THERE is an odd notion doing the rounds that the Ford Motor Company is in the cars, vans and trucks business.

Standing in the middle of the Ford site at Dunton, you realise what Ford really does in a big way is landscaping.

More than 3,000 people work in the Dunton research centre. Yet the building complex is just a blip in the 245 acres of meadow, hedgerows, parkland, water and woodland that surrounds it.

The development of Dunton down the years is marked out in the surrounding greenery. For instance, when Prince Charles visited the site in July to celebrate Dunton's 40th anniversary, he commemorated the event, not by bolting up a chassis, but by planting an oak tree.

This month, Ford's managing director Roelant de Waard rounded off the 2007 celebrations by planting another.

"Much of Dunton's re-search is into eco-friendly technology, so a lot of importance is attached to an eco-friendly landscape," said Kevin Crosswell, Dunton's land manager.

Ecologically, the site is probably an improvement on the farmland Ford took over in 1967.

It has grown to become an official nature reserve, accredited by the Wildife Habitat Council. These days you're almost as likely to see a fox, heron or badger in the grounds as a Ford Fusion.

Most of the planning and direction for this giant garden is handled by a voluntary committee of Dunton workers, the Dunton Landscape and Conservation Group, set up in 1994. Since then its committee has averaged eight to ten members who share an interest in horticulture and wildlife, The group meets every two months on a weekday. "Ford allows a few hours out of working time for community projects like this," said the group's chairman Ian O'Riely, a 59-year-old engineer at Dunton.

The members have no regular budget, but, says Ian: "Money has never been an issue - Ford has always given us the cash where it was needed."

Company funding has gone towards projects such as the 100-odd nestboxes on site, and the dredging of the lake.

Regular visitors to the site are familiar with the immaculate stately-home style lawns that rise eastwards for almost half a mile. To the south, however, the landscape is a surprisingly wild place.The meadows edging the A127 are cut once a year for hay.

But in the middle of the test-track is an island of woodland and scrub that is left alone. It barely sees a footfall from one year to the next.

Ironically, the roaring vehicles on the track protect it from human intrusion. "The animals can feel completely secure there," says Ian.

"If the local sanctuary has something like a three-legged hedgehog, they can release it back into the wild there."Much of the old fieldscape is preserved here, including hundreds of yards of oak and blackthorn hedging.

The buildings of the old farm, Southfields, have vanished, but the site of the garden is intact, with box, conifers, berberis and an old rose bush running riot. So too is the farmyard orchard. "You get three different varieties of cherry plum here in the summer," says Ian.

Ian, who came to live in West Dunton when he was two years old, remembers the area when it was still farmland. As a boy, he came to the farm with a horse and cart to collect manure. "There was an abattoir on the site, so there was plenty to spare." The manure was sold door to door for the village gardens.

Perhaps the pride of the landscape is a huge old pollard oak tree near the western boundary of the site, at the entrance to the Ford creche. It survival represents one of the conservation group's best success stories.

"When they started to build the creche, they were planning to take down the tree because it was dangerous," Ian says.

"But we asked them to hold back while we brought in Basildon council's arboricultural officer. He said that tree will still be there when the school falls down. We trimmed it back carefully and we keep an eye on it." The creche has now taken on the name Oak Tree Nursery.

"We're all amateurs on the group," says Ian, "but we get help and advice from the experts whenever we want it."

Such is the appeal of Dunton that Writtle agricultural college undergraduates have spent part of their final year training on site. Much of the programme consists simply of leaving the landscape alone, but there is one steady process of change. "More and more people at Dunton are using it," said Ian. We have runners, walkers, people eat their lunch by the lake."

There are now two walking routes (30 minutes and one hour) round the grounds, and a third on the way.

"It just makes it a better place to work," says Ian. Not to mention providing 245 acres of lovely green PR for Ford.