A Coast Worth Keeping

Tidewater Foundation replants salt marsh, rebuilds oyster reefs and clears the beaches along 140 miles of the Brackenmoor estuary. Every gift is costed, and we publish what it bought.
A volunteer in chest waders standing in the salt marsh at dawn, holding a tray of marsh-grass seedlings
Give monthly

Salt marsh takes the force out of a storm surge, stores carbon and feeds everything that swims. The Brackenmoor estuary has lost two thirds of its marsh since 1950.

We buy back tidal land, replant it, rebuild the oyster reefs that hold it in place and keep the beaches clear.
Every programme is measured on the ground, and the numbers below are last year's.
412
Acres of marsh replanted
2.1m
Oysters back on the reefs
86p
Of every pound goes to the work
1,940
Volunteer days last year
PLANT
THE MARSH
REBUILD THE
REEFS
CLEAR
THE BEACH
GIVE
TO TIDEWATER

Salt Marsh Planting

Volunteers plant cordgrass plugs behind coir rolls on banks that are washing away, then come back every spring for three years to count what took.
412 acres replanted since 2019, and 88 per cent of it still standing.
Two volunteers kneeling on a muddy tidal bank, pushing cordgrass plugs into the mud behind a line of coir rolls
Volunteer with us

Oyster Reefs

A mature reef filters two hundred litres of water a day and holds the shoreline where it is. Restaurants along the estuary save their shell for us; we cure it in the open air for a year, then put it back.
2.1 million oysters returned so far.
A gloved hand lowering a mesh bag of cured oyster shell from a flat-bottomed boat onto a shallow reef
Volunteer with us

Beach Clean-Ups

Sixty-two clean-ups a year, from the harbour wall to the far spit. Everything that comes off the beach is weighed and sorted before it leaves, and what we find goes in the annual report — including the things we would rather not print.
A line of volunteers in high-visibility vests passing sacks of collected litter along a shingle beach at low tide
Volunteer with us

The work is done by people who live here. These are five of them — a warden, two volunteers, a fisherman and the donor who asked us where his money went.

“Tidewater gave us the plants and the plan. The bank stopped washing away the first winter.”
Nell Ardwick
Landowner, Quillan Farm
“I have fished this estuary for forty years. The reef came back years before I believed it would.”
Frank Osgood
Inshore fisherman, Brackenmoor
“We pull a tonne off the spit every autumn. Tidewater weighs it, sorts it and tells us what it was.”
Amara Delisle
Volunteer co-ordinator, Sandhaven
“I give £15 a month and they told me it bought thirty marsh plugs. No charity has ever done that.”
Rohan Mistry
Monthly donor since 2021
“Two hundred children planted marsh grass with us last June. Half of them brought a parent back.”
Kit Halloran
Estuary warden, Tidewater Foundation

Giving

Friend
Steady support for the everyday work
£10
/month
  • Plants twenty marsh plugs behind the coir rolls every month.
  • Kits out a volunteer with gloves, waders and tide training.
  • A short letter twice a year saying what your gift bought.
Set up this gift
Guardian
Enough to keep a stretch of bank alive
£25
/month
  • Everything a Friend funds, plus 300 cured shells back on the reef.
  • Holds one metre of replanted bank, monitored for three years.
  • An invitation to the spring planting weekend at Sandhaven.
Set up this gift
Steward
Underwrites a whole month of a programme
£75
/month
  • Everything a Guardian funds, plus a beach clean-up in your name.
  • Covers the survey boat for a full day of reef monitoring.
  • The annual report early, with the raw survey data behind it.
Set up this gift

FAQ

The questions we are asked most, answered plainly. If yours is not here, ring the office — whoever picks up has usually been out on the marsh that week.
86p in every pound goes straight to the programmes. The rest covers the survey boat, the insurance and two salaries. The split is in the annual report, audited, with the invoices behind it.
Yes. Most of our volunteers had never planted marsh grass before their first session. We supply waders, gloves and a briefing, and nobody works alone on a falling tide.
Restaurants along the estuary save it for us. It is cured in the open air for a year so that nothing living travels with it, then bagged by volunteers and returned to the reef beds.
Yes, though monthly gifts are what let us sign three-year planting contracts. A one-off gift goes to the next clean-up or planting weekend, and you are told which one it paid for.