Jonathan Briggs Associates

During the winter months much of our time is taken up with our Mistletoe Matters Consultancy providing information and advice on all aspects of mistletoe in the UK.

Visit the Mistletoe Matters part of this site for more information - there's a whole subsite of mistletoe pages there where you can find information on;

● current and forthcoming mistletoe activities and events
● talks, walks and workshops on any aspects of mistletoe
● guidance or help on mistletoe planting, harvest or control
● material about mistletoe news, media and press information

And for mistletoe products you can visit the English Mistletoe Shop.

We have over 25 years research experience with this parasitic plant. More information on mistletoe can be also found via the Mistletoe Gateway and the Mistletoe Pages.

We have a combined experience of over 40 man-years of environmental issues on canals, having both worked for British Waterways from the 1980s to the mid 2010s. Much of this work was pioneering in nature, bringing an ecological input to the engineering and navigation-led world of Britain's historic inland navigations.

We worked at all levels of the organisation, combining advisory and practical work with prepartion and publication of new policy, best practice, and innovative design solutions within engineering works.

We also have extensive experience in working and negotiating with outside agencies to ensure compliance with environmental legislation, particularly for protected sites and species. This has involved us in promotion of environmental best practice via innumerable exhibitions, roadshows, education campaigns and media promotions.

Particular ongoing interests in waterway restoration schemes and the ecological challenges they present - for both the aquatic and the adjoining terrestrial habitats. The interdependence of the built and natural heritage of the historic waterway network is also a particular interest.

For more information on what we can offer in canal consultancy work take a look at our Canal Ecology pages.

We are regularly involved in all types of media work, both our own and third party projects. This includes traditional newsprint, radio and television broadcasts, promotional literature of all types plus the full range of new media - websites, blogs, podcasts and social networking.

Jonathan Briggs has extensive Press Office and Marketing Department experience gained from secondments within British Waterways (literature, exhibitions, press releases, video news releases etc) and from involvement in national media campaigns by national NGOs including Plantlife, the wild plant conservation charity.

We are also increasingly involved in website production, for ourselves and for clients, and have recently ventured into book production, using print-on-demand methodologies. E-books are another area of interest. Most of this publishing work, books, leaflets and websites is being developed under the Potamogeton Press name.

For more information take a look at our Media pages

Recent projects have included research on forgotten early broadcasting naturalists - including Bramwell Evens ('Romany of the BBC') in the 1930s and 40s, Norman Ellison ('Nomad of the BBC') in the 1950s and 60s, Ludwig Koch, the German émigré pioneer of the BBC natural history sound unit and Oliver G Pike, the pioneering bird photographer.

These have resulted in several specialist media projects, in-print and online - further publishing developments are planned

Other existing and developing projects include ongoing work on the wider world parasitic plants, complimenting our regular mistletoe work, and a range of other botanical projects including an emerging project on the ecology and uses of teasels, plus some ongoing work on historic commercial value of plant galls.

More information on these projects is available here

We are not conventional archaeologists - indeed our qualifications, in Industrial Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology, mean we offer an unusual and unconventional insight into archaeological and historic sites.

Particular interests include historic water-power sites - in terms of landscape and water engineering as well as their evolution, often through many differing industries, on particular sites through time.

Other interests include historic uses of plants in industry, an area much bigger than just milling grain. Plants, and processing of particular plants, were the mainstay of industry before man-made fibres and chemicals became predominant. Our work has included projects on plants in tanning, ink-making and the use of plants for particular industrial processes (e.g teasels in cloth manufacture).

We are often involved in voluntary archaeological work, previously at a national level with the AIA and currently with local groups including GADARG.

More information is available here