A bunch of us headed over to the slopes down below Sham Castle to help with some grounds maintenance to help the local wildlife.

We met with our contact from the National Trust, Joe, who is responsible for maintaining much of the land around Claverton Down. He explained that a large area of brambles had recently been cut back and that our job was to rake the cuttings into piles and then use pitchforks to transfer those into bigger heaps to leave the area clear both for cattle to graze and also to aid the growth of wild flowers, which in turn encourages birds.

We set about the task with our legendary GoodGym efficiency which meant that Joe had time to show us around the slopes a bit and talk about some of the difficulties the ancient woodlands are facing, plus some interesting ear-like fungal growths (insert he’s a “fun guy” joke here...)

At the end of the task James took the opportunity to go and have a look at Sham Castle and discover the two-dimensional hoax of our secret Bathonian in-joke!