Hollym Carrs Nature Reserve is an oasis for wildlife in South Holderness.
Located a mile west of Hollym village on South Carr Dales Road, it really is worth the walk. The reserve is a public woodland with over 12,000 native trees and shrubs providing food and shelter for a wide variety of birds, mammals and insects.
Visit the reserve in spring to see an amazing display of Cuckoo Flower in the Burnham Meadow, blossom everywhere and many species of woodland birds filling the air with their song.
With acres of open water and marsh containing the protected Great Crested Newt and chattering sedge warblers, you will not be disappointed.
Dragonflies hunt over the ponds and rides in late summer. The woodland areas have a dazzling display of leaf colours in the autumn.
On a quiet walk around the mown paths you may well see Roe Deer or Brown Hare.
All of this on 27 acres of former arable farmland, purchased by the South Holderness Countryside Society back in 1991 and managed by volunteers to become a most amazing place for wildlife. It shows that if you give nature a chance it will thrive.
We are always looking for new volunteers to help look after this gem of a reserve. If you want to get involved please contact us.
Be aware that dogs must be kept on a lead and the reserve is closed to all public access on December 26th of each year.
How Hollym Carrs Nature Reserve Was Won
Back in 1991 I became aware the Society had been offered the chance to purchase for £50,000 a parcel of land at Hollym comprising approximately 6 acres of meadow and 20 acres of arable land then under cultivation.
I became very enthusiastic when I heard that one of our members, John Towers, was planning to run the 82 miles Wolds Way from Filey Brigg to Hessle in one day which I thought was incredible and well worth supporting so I got involved with the support team and amongst other things borrowed transit vans from work to carry the supporters.
John achieved the feat on 1st June 1991 starting at Filey Brigg at 05.00hrs and reaching the finish at 19.03.23hrs i.e. it took him 14hrs 3 min and 22.9 secs which I imagine remains a record to this day. He was ably supported by 14 support runners who, in turn, accompanied him along sections of the Way; many ran up to 30 miles with Graham Barker achieving an incredible 50 miles. From Company and individual sponsorship almost £6,000 was raised.
Prior to this magnificent effort ITV’s Telethon Appeal (does anyone remember this taking place?) had contributed £1,000.
It was at this point I got really involved and devised the Square Up Appeal. I divided a large scale map of the land into 100,000 squares and offered them at 50p per square to anyone who might wish to contribute to creating a small area of nature within the arable wilderness of South Holderness as it especially was at that time. It seemed to catch on and contributions great and small began to be received.
The idea inspired a lady, Margaret A Hall, to write a poem about it:
Someday there’ll be a woodland way, I hope I’ll live to see
And folk will no longer say “You hardly see a tree”
Close by Hollym village on way to Withernsea
The landscape will be altered for all time to be
And it will be recorded that every ‘50p’
Made the project possible by folk like you and me
Who paid for little squares of land on which to plant a tree
A vision then a way to bless
This land of Southern Holderness
A heritage that will live on
After we are long since gone
In late 1991 I saw an advert in some fundraising publication which offered seed corn grants to organisations like ourselves. Not really understanding what was required I recall telephoning them to enquire and was caught wrong-footed when the lady said they just helped to get a fund raising idea off the ground but didn’t directly contribute to a project and what were our fund raising plans.
Thinking quickly, for some reason the idea of some sort of sponsored drive from somewhere in South Holderness to Land’s End then John O’Groats and back sprang to mind and hence Big Three Drive was born. The big three were of course Withernsea and the two landmark points in the UK and it was a competition to estimate the driving time and, as a tie breaker, how many miles would be covered. Eventually on 20th March 1992 a team of four, Brian Arnett, John Carmichael, Richard Wilde and myself set off from Withernsea early evening and reached Land’s End in the early hours of the 22nd. It was pitch black but the good thing was we didn’t have to pay to enter and we left a copy of our competition entry form stuck on the Welcome to Land’s End sign.
Continuing we drove north and reached John O’Groats late evening where we signed the End to Enders Book and left a copy of our entry form in it. By this time we already knew we couldn’t make it back to Withernsea without a decent rest so we had decided to stay overnight at a B&B somewhere. I had a copy of an AA publication listing places to stay and we found one at Ardgay in Scotland which we contacted via Richard Wilde’s mobile. Remember this was 30+ years ago and his mobile was a bit like a phone you might have stood on a table or desk with a base cradle about 6 inches square and a small aerial sticking up from it, far different from today’s telephonic wizardry but it worked and we secured our overnight. By the time we reached the B&B we were exhausted and it was nearly 10pm but the lady kindly made us a meal and we fell into our beds. Refreshed after breakfast we headed south and arrived in Withernsea sometime late afternoon. It took us 31 hours, 52 minutes 45 seconds of driving time and surprisingly two people were closest to this and the first prize of £150 was won on the tie break, the miles travelled being 1905. In the end the Seed Corn Grant only had to pay for our overnight accommodation and food as the oil additives division of BP Chemicals had loaned us the car as it was a test vehicle.
In the meantime Alan Burnham, one of the founders of SHCS and still a member, had loaned me a directory of grant giving organisations and I worked my way through it looking for those which might have an interest in helping us achieve our goal. I produced a “begging” pack with a map of the land and accompanied it with as much information as possible and sent off 150+ to various trusts and organisations. Many of course never replied but some made generous donations one of which I recall to this day. I’d written to one trust, The Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust with not much expectation of help as the directory said “this is a large trust which normally only helps National and International Organisations” and indeed I did not receive a reply. As I write this it still sends a shiver down my spine because on Saturday 1st August 1992, several months after I’d sent the “begging” pack I received a letter from the Trust. It was almost a one-liner and in essence said “further to your letter regarding your Hollym Carrs project please find enclosed a cheque for £15,000”. To say I was stunned is an understatement and had to get Denise to take a look to make sure I’d not misread it, I hadn’t. As many of our long standing members may recall the Trust went on to help the Society further by funding a Conservation Projects Officer. Other significant donations via this appeal came from The Alan Evans Memorial Trust (£5,000), The Clothworkers’ Foundation (£2,000) and The Hamamelis Trust (£1,000).
By early 1993 we had raised nearly £40,000 and the Committee contacted Humberside County Council to see whether they could help. The reply was they would if Holderness Borough Council would contribute the same amount and so each donated £5,000 and our target of £50,000 had been achieved.
The original aim was to raise the money over about 10 years and have the land fully purchased by the year 2000 but through the efforts of so many individuals and organisations we had achieved our goal by the end of March 1993.
For those still alive today and many who are sadly no longer with us, who made this project possible, their legacy will live on in the shape of a wonderful place for wildlife in the heart of South Holderness.
Harry Failey