A River ramble

A River Ramble

Out for a nice walk down by the river, the weather is dry but the surrounding area and ground is very wet in places and also very boggy, whilst walking im trying to step around the puddles and boggy areas, my boots are waterproof but I haven’t tested them and didn’t want to test them in sloppy mud.

I parked the van at the bottom of Wharf Road in Higham Ferrers and walked across the footbridge over the A45 and the river Nene. I started walking along the river towards Irthlingborough.

It was good to see this area during the winter and imagining what it was going to be like in a few weeks as the spring approaches and all the new growth on the trees and the water wildlife strt to wake up and bring the wetland to life.

Irthlingborough Lakes and Meadows is a 117-hectare (290-acre) nature reserve in Northamptonshire, owned and managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

The character of the reserve is defined by flooded gravel pits and wet grassland, providing an excellent habitat for large variety of wetland flora and fauna.

The site forms part of the larger Upper Nene Valley Gravel Pits Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Protection Area^.

It is situated in close proximity to several other Wildlife Trust nature reserves, such as Higham Ferrers Pits, Wilson's Pits and Ditchford Lakes and Meadows, significantly improving the benefit for wildlife by creating joined-up protected landscapes. It is adjacent to Stanwick Lakes, a reserve managed by the Rockingham Forest Trust.

Originally water meadows and agricultural fields straddling both sides of the River Nene, the site has been transformed significantly in recent history. The first such intervention was the construction of the Northampton to Peterborough Railway, which opened in 1845. During its construction, ironstone was discovered in the Nene Valley.

Following the outbreak of World War I, in 1916, the Ebbw Vale Mining Company commenced operations, producing around 6000 tons of ore per week.

The most recent and most impactful intervention on the landscape began in the 1970s, with the large scale extraction of sand and gravel along the Nene Valley. An electric conveyor belt was constructed following the now disused railway line to transport the material to a processing plant at nearby Stanwick Lakes. By the time operations ceased in 2002, more than 1.5 million tons of aggregate had been extracted from the area. The pits were then allowed to flood, creating the present day series of lakes and channels.

In 2012, with help from a Heritage Lottery Fund grant and public donations, the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire purchased the neglected site. It is now the focus of some of the trust's most important work as part of the Nene Valley Living Landscapes conservation scheme. To maximize the reserve's benefit for wildlife and biodiversity, numerous improvement works have been undertaken. These include the creation of new islands and removal of willow and electricity pylons.