STEPHEN LEWIS explores the ancient parish of Skipwith, which has become one of the largest conservation projects in Yorkshire.

LOWLAND heath is a rich and diverse, if increasingly rare, habitat. It is home to several species of bird - such as the skylark, grey partridge and golden plover - which are becoming endangered.

For a brief period yesterday, the heath at Skipwith Front Common not far from York managed to attract a member of another endangered species altogether: the junior Government minister.

This is an odd species. Often short-lived, and given to random appearances in unexpected places, its lifespan is notoriously dependant on factors beyond its control, such as the swings of public opinion. One thing distinguishes it from other endangered species. Far from being shy and retiring, the junior minister thrives in the limelight.

So it was that nature conservation minister Ben Bradshaw found himself briefly at Skipwith Common yesterday. Not because he planned to make a home there - the junior Labour minister is generally a city dweller. Instead, he had come to inspect one of the largest rural conservation projects in Yorkshire.

A new series of Countryside Stewardship schemes embraces virtually the whole of the ancient parish of Skipwith - a parish that includes within its boundaries stone-age burial mounds, a moated field thought to be the site of a 14th century manor house, and one of the largest areas of lowland heath left in the north of England.

The aim is to encourage the return of wildlife by recreating a 'mosaic' of different, traditional farmland habitats that would have been found before the introduction of intensive farming.

It is a recognition of the changing role of the English countryside, with the emphasis moving from the need to produce more and more food towards preservation of a landscape that is a part of our heritage.

"If food was still our most important need, we could have an ecological desert supplying masses of carrots, potatoes and sugar beet," says Charlie Forbes Adam, member of the landed gentry and owner of Escrick Park Estate, and hence of most of Skipwith. "But now we're more stewards of the land, and I'm very keen to encourage wildlife conservation and biodiversity." Alongside farming, of course.

Altogether, almost 3,000 acres owned by the Escrick Park Estate are covered under the series of Countryside Stewardship schemes. The bulk of the land is arable farmland worked by six different tenant farmers; but also included is the heathland of Skipwith Back Common.

Over the next ten years, in return for Government grants, more than eight kilometres of hedgerow will be restored, and more than 21 kilometres of grass margin - a rich habitat for insects and butterflies which in turn support bird populations - will be left along field edges.

Two apple orchards and four wildlife ponds are to be restored, while an area of arable land next to Skipwith Back Common is to be allowed to 'revert' to heathland; and a sizeable chunk of land will be left each winter as over-winter stubble to provide a habitat for ground-nesting birds.

Perhaps most important of all, nearly two miles of new 'permissive' footpaths have been designated, linking Skipwith Front Common with public rights of way and making areas of the ancient landscape accessible to walkers.

A walk through the farmland is instructive. Wide field margins are dotted with yellow corn marigolds. Everywhere restored hedges are springing up, the young plants still protected with plastic sheaths. And in the moated field where the manor of the Skipwith family once stood, the willow trees surrounding the fishponds could have come straight out of a Constable painting.

"The English landscape is regarded as a tranquil Constable landscape," says Tango Fawcett, who acted as conservation consultant for the Escrick Park Estate when making the Countryside Stewardship applications. "That's how we attract tourists, and that's what we are aiming for."

The Countryside Stewardship agreements are only the latest stage in a programme of preservation and restoration on Escrick Park Estate land at Skipwith.

The 700-or-so acres of Skipwith Front Common, a tangled haven of heathland and birch and oak scrub, have already been brought under a lottery-funded English Nature heathland heritage scheme. Over the next five years or so, says Charlie Forbes Adam, something like £125,000 will be spent reverting most of the common to lowland heath.

Oak and birch scrub will be cleared to allow the heather to grow back, and the common will be grazed to prevent the trees returning.

The work has already begun, and the estate has brought in a 350-strong flock of hardy, black-wooled Hebridean sheep to graze the heathland.

The plan to revert the common - a popular destination for walkers - to heathland may seem the opposite of conservation, admits Charlie Forbes Adam, since it involves cutting down trees. But it will return the area to ancient patterns of grazing and fuel-gathering first introduced in Neolithic times 3,000 years ago, when early settlers began clearing the woods to allow grazing for sheep and cattle.

"And it is the lowland heath that is the important and rare habitat in the north of England," he says. Trees, it seems, at least in this neck of the woods, are not.

Updated: 11:14 Wednesday, July 30, 2003