Downs Banks

The cattle help to keep bracken and scrub birch trees under control, and to allow a variety of old grasses, heather, plus bilberry, gorse and broom to regain habitat.

Local people help National Trust staff by becoming volunteers, carrying out tasks such as litter clearing, footpath work, fencing and habitat management.

A Crewe to London via Stoke on Trent passenger service now stops at Stone railway station – access to the Downs Banks is then by a two-mile walk along lanes and footpaths.

The area was subject to purchase with the help of a public subscription and it was given to the National Trust by John Joule in 1950 as "an offering for victory in the 1939-45 War, and as a memorial to those who died" – apparently on the grounds that it had originally been common land, and should thus be open again to local people.

[citation needed] However, after 1950 the lack of grazing caused its characteristic heathland to decline, as bracken and birch were allowed to invade.

The area was part of the route of the annual New Year's Eve Barlaston Wassail, in which a torchlit procession walked from the nearby village to Downs Banks and back again.