Common Ground Trust
THE WENN VALLEY · REGISTERED CHARITY 0000001
01 — THE WATERSHED
We buy the river back, one field at a time.
Common Ground Trust holds 4,180 acres along the Wenn valley in permanent trust. Not managed, not leased. Bought outright, protected forever, and opened to anyone who can walk to it.
Every boundary on this map is a Land Registry title we hold or an offer we have made. Nothing on it is aspirational.
Held in trust
Under offer now
Lost this year
02 — THE LEDGER, THIS MORNING
4,180
ACRES HELD
Bought outright and held in permanent trust. None of it can be sold, and none of it has been.
217
ACRES UNDER OFFER
Three parcels. Contracts drawn, deposits down, money still short on all three.
96
ACRES LOST THIS YEAR
Lost to development while we were raising the money. Outline consent granted in March; we were 140,000 short in February.
The third number is the reason for the first two. Land goes when the money is slow.
03 — UNDER OFFER NOW
The three we are trying to buy now.
Each one is a signed offer against a real title. The money raised sits in a restricted account and is spent on that parcel or returned. Numbers below were true at 06:00 today.
PARCEL 44
SE 4412 · floodplain meadow
Marsden Bottom
63 acres of unploughed floodplain meadow between two blocks we already hold. Asking price 412,000. Raised so far 289,400.
PARCEL 7
SE 4718 · ridge-and-furrow grassland
Hollin Ing
116 acres of ridge-and-furrow grassland on the valley’s south side, never reseeded and never drained. The last unimproved field of its size on the Wenn. Asking price 690,000. Raised so far 512,300.
PARCEL 51
SE 4906 · wet woodland and bank
Ash Carr Bank
38 acres of wet woodland on the outside of the Wenn’s tightest meander, four kilometres of it water vole bank. Under offer from a fishing syndicate as well as from us. Asking price 244,000. Raised so far 61,900.
04 — WHAT THE MONEY BUYS
Twelve pounds a month, in square metres.
12 pounds a month protects roughly 40 square metres a year, and keeps protecting it after you stop.
That is the whole arithmetic. Land in the Wenn valley runs at about 6,500 an acre; a standing order becomes a deposit, a deposit becomes a contract, and the contract does not lapse when your circumstances change.
£6
20 m²
a hedge bottom
£12
40 m²
a curlew’s nest scrape and the grass round it
£25
83 m²
a spring line and the flush below it
£50
167 m²
a full field corner, fenced
Forty square metres is a curlew’s nest scrape and the tussocks a chick hides in for its first fortnight. It is not a symbol. It is the actual area.
05 — CAME BACK, WITH DATES
What returned, and the year it did.
Volunteers walk fixed transects four times a year. These are their records, not our claims — the raw survey sheets go up every December.
Curlew
2023
Ash Carr
Returned after nineteen years absent. Two pairs in 2023, five in 2025, all on ground we stopped being mown in May.
Water vole
2025
Wenn, Marsden reach
Recorded on four kilometres of bank. The mink raft survey found nothing for the third year running.
Otter
Winter 2025
Whole valley
Spraint found at every survey point last winter — twenty-two points, twenty-two positives.
Sixty-one volunteers, twenty-two survey points, four visits a year. Nobody is paid to count.
06 — TWO OTHER WAYS
Leave land, not just money.
Roughly a third of the map above arrived this way. Neither path costs you anything while you are alive to enjoy the ground.
PATH A
A bequest
Leave us the land, or leave us the money to buy it.
01
Tell your solicitor the charity number: 0000001.
02
Name the parcel if you have one in mind, or leave it open and we will buy where the river needs it most.
03
Land left to us is never resold. It goes into the same permanent trust as everything on the map above.
We will talk to your executors, your family, and your farm agent, for as long as it takes.
PATH B
A conservation easement
Keep your land. Give up the right to ruin it.
01
You stay the owner and you keep farming it.
02
A covenant registered against the title removes the development and drainage rights, permanently.
03
We monitor it once a year, in person, and the covenant binds every owner after you.
Four Wenn farms have done this since 2019. Two of them are still in the same families.
One person answers that address. She has walked every parcel on the map.
07 — WHERE EVERY POUND WENT
84p of every pound went into land.
84p of every pound went into land and its upkeep last year. The remaining 16p paid three salaries and an accountant. The full accounts are one click away and always will be.
84p LAND
16p
Year ended 31 March 2026 · income £2,441,900 · independently examined
Land purchase
61p
Upkeep, fencing, scrub clearance, surveys
23p
Three salaries
13p
Accountant and audit
3p
TOTAL
100p
08 — STANDING ORDER
Protect an acre.
A standing order is the only thing that lets us bid before a parcel goes to auction. It is the difference between the 217 acres and the 96.
No newsletter unless you ask. No telephone calls, ever. Cancel at your bank without telling us — we will not chase you.
Gift Aid adds 25p to every pound if you are a UK taxpayer, and it costs you nothing.
CHOOSE A MONTHLY AMOUNT
£6
a month
protects 20 m² a year
£12
a month
protects 40 m² a year
£25
a month
protects 83 m² a year
£50
a month
protects 167 m² a year
Or give once, or give a different amount — say so in the message.
Common Ground Trust
Registered charity 0000001 · The Old Weighbridge, Marsden, Wenn valley · Land held in permanent trust since 1998