An extraordinary experiment in the ordinary has seen two shire horses brought in by a Cambridge college to help with the harvest.
In this instance the harvest is a wildflower meadow that King’s College planted as part of a biodiversity effort.
The college even brought in a traditional hay wain, pulled by the shires, for authenticity but also to recreate traditional methods of harvesting the meadows. Bales are being collected to ensure new meadows can be created elsewhere across the city.
King’s is excited with the ongoing project and says the meadow provides considerably more plant species than the lawns that preceded it.
Wild candytuft and cornflower have enriched the meadow which has become another feature of the tourism trail in Cambridge.
Head gardener Steve Coghill said it was wonderful to see the shires at work..
And with a throwback to Suffolk’s most famous painter – and painting – he suggested it would “make for a remarkable, bucolic scene and bring a bit of Constable to Cambridge".
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