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Fountains Forestry walked away with the coveted Stucley Perpetual Challenge Trophy in addition to two 1st prizes and one highly commended prize at this year’s Devon County Show.


Simon Brent, Forestry Area Manager, accepting the Stucley Perpetual Cup

Simon Brent, Fountains Forestry, manages all the woodlands he entered in the Show on behalf of his clients and was delighted with this year’s success: “I’m passionate about the properties Fountains Forestry manages and to be recognised with such an array of awards is truly fantastic. Apart from the fact that I enjoy showing the judges around my woodlands, I feel this is an excellent way to help enthuse my clients.”

The Stucley Trophy and 1st prize in Class 5 were won by Ermington Wood, owned by The Trustees of the Mothecombe Preservation Trust. These prizes are for the best woodland with multi-purpose objectives of management and demonstrable success in achieving these objectives. At Ermington Wood, the multi-purpose objectives are to grow good quality timber and to enhance biodiversity by coupe felling and restocking with Native Broadleaves.

The other successes were in Class 4a & 4b. These classes are for the best quality timber trees, which is dependent on the correct species choice for the site, good maintenance when trees were young, thinning operations being carried out on a regular basis and good selection of trees during thinning in order to retain the best trees whilst keeping an even covering across the woodland. Knowles Wood, owned by Lady Jenks, won 1st prize in Class 4b (for a woodland of 1 hectare or more, under 40 years old) and Ausewell Woods, owned by Laura Woodlands Ltd, won a Highly Commended in Class 4a (for a woodland of 1 hectare or more, over 40 years old).

The owners of these woodlands were also delighted with the awards and the ongoing management of their properties, each extending their thanks to Simon for his hard work, commitment and clear aims of monitoring and management.

Good to see people and companies at all levels achieving

Congrats guys!