Wildflower meadows to return to 100 historic sites to mark King Charles's Coronation

English Heritage has vowed to restore 100 wildflower meadows at historic sites across the country to celebrate the King’s Coronation by creating a lasting environmental legacy.

The charity said the project would work to revive the country's lost flower-rich grasslands, in tribute to Charles's love of the natural world.

One hundred wildflower meadows at English Heritage castles, palaces and prehistoric stone circle sites, including Stonehenge and the Jewel Tower in London, will be created or enhanced.

Seventy-five of the meadows will be brand new and 25 are existing ones which will be developed.

The project comes as 97 per cent of the UK's grasslands have disappeared since the 1930s, with many remaining fragments left unprotected.

The King has been an outspoken advocate of sustainability and protecting the natural world and has spent decades drawing attention to climate change.

He is also known to be a passionate gardener who is committed to organic farming and promoting biodiversity.

Kate Mavor, English Heritage's chief executive, said the project was a way to highlight two of Charles’s long held passions ahead of his crowning this May - nature and heritage.

"The King's coronation is a significant moment in history and we wanted to mark it in a meaningful way, in a way that combines two of His Majesty's passions - nature and heritage," she said.

"We're creating more natural spaces at the heart of our historic properties, ensuring that wildflowers and wildlife can flourish there once again, and helping our visitors to step back into history and experience something with which the sites' historic occupants would have been familiar."

She added: "In a decade's time, our coronation pledge will be an inspiring legacy of established, restored and new meadows at 100 of our historic sites - big and small - right across England."

English Heritage's chosen locations include 43 castles and forts, 22 abbeys and priories and 10 historic houses.

Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire, Queen Victoria's former home Osborne on the Isle of Wight and Tintagel Castle in Cornwall are among them.

A lawned area has also been cleared and overseeded with wildflowers at the Jewel Tower near the Palace of Westminster in central London.

Working with wildlife groups and volunteers, English Heritage will source seeds from existing meadows in the area to ensure the reintroduction of viable, local species of wildflower to each site.

Plantlife, a charity dedicated to saving wild plants and fungi, is partnering with English Heritage on the initiative, offering resources and skills.

Ian Dunn, Plantlife's chief executive, said the project offered "a lifeline to a hundred key grassland sites and their associated wildlife, and focuses on a chapter of English natural history lost and all but forgotten".