TOMÉ MORRISSYSWAN’S REWILDING WALK AT KNEPP

Mink, stoats and polecats scurry through the scrubby meadows, between the overgrown hedgerows, hiding in the long grass, sniffing out grass snakes and slow worms. Red kites, peregrines and turtle doves fly overhead. Purple emperors and Essex skippers flutter at head height.

I didn’t actually spot these creatures, though I may have, had the wind and rain held off. But they were listed on the farm shop’s “Recent Sightings” blackboard; vicarious sightings, if you will.

I’m at 3,500-acre Knepp Estate, home to Sir Charles Burrell and Isabella Tree and currently making waves in environmental circles. In 2001 it became the first such farm in lowland Britain to rewild – restoring land to its natural, uncultivated state – after centuries of conventional farming. Out went wheat, barley and maize, grown on heavy West Sussex clay, in came free-roaming ruminants, wild-flower meadows and ecotourism.

But there’s no hiding from the elements for the estate’s “big five” – Tamworth pigs, English longhorn cows, Exmoor ponies, red and fallow deer. Spot these, and a couple more bonus animals, and I’d be happy.

There are 16 miles of public pathways at Knepp. I trekked the “Castle Walk”, a five-and-a-halfmile route taking in Knepp Mill Pond (once the largest open stretch of water south of the Thames), the castle inhabited by the estate’s owners, and acres of rewilded land.

As I roam through a field golden with overgrown grass, mottled with the purple, yellow and white

of wild flowers, a bird rustles and shoots off – a wood pigeon, an inauspicious start. But within minutes the longhorns are located. A herd, perhaps 50 strong, resolutely, intimidatingly blocks the path. One young calf gambols, inelegantly chasing flies; a bull warns me to back off.

Further on there are several galloping ponies and apprehensive deer. A buzzard soars imperiously above the ancient oaks, while a goose is blown by strong gusts like a child’s escaped helium balloon.

It’s not obviously pretty, if your standards are classic British manicured countryside. But it’s far more interesting. Fields are overgrown with shrubs, flowers and weeds. Hedgerows sprout in every direction, with gaps presumably carved by animals. In parts the landscape is wooded, elsewhere it is more barren – somewhat reminiscent of the kind of savanna that you might traverse while on safari.

Knepp’s rewilding is a controversial topic. For some, it’s an “immoral eyesore”; hardcore rewilders say it’s not the real deal, which involves the (re)introduction of apex predators such as lynx or wolves, and because of human intervention – the cattle, pigs and venison are sold as “wild range” meat, for example.

But it shows how one landowning family, thinking outside the box, can change the way we view the countryside, with a potentially crucial outcome. And I ticked off three out of five – the red deer and, sadly, the pigs, which famously dive for swan mussels, remained elusive.