England's National Nature Reserves

It is shocking to hear the number of wildlife sites that are getting damaged through wildfires with the extended drought conditions that the country is suffering from. Natural England have stated that 240 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (our best sites for wildlife) have… Read more: Protect Wildlife: Prevent Wildfires on Nature Reserves

Being a keen scythe user, and to tie in with my annual pilgrimage to the Green Scythe Fair in Somerset (https://scytheassociation.org/events/), I arranged to visit some of the NNRs to add to my website. This included two incredible hay meadows in south Somerset; Barrington… Read more: Somerset’s National Nature Reserves in June

I have enjoyed my first short tour of some of the National Nature Reserves between home in the Shropshire Hills and the upper Thames valley taking in North Meadow, Chimney Meadows and Cothill and coming back via Foster’s Green Meadow and Chaddesley Woods in… Read more: Exploring Chimney Meadows: A Wildlife Haven

Having been involved with managing nature reserves for a long time I am very much a supporter of managing habitats, where as others would encourage more of a hands off approach to nature reserve management (rewilding). Letting natural processes play out would probably be… Read more: The Importance of Habitat Management on Nature Reserves

Orchids are often featured as special plants when describing nature reserves. The reason for this is that they are often good indicators of high-quality habitat. There are over 50 species of orchid found in England and many of them are limited in their distribution… Read more: What’s so special about orchids?

Fosters Green meadow visit

Leper’s bells, chequered lilies or frawcups, the snakeshead fritillary has many local names. although nationally rare today it can still be seen in a few seasonally flooded meadows in abundance. As an early flowering plant it relies upon insects such as queen bumblebees for… Read more: Sulky ladies

North Meadow has been managed through seasonal flooding, cutting for hay and grazing since Saxon times if not before and the ‘Lammas’ land used to be divided by the Lord of the Manor into lots for alloting the hay crop. The stones marking some… Read more: The Rich History and Ecology of North Meadow

As I have just carried out my last guided walk at Downton Gorge I thought it would be a good idea to get this site’s page written up. Downton Gorge, like a lot of National Nature Reserves has quite a history behind it. Apart… Read more: Downton Gorge: A Natural History Treasure

The first page on the website had to be the last site that I managed. I was fortunate enough to be the senior reserve manager of the Stiperstones NNR for the last 16 years, heading up a small team of dedicated wardens who between… Read more: The first NNR page – The Stiperstones

This was my first return to the Wash NNR since moving to Shropshire 16 years ago. I was the site manager of this, the largest NNR in the country, for 7 years and have a great affection for the site. My family at the… Read more: Revisiting the Wash

Having wondered for many years why there is not a good website for National Nature Reserves, I thought that maybe I could create one. So following my retirement from Natural England in January this year (2026) and with the help of Mash (our IT… Read more: Building a National Nature Reserves Website

Thanks for visiting; you’re here because you searched for a particular National Nature Reserve and found, not only the .gov site for National England but also, this one. I need to explain . . .