About the reserve

Nash’s meadows lie in close proximity to several of our grassland reserves and local wildlife sites. Three large fields, good hedgerows, hedgerow trees and the Mere Brook make up this new (2017) nature reserve, increasing the botanically-good quality grassland within the immediate area to approximately 20.5 hectares.

With only a few patches of species-rich grassland, a long programme of restoration will begin with the spreading of green hay or seed from nearby Worcestershire Wildlife Trust reserves. This process has been used successfully several times at Hollybed Farm Meadows and Ryefield Meadows. At the nearby Boynes Coppice Meadows, it has taken more than 25 years for the sward to develop into a high quality hay meadow.

In summer, the open grass pastures are an ideal place to see marbled white, meadow brown and ringlet butterflies, while overhead swallows and house martins swoop as they catch small invertebrates for food.

Nash’s meadows was a gift from the estate of Nancy Nash to WWT in May 2017.

Bigger, better and more joined up

This is one of a number of grasslands and one orchard in the area - we believe that a landscape-scale approach to wildlife conservation is essential. Wildlife needs space to adapt and move to cope with the consequences of climate change. Practically, this means that we need our countryside to be bigger, better and more joined up to provide a coherent network of large areas linked by corridors that can provide benefits for people as well as for biodiversity.

In a pastoral landscape these scattered sites demonstrate how important each sensitively managed piece of land has become and we demonstrate their importance of protecting the existing wildlife value to encourage other landowners to manage their land and hedgerows less intensively. These small reserves lie within Natural England’s Severn and Avon Vales Landscape Area, and within the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust’s Malvern Chase Living Landscape.