Upwood Meadows

Upwood Meadows

Upwood Meadows National Nature Reserve is a traditional meadow managed through conservation grazing and has one of the highest levels of floristic diversity in the county.

Please keep dogs on leads.

Ancient grazing meadows with wildflowers galore

Location

Upwood Village
near Ramsey
Cambridgeshire
near Ramsey
A static map of Upwood Meadows

Know before you go

Size
6 hectares
P

Parking information

There is a small car park at the entrance

Grazing animals

Grazed during summer and autumn.

Walking trails

The reserve can be muddy and occasionally flooded in wet weather

Access

Not suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs

Dogs

On a lead

When to visit

Opening times

Open at all times

Best time to visit

Spring and Summer

About the reserve

Designated a National Nature Reserve for its floristic diversity, Upwood is awash with life. The greatest display is in Bentley meadow where medieval ridge-and-furrow and the many ant hills provide differing microhabitats for plants and invertebrates. Here plants including cowslip, green-winged orchid, saw-wort, dropwort, sulphur clover and dyer's greenweed provide summer-long colour and nectar sources for bees and butterflies.

The surrounding mature hedgerows and veteran trees provide nesting habitats for many birds including turtle dove, blackcap and whitethroat and food for winter visitors such as fieldfare and redwing. Dew ponds dug in each field originally for watering livestock, are now breeding grounds for great crested newts, dragonflies and damselflies.  

As a Coronation Meadow, seed from Upwood Meadows is sown on other sites as part of the scheme.

Reserve leaflet and map

Additional information

  • Further information on the history of Upwood Meadows, by kind permission of Huntingdonshire Fauna and Flora Society, is available to download here. 

History of Upwood Meadows

  • Scroll down to see the reserve boundary. Please note the boundary map is for indication purposes only and does not show the Wildlife Trusts definitive land boundary. 

FOR ANY MEDIA ENQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT OUR COMMUNICATIONS TEAM:   communicationsteam@wildlifebcn.org or 01954 713500 and ask for comms team.

Contact us

Contact number: 01954 713500

Environmental designation

National Nature Reserve (NNR)
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

Location map

Betony at Upwood Meadows June  - c. Robert Enderby

Betony at Upwood Meadows June  - c. Robert Enderby

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