Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve
This site is one of Natural England‘s special sites. It is signalled on its website (Aston Rowant) as a “Spotlight Reserve” because it is one of the sites offering the best opportunity for visitors to enjoy the wildlife experience. You may well have seen part of it without realizing, while travelling on the M40.
Because of its location on the famous Chilterns scarp, this site has some very steep slopes. We usually recommend boots (not Wellington boots), plus an extra layer of clothing as wind speeds often take visitors by surprise.
Castle Meadows, Wallingford
Riverside Meadow, Crowmarsh Gifford
Mowbray Fields NR, Didcot
These sites are all owned by South Oxfordshire District Council. The Council’s website, (SODC and follow links to Countryside), contains information about them and their management plans. You can read there why we are doing the things we do.
Parts of Mowbray Fields double up as a soakaway for the nearby housing estate. While the public footpaths remain open for business year-round (partly due to the efforts of Wallingford Green Gym), we usually recommend Wellington boots for this site.
Little Wittenham
We have held sessions in several areas of the site, each of which features its own distinctive habitat: Wittenham Clumps, Little Wittenham Nature Reserve (Little Wittenham Wood), Hill Farm, Broad Arboretum, Neptune Wood, and Paradise Wood – all owned and managed by the Earth Trust.
As with Aston Rowant, sturdy boots are recommended here as there are many steep slopes.
Ewelme Watercress Beds
The Ewelme Watercress Beds have been partially restored as an example of our agricultural heritage. The watercress still flourishes thanks to natural gravel beds and a clear Chilterns chalk stream. The rest of the site is now maintained as a small nature reserve.
Wear Wellington Boots!
Millbrook Mead, Benson
A very small nature reserve tucked away between the A4074 and the River Thames.
St. Leonard’s Churchyard, Wallingford
The graveyard of the ancient parish church of St. Leonard’s, Wallingford. Maintained by a group of volunteers as a small nature reserve in the heart of the old town.
Withymead Nature Reserve
22 acres of woodland, wetland, and industrial-heritage-site (formerly Saunders’ Boatyard) by the River Thames near Goring. Owned by the Anne Carpmael Charitable Trust. Green Gyms have been involved almost from the inception of the site (2005).
RIGS
Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Sites, which enjoy at least a degree of planning protection. They are mostly disused quarries, the point being that when the quarrymen go, they leave open to the gaze of the public and scientists alike, geological layers which would otherwise only be seen if one sank a borehole. Left to themselves, these “exposures” would rapidly be overgrown as nature took over. There is an ongoing programme across the county, led by OGT (Oxfordshire Geology Trust: http://www.oxfordshiregt.org/), for volunteers equipped with the appropriate safety kit, plus loppers and secateurs, trowels and little brushes, to clear overgrowth and scrub rocks. Full training and supervision for these sessions are supplied by qualified geologists.