THE Sweet Track, the UK’s oldest wooden walkway on Natural England’s Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve on the Somerset Levels, is safe from the effects of climate change.

The good news comes on World Wetlands Day and shows how investing time and resources into managing wetlands can benefit our cultural heritage.

The Sweet Track, a Scheduled Monument, was a raised wooden trackway built by the first farming communities in 3,806 BC, designed to allow people to cross 2km of reed swamp, joining an island in the floodplain to a range of hills.

The wood has survived because it lies within waterlogged peat where the lack of oxygen prevents decay.

But climate change predictions for Somerset suggest hot, dry summers are likely to become more common and more extreme in the future, which could dry out the peat, resulting in the decay and loss of the archaeological remains.

In one area of the Shapwick Reserve, the Sweet Track is protected by an active pumping system that maintains a high water table. But towards the southern end of the reserve, part of the track lies outside that system and was thought to be at risk of destruction by the peat drying out.

A four-year project by the South West Heritage Trust, funded by Historic England, has found that the remains of the Sweet Track outside the pumping system are not at risk of drying out, due to good water management on the rest of the reserve and the immediate topography.

The project concluded that the full extent of the Sweet Track within the Shapwick Reserve is not currently at risk, and it will soon be removed from Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register.

Julie Merrett, senior reserves manager, Natural England, said: “We are very proud of the work being done at Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve to protect not just precious habitat but also history.

"As well as preserving the Sweet Track, peat is a great source of locking away carbon as part of a properly maintained wetland whilst creating a home to diverse wildlife unique to the Somerset Levels.”

Richard Brunning, archaeologist at the South West Heritage Trust, said: “As so many wetland archaeological sites have been destroyed, or are likely to be lost in coming decades, it is heartening to have this example where the incredible preservation of this special site will be maintained for future generations.”