The Avon Wildlife Trust aims to protect and promote wildlife in the area of the former county of Avon — now Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, in England. It has its headquarters in Bristol and runs wildlife centres at Folly Farm, Somerset and Feed Bristol, Frenchay, North Bristol. The trust was formed in 1980, has 17,500 members, and manages 35 nature reserves, ranging from salt marshes and reedbeds to wildflower meadows and ancient woodlands, covering a total of including 12 Sites of Special Scientific Interest. The trust also provides advice to local authorities and landowners on land management and conservation, and provides educational visits for school children and lifelong learning for adults. The Avon Wildlife Trust is part of the Wildlife Trusts partnership of 46 wildlife trusts in the United Kingdom, and carries out its work through a network of staff and over 500 volunteers. History The first development following the formation of the trust in 1980 was the establishment of England's first urban nature reserve at Brandon Hill, bringing hay meadows, wildlife ponds and butterfly gardens into a formal city park. In 1981 Stockwood Open Space came under the trust's management to encourage a range of wildlife and have been particularly successful with common spotted orchids. Other early work in the 1980s included taking over the management of Littleton Brick Pits near Littleton-upon-Severn, an artificial lagoon once the site of clay extraction for brick making, and reintroducing reedbeds close to the Severn Estuary, as a feeding and resting place for migrating birds. Since the 1980s the trust has campaigned to save wetlands in the Gordano Valley in North Somerset where Clapton Moor (40 hectares of grassland) near Clapton in Gordano, Weston Big Wood, (38 hectares of ancient woodland), and Weston Moor (59 hectares of wet grassland) near Weston in Gordano and Walton Common north east of Walton in Gordano are now rich in birdlife. The installation of sluice gates in the 1990s raised the water levels and encouraged lapwing to breed. At Dolebury Warren Iron Age hill fort, special grassland and rare butterflies have been encouraged by the trust's scrub clearance work. In 1987 the Folly Farm was purchased from the Strachey family to be developed as a nature reserve with traditional farm operations. The purchase was made possible by an anonymous donation of £250,000, which was followed by grants and donations from