Rothbury Estate rewilding appeal reaches £26m as £30m deadline nears

Northumberland is closer than ever to securing one of the biggest nature recovery projects the county has ever seen.

The campaign to buy the 9,500-acre Rothbury Estate has passed £26m of its £30m target, after a group of philanthropists pledged £5.5m in a matter of days, the single biggest surge of support since the appeal launched two years ago. It's now the largest fundraising campaign The Wildlife Trusts have ever run, and the final push is on before the autumn deadline.

The momentum has come from everywhere. Rothbury locals have raised funds through Christmas tree sales, wreath-making workshops, and hand-felted mushrooms and bunnies sold on the high street. Donations have landed from as far afield as Finland, Bermuda, the US and the Philippines.

A £500,000 donation has also extended the campaign's match fund appeal through to the end of September, doubling every pound given during that window, with the potential to add £1.2m more to the total.

The prize is a heart-shaped stretch of Northumberland transformed: peat bogs restored, rivers reconnected, wetlands re-wetted to hold water through drought and flood alike. More trees, more scrub, more shade for grazing livestock, and a farming model built to work with nature rather than against it.

Just £4m stands between Northumberland and one of the country's largest nature recovery landscapes, right on its doorstep.