Vegetation Control

Hartlebury Common is  a lowland heath, without the cows it would turn back into woodland, which is what it must have been when our Neolithic ancestors settled in the area. They cleared it and grazed their animals on it. As the soil is so sandy heathland vegetation started to develop. Now that animals are no longer grazed intensively on the site, cows are regularly placed onto the common at different times of the year to stop too much broom, gorse and young trees from growing up in the open areas, otherwise they would shade out rarer species and we would lose this nationally important habitat.