Panoramic panel nearest to Marlpit Gate
There are three identical information boards in the reserve, so you may have already heard these descriptions.
Transcript
Information board
The wording at the top of the board says Welcome to NWT Sweet Briar Marshes: This is your place. Our place. People and nature together. This panel also contains a ‘Welcome to Sweet Briar Marshes’ written by NWT Ambassador Nick Acheson.
Detailed illustrations capture the different habitats and wildlife here, as well as people enjoying Sweet Briar Marshes on a summer’s day. We are shown the view over the nature reserve towards the off-road trail of the Marriot’s Way – you can just make out the grey chimneys of the chemical processing factory on the neighbouring industrial estate in the background. Just visible in the top left corner, at the point where the water flows beneath the distinctive A - frame iron bridge on Marriott’s Way, is the River Wensum.
A wide hard path with tapping boards connects Marlpit Gate (nearest to the Iron Bridge) with Mile Cross Gate at the opposite end. The path passes through a short tunnel beneath the busy road dividing the reserve. A white man is shown coming out of this tunnel, he is using a white cane and has a guide dog. Norfolk Wildlife Trust worked closely with groups such as Inclusive Norwich and Vision Norfolk on the design of Sweet Briar Marshes.
There are almost 200 different species of flowering plant found at Sweet Briar Marshes. The illustration shows the feathery purple flower spikes of the common reed, and sunshine yellow creeping buttercups. A red admiral butterfly rests on flowering gorse, which can be found across the reserve. Its vibrant, coconut-scented flowers bloom from January to June. Singing from a bramble is a common whitethroat, one of the many birds to migrate here in the summer. [sound]
Transcript
The story of Sweet Briar Marshes.
This uniquely wild place and its sensitive ecology – including a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) – was in danger of being lost forever. Norfolk Wildlife Trust launched a public appeal in 2022 to save it and thanks to enormous support from funders, the local community and our loyal supporters, we were able to take the land into our ownership later that year. Long-term NWT supporters, Aviva, match funded the appeal, helping to complete the public appeal to purchase the site just four months after it was launched, making this the fastest appeal success in our history. Aviva continue to support as our project partner at Sweet Briar Marshes, both financially and through staff volunteering.
Involving local communities from the beginning in our vision for Sweet Briar Marshes has been key to helping us create an inclusive, welcoming space where people are inspired to care for and act for nature.
Transcript
The full version of ‘A welcome to Sweet Briar Marshes’ by NWT Ambassador Nick Acheson
This is your place
This is a place where your roots can reach into the ground.
This is a place where children can fill their ears and their hearts with birdsong.
This is a place where it’s fine to sit on the grass with a book or stare at the wiggling lives in a pond.
This is a place where nature is free for everyone.
This is our place
We are the plants and animals, the fungi and lichens, who live here.
The woods and the hedges, the ditches and grassland are our homes.
Many of us are rare. Many of us survive in the quiet corners of the countryside, like nature reserves
By visiting Sweet Briar Marshes you can help us.
Every person who visits a wild place with love and respect is a voice for nature.
A connected place
This is a connected place.
Connected through time and space.
The River Wensum is born in the northwest of Norfolk and flows to sea with the Yare at Great Yarmouth. Billions of plant and animal lives are lived in its reedbeds and marshes.
Sweet Briar Marshes is one of a priceless chain of wild places along the river.
The story of the River Wensum stretches deep into the past. The chalk from which it springs is made of plankton which lived in a warm and shallow sea here, tens of millions of years ago.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, glaciers scoured this landscape, leaving the sands and gravels for which the valley is known today.
For centuries, people have loved and cared for this place. They have grazed their livestock here and grown their crops.
Today, with your help, Norfolk Wildlife Trust cares for this precious place and for its wildlife.