South Lincolnshire Walking Festival 2019

28 September to 27 October 2019

Category Archives: wildlife


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Our official launch event at Willow Tree Fen

The Official #SLWF Launch!Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust logo

Saturday 26th September 2015 10:00 – 18:00. Willow Tree Fen Nature Reserve, off Counter Drain Drove, Spalding, Lincolnshire PE11 3JH. Between Bourne and Spalding, south of the River Glen, the entrance is over a small bridge opposite Bank House Farm on Counter Drain Drove between Pode Hole and Tongue End.

Although the festival starts the day before on the 25th, we’re delighted to be holding our official launch at Willow Tree Fen Nature Reserve courtesy of Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

Willow Tree Fen is the largest area of wild fenland in Lincolnshire and over the last five years has undergone a transformation from arable land where beans and cereal were grown to a more traditional landscape of shallow meres, seasonally flooded pastures, hay meadows and reedbeds where wildlife now thrives. In January 2010, over 120 visitors helped Heritage Lincolnshire carry out a geophysical survey, field-walk the site, auger test deposits and dig test pits. Four trenches were dug crossing the site of a Roman drainage ditch. The fieldwalking yielded two new Iron Age/Roman saltmaking sites and a selection of Roman domestic pottery. You’ll also have the chance to find out what’s happening in the local area, so make a day of it!

The launch event is perfect for the whole family and will include several guided walks around the site (including a bat walk at 18:00!), crafts, den building, mini beast hunts, Nature Detectives, pond dipping and dissection of owl pellets


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Walking in a Fenland landscape

In my first post I described the landscape that the South Lincolnshire Walking Festival will cover – North and South Kesteven, Boston and South Holland. This time I’m focusing on the Fenland landscape between Spalding and Bourne, where big, open skies are a blank canvas for cloud formations, spires and steeples dot the horizon and huge flocks of birds take flight beside strangely named waterways.

Willow Tree Fen

Lapwings and Wigeons at Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s Willow Tree Fen – John Oliver

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting up with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s South East Warden John Oliver and South Lincolnshire Fenlands Partnership’s Amanda Jenkins who gave me a tour of the wild and beautiful Willow Tree Fen.  According to Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust the purchase of Willow Tree Fen in 2009 increased Lincolnshire’s wild fenland by 200%.

The Nature Reserve is an evocative place that makes you want to explore as there’s something different to see at every turn. I particularly enjoyed discovering ‘THE’ willow tree from which the Fen takes its name and hearing all about the Trust’s plans for the site. There’s ample parking, great interpretation areas and facilities. John and Amanda are enthusiastic supporters of the South Lincolnshire Walking Festival, planning on leading walks on and from Willow Tree Fen but also running various family activities and registering walks in the local area and involving local landowners and businesses who have a passion for the fenland, its wildlife and its heritage.

As I left the nature reserve I was struck by the unusual names in the surrounding countryside. Pode Hole, Tongue End, Twenty Drain, Guthram Gowt, Cowbit…. Can’t wait to find out about the stories behind those names!

Watch this space for more information on walks on or near to Willow Tree Fen but until then here some links you might find useful if you’re planning on visiting the area:

What to spot at Willow Tree Fen

Great British Weather’s Cloud Spotting Guide

Cloud spotting at Willow Tree Fen

Cloud spotting at Willow Tree Fen – Beverley Gormley