An ancient-ish tradition at an East Hampshire beauty spot has been maintained with the help of you pupils from a Whitehill primary school.

There was praise all round for the role that Year 3 pupils from Woodlea Primary School played in the annual midsummer Blessing of the Bower event.

The event organised by the Woolmer Forest Heritage Society and Deadwater Valley Trust involves the construction and blessing of a shelter on top of the Walldown Ancient Scheduled Monument.

Woodlea pupils spent the morning cutting and collecting fern from the surrounding woodland before attaching the foliage to a pre-secured bower frame with DVT rangers helping on both accounts.

They returned to the site in the afternoon for the blessing with parents, members of the public, WFHS members and district council chairman, Cllr Catherine Clark, all watching the event.

Gilbert White plays an important part in the ceremony as Selborne’s most famous resident wrote of witnessing a shelter, or bower, being constructed from oak with “posts and brushwood”.

Matthew Shaw of the Phoenix Players took the role of the naturalist and read the extract from White’s account of the event during the ceremony, which has taken place every year at the site since 2010.

Father John of Sacred Heart Church conducted the blessing, which was followed by a procession and the placing of oak boughs on the bower.

Participants were treated to tea and cake with a fantastic view over the Hampshire countryside for their hard work.