Hanney 2000 Wildlife and Waterways Guide
The rich heritage of the Hanneys is underpinned by its native wildlife, itself based on the underlying geology. The Hanney Gardening Group combined with the History Group in 2000 to produce this booklet which still acts as a good initial survey of the local wildlife and man’s interventions. It will be noted that when it was first produced, red kites were anticipated!
The Wider Local Landscape
We would hope to build upon this excellent local study in the future but it still provides a good starting place and an excellent benchmark for local species, hopefully from which to conserve and progress.
At present there is an excellent resource available for the study of British landscape that we could not hope to match in its breadth, even at a local level. The links below offer anyone wishing to study our wider landscape in more detail the chance to do so. Natural England have created a wonderful series and seemingly little publicised resource, National Character Area reports, which offers a landscape character study for the nation, region by region, with these regions being based on landscape features rather than political boundaries. These are very accessible, in style and content, and the two which cover this area are worth reviewing but may fill a few hours of your time and can be addictive. They are freely available. the local areas are summarised under ‘108 The Upper Thames Clay Vales’ and ‘109 The Midvale Ridge. NCA108 totally encloses NCA109. Their links are below
http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/5431100?category=587130
http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/6557755053703168
A second guide from Natural England is ‘ ‘An Approach to Landscape Character Assessment ‘ by Christine Tudor. This is also available as a download. It provides a template for anyone wishing to consider the parameters with which to assess their local landscape.