HOLES are to be built into new walls for animals to nest in at a National Trust park.

After watching stoats building their nests inside tumbledown drystone walls, the wallers at the Sherborne Park Estate in Gloucestershire have set about creating ‘stoat holes’ for the animals to nest in.

The stoats nesting in the collapsing walls at Sherborne Park have featured on BBC2’s Springwatch programme.

Simon Nicholas, countryside manager for the National Trust at Sherborne Park said: "We’ve never done anything like this before.

"We have always known that collapses open up bigger spaces which animals such as stoats can utilise.

"New walls, especially Cotswold walls are quite tightly built so there is less opportunity and building the holes in offers an opportunity that would not otherwise arise for quite a few years.

"We already put up bird boxes for different species and even bat boxes so of course we should be building stoat holes into the new dry stone walls on the estate."

Drystone waller, Andy Chapple, who is rebuilding a seven foot high section of former park wall, has engineered a cavity in the centre of the wall, capped with larger stones and with a small opening to allow the stoats in.

Another idea also being looked at is to make holes right through the walls for animals such as the stoats to cross a high wall without needing to climb it.

The park wall being restored is close to Lodge Park and the work is only possible as a gift of £100,000 was left to repair the drystone walls at Lodge Park by a man named Robert Robinson.

Impressed with the way the patchwork of fields that make up the Sherborne Park Estate are stitched together with Cotswold stone walls, he asked for the bequest he left to be used to help with their repair.

Tim Barter, estate manager at the National Trust, said: "As an independent conservation charity, keeping up with such repairs is almost impossible.

"However, thanks to Mr Robinson’s very generous gift, we’ve been able to make a start again on rebuilding the park walls at Lodge Park.

"Many sections of the walls around the estate are visibly crumbling and this vital conservation work would not be completed without this legacy which helps to conserve the beauty and traditional appearance of Sherborne Park Estate."

The work to rebuild the walls is likely to take some time to complete.