260 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
Leat in north-East Fen 
are particularly protected here by excluding the 
cattle from about half of a hectare [2]. This small 
part has a litter layer some five centimetres thick 
and no pockets of bare soil. It is a tall-herb fen with 
only a dozen or so plant species, dominated by Reed 
Sweet-grass Glyceria maxima, Meadowsweet 
Filipendula ulmaria and Cleavers Galium aparine. 
There are also fair numbers of Lesser Pond Sedge 
Carex acutiformis, Marsh Horsetail Eguisetum 
palustre, Stinging Nettle Urtica dioica, Common 
Hemp-nettle Galeopsis tetrahit, Wild Angelica and 
Common Comfrey Symphytum officinale. 
Stinging Nettles are often indicators of 
enrichment by human activity but here they are in 
their natural habitat — remains of nettles have been 
found along with those of typical fen and carr 
communities in peat some 13,000 or 14,000 years 
old (Godwin, 1975, 432). Many of the Stinging 
Nettles on the reserve have few or no stings. This is 
not uncommon where nettles grow in the shade but 
some, as here, are in the open. It is thought that 
stinglessness is an inherited property sometimes 
found where there is little grazing (Pollard and 
Briggs, 1982, 1984a and 1984b). The familiar 
stinging form is a tetraploid, possibly derived from 
a stingless diploid (Mabberley, 2002, 739). 
A plant in this spot the reserve could well do 
without is an introduction from the Himalayas: 
Indian Balsam Impatiens glandulifera which first 
appeared on the reserve ten years ago. It is weeded 
out every year, but is constantly replaced from a 
large patch just upstream of the reserve. 
Apart from this small fenced-off area, the fen as 
far as and including Jones’s Mill Mead [3] (about 
2:5 hectares in all) was grazed for 6 to 8 weeks 
during September and October in 1984 and 1985. 
During the next two years it was hand cut and 
raked. Since then every year until 2002 it has been 
grazed by two or three Belted Galloways between 
April and the end of October. This year (2003) 
unfortunately it was not grazed until very late in the 
year, but there is every intention of continuing the 
previous grazing regime next year. Even just 
beyond the fence the picture here is very different 
from where the fen is ungrazed. The leaf litter is 
barely 1 centimetre thick and there are numerous 
hoof-sized pockets with vigorous germination. In 
2002 I recorded twenty-nine species of vascular 
plants from a15 x 15 metres plot near the fence, of 
which the dominants were Lesser Pond-sedge 
C. acutiformis and Soft Rush Juncus effusus. 
Meadowsweet F ulmaria was still found but only 
about a third as often, while Reed Sweet-grass 
G. maxima — much liked and sought out by the 
Belties — occurred even less. Both are grazed down 
before they can flower. After the dominants, the 
next commonest species in the quadrat was Greater 
Bird’s-foot-trefoil Lotus pedunculatus whose yellow 
flowers are a conspicuous feature of the reserve in 
July. Every plant in the quadrat is found 
throughout the grazed fen. In spring Marsh- 
4 
Trises in Fones’s Mill Mead 
