Badgers, bats and birds on Beeston trail

May 30 2008 by Naomi Dunning, Chester Chronicle

Badgers, bats and birds on Beeston trail

A NEW woodland walk has been launched at Beeston Castle and it offers visitors breathtaking never-before-seen views of the historic fort.

The walk is part of a 14-month project to return the castle and the grounds to their Victorian state.

In 1959 the castle went into state guardianship, the animals were removed and bracken and scrub started to invade the castle’s grounds.

English Heritage has now cleared the land and uncovered the woodland walk.

The new walk goes around the base of the castle through leafy woodland, pine woodland and towards a bracken field. The walk ends at the sandstone caves. It shows off exciting new views of the castle which visitors were unable to see before.

This walk also focuses on the wildlife in the grounds and visitors can expect to see plenty of rabbits and squirrels. Surveys have also revealed 45 different species of bird on site including the green woodpecker.

Those intrigued by the castle’s nocturnal visitors will see evidence of badgers and the somersaulting Natterer’s bat.

The project to create the woodland walk involved the clearance of a large amount of bracken.

Visitor Operations manager Mark Hodgson said: “We cleared the bracken to create the paths and removed a couple of trees. However, we did several wildlife surveys, to make sure we didn’t disturb the badgers, bats and the birds.”