for the project is currently being developed and will be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the October 2007 deadline. More than 10 projects have been submitted by partners including projects, for example on landscape heritage, improving access to the countryside, Forest School, Interpretation of WWII heritage, enhancing biodiversity, community arts, etc.

More information

For more information contact Patrick Norris by email: pnorris@swindon.gov.uk.