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On the Edge

Berry Head On the Edge is a 3-year £1.8m programme designed to completely rejuvenate Berry Head's heritage and the way people experience it.   The project started in October 2008 and we expect to start building works in February 2009.

The project is being funded by a grant of £850,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and one of £680,000 from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (Sea Change programme), with the balance consisting of in-kind and vounteer support.

Berry Head has been protected as a nature reserve and Ancient Monument for many decades but recent research, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, has shown that there is a long-term gradual decline in the condition of many of these assets.  This is caused in part by the intensity of visitor pressures, and partly by natural processes.  The research also found that most visitors do not appreciate how precious and vulnerable the site is, and this is compounding the problem.  Concerted action is needed in the very near future to ensure that the decline is reversed and future generations can continue to enjoy this superb heritage site.

What needs to be done?


A broad-ranging programme will conserve the key heritage assets for the future, ensure that visitors have good access to the site and information about it, and involve the local community in its conservation and ongoing management.

We will:

• Relocate the Visitor Centre, moving it into the Guardhouse in the Northern Fort
• Move the Café into a modern extension built on to the rear of the Visitor Centre
• Convert the Artillery Store into a Learning Centre for use as a base for school and other groups
• Convert the former Visitor Centre to a Training Base for trainees and volunteers and modernise the public toilets.
• Renew interpretation across the site, making it more accessible for all visitors.
• Remove landscape eyesores and modern paraphernalia.
• Extend opportunities for people to engage with the site through volunteering, training and events.
• Make the site more accessible for people without a car and promote Berry Head more actively to the local community.
• Clear invasive scrub that is choking the rare plants and extend a conservation grazing scheme across the whole site, using a primitive breed of sheep.
• Repair the Forts and associated buildings, mainly by removing invasive vegetation and stabilising loose stonework.
• Install a bridge across the moat into the Southern Fort to demonstrate how it originally functioned.
• Install a traffic management system to prevent unauthorised vehicles accessing the site, which is one of the main causes of erosion and disturbs the tranquillity of the site.
  

The bulk of the capital works in this programme will be carried out over a 2-year period from Spring 2009, whilst the community engagement and events will be ongoing.