Woodwalton Fen, Woodwalton, and Upwood

These places were visited on a 13.7 mile walk with the Cambridge Rambling Club - a bit of a longer walk than usual!

The walk starts in Upwood, a village in the parish of Upwood and the Raveleys, approx. 7 miles north of Huntingdon and still part of Cambridgeshire.  We leave the village heading due west and then south past Lady's Wood before heading north along the Great Raveley Drain towards Woodwalton Fen.  

Woodwalton Fen is a site of Special Scientific Interest and managed by Natural England; it is one of only four remaining fragments of the ancient wild fens that once stretched for 1,350 square miles across the area and a last haven for many rare fen species (not that we saw them).  The ancient wild fens once stretched for miles across a huge part of East Anglia, but more than 99% of the habitat disappeared when the land was drained for agriculture, and this site would not exist today if it were not for Charles Rothschild, a successful banker, wildlife enthusiast and "father of modern conservation".  We walk along several of the trails before leaving on the other side and walking south towards Manor Farm and Church End, where the redundant parish church of St Andrew stands - it is now in the keeping of the Friends of Friendless Churches.  From there, it is still over a mile to the village Woodwalton itself.  

From Woodwalton, we then walk east passing through Lady's Wood, an 18-acre nature reserve west of Upwood, and then through Upwood Meadows National Nature Reserve and a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, before arriving back in Upwood.  It has been a lovely walk on a lovely day in an area I have never visited before.Leggi altro