• To help local people and visitors to understand and appreciate more the ecological and historical interest of the Sandstone Ridge and to aid their enjoyment
• To help landowners and land managers to understand and appreciate more the assets in their care
• To help explain something of the landscape and heritage management operations that are taking place
• To provide teaching materials and aids that assist local school and other educational groups to use the area more for environmental and heritage education
Knowledge gained from the Habitats and Hillforts Scheme has enabled the Trust to identify a number of themes which will continue to be developed. They include:
• “The Sandstone Ridge is an interesting geological feature which has been modified during the ice ages and through peri-glacial activity”.
• “The Ridge was important in influencing the early settlement pattern of this part of Cheshire”.
• “The Sandstone Ridge contains a range of important prehistoric sites including hillforts, burial mounds, ring ditches and finds of stone tools”.
• “The early Iron Age hillforts along the Ridge are important historical sites, but we do not understand enough about their origins and uses”.
• “The late medieval period was the most important period for the development of settlement and the management of hunting and commercial forests”.
• “The Ridge is one of the most wooded parts of the county with some 12% of the area under trees. The three main areas of woodland are around Frodsham and Kelsall in the north, Delamere in the centre and the Peckforton Hills in the south. The woodlands have an interesting ecology and management and some are remnants of the former hunting forests”.
• “Unimproved grasslands that have not been drained or fertilised are rare in the County, but remnants are found in the area and are rich in flora and insect life”.
• “Heathlands are another rare habitat – there are two main areas at Bickerton Hill/Maiden Castle and at Little Budworth Common – some distance from the Ridge. There is scope to extend areas of heathland elsewhere along the Ridge”.
• “Water bodies are important ecological habitats and farm ponds and glacial meres and mosses (in varying stages of succession) add variety to the landscape and provide significant wetland habitats”.