Water Meadow

In 2011 we had the opportunity to purchase the meadow and the south bank of the river. After some hasty fundraising and thanks to the generosity of a number of individuals ARK was able to buy the meadow in partnership with Marlborough Town Council and it was opened as a new space where people can witness the amazing diversity of wildlife in and around this chalkstream.  Plan

The meadow is being managed to increase the diversity and abundance of water meadow and reed bed species whilst providing a space for people to enjoy.  To keep up to date with progress please see our facebook page.

In Spring 2013 it was announced that we had provided a county first! County Recorder for fungus, Dave Shorten, found the rust fungus Puccinia bistortae at Stonebridge. This was one of only 28 new species to the whole of Wiltshire in 2012.

The bird feeders continue to attract an abundance of birds: great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch and a lesser redpoll as well as mixed groups of tits. A little egret is regularly seen at the river's edge. Bumblebee, reptile and amphibian surveying continues to build on previous data.

It is believed that the meadows at Stonebridge Lane are the remnants of a once wider landscape of water meadows and river management.  Water meadows are a relict landscape of an industrial - agricultural landscape, a type of late medieval intensive farming. Through a complex system of leets, sluices, banks and channels, the meadows were designed to be flooded at specific times of the year to encourage early and late grass growth to grass cattle and sheep on. They were designed to breach the 'bite' (the time period between the end of winter and summer, when food sources were running low). They were often used in conjunction with mills, mill ponds and fish ponds. The use of water meadows had declined towards the 1850s, and it is not known when Marlborough's were last used.

Water meadows would have once stretched along the course of the Kennet in Marlborough. Today, there are few of these meadows left (Cooper's meadow where the tell tale corrugated channels can be seen, some at Preshute and Manton, Stonebridge and Minal). Archaeologically, very little is known or recorded about Marlborough's water meadows or how they were operated and managed. These meadows may have escaped  modern ploughing and intensive farming methods and the flora and fauna which live on the meadows today have developed as a direct result of the former land use.  Therefore, the water meadows at Stonebridge Lane are not just an ecological asset, but also an archaeological and historical asset too.