King's College meadow harvested by horses

A wildflower meadow planted on part of a pristine Cambridge University lawn has been harvested with the help of shire horses and a traditional hay wain.

Shire horses Bryn and Cosmo arrived on the lawn at King's College Cambridge before harvesting the wildflower meadow.

The heavy horses from Waldburg Shires stable near Alconbury helped cut the meadow before turning and carting the hay on a traditional wain, with the bales being used to propagate more wildflower meadows across the city of Cambridge, and the hay offered to local farmers as winter feed for livestock.

Surveys have been carried out that compare the species richness, abundance and composition of the meadow compared with the pristine lawn directly next door. They found that the wildflower meadow supported three times as many species of plants, spiders, and bugs, including 14 species with conservation designations. Terrestrial invertebrate biomass was found to be 25 times higher in the meadow, with bat activity over the meadow also being three times higher than over the remaining lawn.

Photo credit: Stephen Bond.

But why use shire horses? Head gardener Steve Coghill explained.

"Not only do they have a far lower carbon footprint than using a rotary mower, the sight of these wonderful creatures at work in the college should make for a remarkable, bucolic scene and bring a bit of Constable to Cambridge," 

Mr Coghill's rmention of Constable is a reference to landscape John Constable's famous painting of 1821 'The Haywain'

John Constable's The Hay Wain.

Using horses also gives any wildlife time to leave.

Photo credit: Prof Geoff Moggridge

If you’d like to find out more about the meadow, you can read the full academic report on it for yourself here.