Sweet Briar Marshes

With the recent success of Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s appeal to save Sweet Briar Marshes, nature’s recovery must take place everywhere, including in our cities, says Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Reserves Officer Robert Morgan.

In February this year Norfolk Wildlife Trust launched an appeal to raise £600,000 to purchase a ninety-acre site in Norwich called Sweet Briar Marshes. Found adjacent to the River Wensum, and very close to the City centre, NWT have the bold ambition of creating a brand-new urban nature reserve. Aviva, long-term supporters of NWT, very generously pledged up to £300,000 in match funding, helping make this the quickest appeal success in NWT history. This June, just four months after the appeal began, NWT hit their £600,000 target, taking a step closer to their vision of a City centre oasis for wildlife and people.

In early 2022 when the marshes came up for sale, NWT was approached by members of the local community for help to save them, in the knowledge that NWT could ensure the site’s protection.

NWT created a vision of a wild space accessible to urban communities, where children have space to explore and learn the value of our natural world, and wildlife is thriving. And, as a home to a number of rare species, this site is a vital green space for wildlife in the City and beyond.

Sweet Briar Marshes is a relic of the unimproved wet meadows that once run the entire length of the River Wensum, and is one of Norfolk’s best remaining examples of this type of river valley wetland habitat. Nearly all the similar water-logged meadows that were once widely occurring along the Wensum valley have been progressively altered by drainage for agriculture. For this reason, the Government body, Natural England, have designated a portion of Sweet Briar Marshes as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), citing that: ‘…consisting of a series of unimproved wet meadows, it is particularly unusual for a site of this quality and size to remain within an urban area and still be subject to regular controlled winter flooding’. This, of course, provides the moist ground a wet meadow needs.

The location is a mosaic of wetland habitats that includes damp grassland, tall-herb fen, grazing marsh, veteran hedgerows and young carr woodland. NWT will be carrying out a full biological site survey to fully understand the wildlife present and to help inform any future plans, although the diverse grassland is already known to hold declining wetland plants such as cuckooflower, ragged robin, yellow-rattle and southern marsh orchid.

In the marshy area of the valley floor bogbean and marsh cinquefoil can be found - these are more inclined to northern bogs, and quite unusual for East Anglia. In the soggy parts of the meadows, bright yellow displays of flag iris and marsh marigold can be seen, bordered by the beautiful purple of early marsh orchids. A number of ditches and pools occur across the site, and despite many being overgrown there is a large population of frogs, toads and smooth newts. Butterflies abound in summer, finding the nectar rich wildflowers to their liking. Their cousins, moths, are an essential part of the eco-system providing a large percentage of the food for birds and bats; the meadows are home to numerous varieties, including the increasingly rare garden tiger moth, with many of the moth species present being totally reliant on these sadly disappearing habitats.

The River Wensum, the largest chalk-fed river in Norfolk, is of international importance. Chalk streams are rare and valuable, amazingly only two hundred exist worldwide with England holding 85% of them. In high summer the stunning banded demoiselle, a damselfly of clean clear rivers, can be found patrolling their bank-side territories. Reed bunting breed, with the male’s handsome black and white hooded head being unmistakable in spring plumage. The tiny willow warblers sing through the summer, and swallows swoop and glide over the meadows, feeding on the teeming multitude of insects that rise up from the luxuriant vegetation. They are often joined by the city’s swifts, sickle winged masters of the air. It is not uncommon for kingfishers to grace this part of the Wensum, but often all that is seen of this shy bird is an incandescent streak of blue flashing low and fast over the water. Snipe are here during the winter, and it seems odd to know these birds of wild open spaces are probing their long bills about in mud so close to the city centre, and there is always the possibility of a pair staying to breed.

Water voles are relatively common, and many urban wetland sites are now strongholds for the species. Perhaps conurbation is proving to be protection from its nemesis, the invasive and unwanted American mink. The water shrew is also present at the site, but one would be very lucky to observe this tiny aquatic mammal.

There is still a long way to go before NWT and our partners can transform Sweet Briar Marshes into a flagship urban nature reserve, but we’re celebrating the first step on the journey.

It’s crucial that nature’s recovery takes place everywhere, including major urban centres, and rivers are an important link through our countryside, towns and cities, allowing creatures to roam and form colonies in new areas. Connectivity of valuable habitats such as this, in both our built and farmed environment, is vital in ensuring that wildlife does not become threatened by isolation. And just as wild animals need green space to roam about in, then so do we.

Our dream is to not only connect wildlife through these pockets of wildness, but also connect our local communities with the natural world around us. We are now realising that our own mental and physical wellbeing, particularly in urban areas, relies on healthier and wilder places nearby, and with forty schools within two miles of the marshes we can give local children the gift of nature connection too.

Main image by Nik Khandpur

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