A small patch of Oxfordshire is the latest ancient feature of hay meadows under serious threat by human activity, writes HELEN TAYLOR

Picture a green-gold meadow full of feathery grasses and dotted with purple, gold and pink wildflowers, all gently moving in the breeze. The air filled with the lazy hum of bees and heady with the scent of sun-warmed grass. The very thought of this might make some of us sneeze, but for most it is a quintessential view of an Oxfordshire hay meadow.

These landscapes are the remnants of a historic past, when the countryside was covered in a patchwork of fields bordered by thick hedgerows and woodlands. They have been relatively undisturbed for centuries, avoiding the intensive measures of spraying, ploughing, draining and fertilising, and now support a rich wildlife community.

The traditional hay meadow is a fragile landscape under threat. Over the last 50 years, virtually all of our lowland meadows have been lost to intensive farming, drainage and development. It is estimated that fewer than 15,000 hectares of neutral grassland - meadows that have not been improved by fertiliser - are left surviving. It is an area only one quarter the size of the New Forest for the whole of the country.

These meadows support a rich variety of flowers, some of which are rare or declining, such as green-winged orchid, pepper saxifrage and dropwort. In turn, the flowers attract bees, beetles and clouds of butterflies such as orange-tips and common blues. Threatened farmland birds like skylarks, yellowhammers and curlews rely on the meadows for food. Hares bound through the fields looking for cover, and the grasses rustle as voles run for shelter from hovering kestrels.

So hay meadows are now an incredibly rare sight in our country. But here in Oxfordshire we are blessed with a number of wonderful sites, including the Oxford Meadows right next to the A34, BBOWT's Chimney Meadows Nature Reserve near Bampton, and Wendlebury Meads and Mansmoor Closes, near Islip - a nationally important site that includes BBOWT's Woodsides Meadow Nature Reserve.

A survivor from days gone by, Woodsides Meadow lies close to Charlton-on-Otmoor. It has been in BBOWT's care for almost 20 years, during which time it has been managed carefully to protect and nurture the rare wildlife that lives there. The hay is left to grow up during the height of summer, producing a display that is second to none for sheer density and colour of wildflowers, and is then cut during July. During autumn, cattle graze the meadows to help keep soil fertility low so that wildflowers flourish.

The site is heaven for botanists - more than 100 plant species have been recorded here including rarities such as stoneworts.

Gavin Hageman, Wildlife Officer for BBOWT, said: "I have never seen so many orchids in one place as I have at Woodsides Meadow. The fragrance of the flowers is something else - it fills your nostrils as soon as you stop to take in the peaceful surroundings. Woodsides is a place where the past can catch up with you, where the world stands still and you can listen to the sounds of nature."

The wildflowers at Woodsides Meadow support important populations of butterflies, including the threatened brown hairstreak, as well as the commoner marbled white and white-letter hairstreak. Curlew and snipe, birds which are threatened in our region, also use the site.

But BBOWT's Woodsides Meadow, along with the larger Wendlebury Meads and Mansmoor Closes Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) within which it falls, is under threat. The eco-town of Weston Otmoor has been proposed between Bicester and Oxford, next to the village of Weston-on-the-Green.

The town would mean the building of 15,000 homes but the plans include construction on the ancient and rare meadows of Woodsides and Wendlebury.

Matthew Jackson, head of policy and planning at BBOWT, said: "As the plans stand, the Weston Otmoor development would destroy an important landscape - part of a series of wildflower-rich meadows that have existed for centuries and which support a wide variety of species. Not only will the meadows suffer from the direct impact of building high-density housing, a tram line and a railway station on top of them, but they will also suffer from increased pollution and recreational damage from the sheer number of people in the area.

"We are also concerned that the developers will produce a plan which will draw back from directly building on Woodsides Meadow and the SSSI, which could be seen by some as a reasonable compromise. However, the wet grassland is hugely susceptible to development nearby interfering with water flows."

BBOWT is campaigning to stop the eco-town. It will be asking local people to support it but also pressing the Government to put ecology' back into eco-towns'."

The trust is urging people to write to their MP to bring the issue to their attention.

To find out more visit www.bbowt.org.uk/ecotown or call 01865 788300.