Restoring our wildflower grasslands

Glorious Cotswold Grasslands is an exciting and ambitious project which aims to create the largest network of wildflower rich Jurassic limestone grassland in the country – around 100 hectares in total, over three years. In the 1930s, 40% of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) was covered in wildflower-rich grassland; today less than 1.5% remains. 

This habitat was once abundant with beautiful wildflowers, and supported a vast diversity of wildlife, including butterflies, bees, bats, birds, and many other animals. Sadly, agricultural intensification and changing land management practices has led to the loss of almost all this grassland. Over half of the country’s flower-rich Jurassic limestone grassland is found in the Cotswolds. Glorious Cotswold Grasslands aims to reverse the decline in these habitats, by restoring and creating wildflower grasslands throughout the Cotswolds AONB.


The Cotswolds Conservation Board has been awarded a grant of over £200,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for this project, which will conserve, restore, and create wildflower-rich limestone grasslands across the Cotswolds. The project hopes to secure the long term management of these precious grasslands through farming and community engagement, alongside practical and educational activity.

The future – habitats and biodiversity restored

The biodiversity of Cotswold limestone grassland makes it very important. A typical patch can contain over one hundred species of flowering plants, including national rarities such as Pasque flower and Cotswold pennycress. Wildflowers support a huge variety of invertebrates, including the Chalkhill Blue and Duke of Burgundy butterflies. In turn, the invertebrates support a variety of mammals, bats, and birds higher up the food chain.

Through careful management it is possible to restore previously ‘improved’ grasslands and even to create new species-rich grasslands. The primary objective of the Glorious Cotswold Grasslands project is to restore and create 100 hectares of species-rich grassland across the Cotswolds in the next 3 years, primarily in locations which will extend and join-up existing areas. We hope to work with large and small private landowners and managers as well as conservation charities and local authorities who manage grassland such as road verges.

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