Watercress Wildlife Conservation Area
During the bank holiday weekend we took some friends, a family with boys aged 4 and 7, for their first visit to Watercress.
The wildlife area, managed by volunteers, is an oasis of nature only a few minutes walk from St. Albans city centre.
Now is a great time to visit as there are plenty of wild blackberries and the apples – there used to be an orchard on part of the site and the volunteers have brought the long ago forgotten apple, pear and plum trees back to health with most of them laden in fruit - are nearly ripe.
We’ve written comprehensively about Watercress here before but our visit yesterday reminded us of just how wonderful it is to have such a beautiful and accessible piece of nature so close to the centre of St. Albans.
You’ll find Watercress behind Riverside Road, near the intersection with Cornwall Road.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Sounds really nice — where exactly is it?
As Reserve Manager for the WWA I would just like to mention that the fruit on the Reserve is the property of the Association and is used to make preserves and other produce to sell at our functions. Windfall apples and some blackberries are deliberately left for the wildlife (we are a Local Nature Reserve and providing food for wildlife is one of our main objectives).The rest of the apples are picked and stored to provide food throughout the winter for blackbirds, thrushes,etc. and also some are frozen to make pies later in the year.Someone has taken all the Quince fruit which was just about to have been picked to make jam. Very upsetting, as our Quince Jelly is the best-seller at our annual Wassail. Selling our produce raises essential funds for the Association which is entirely self-funding and relies on membership subscriptions and sales to survive.
i went to the nature resurve recently and it was the best one i had been to. it was magnifisant. although i was onle there for 45 mins i saw some magnifisant wild life like,mink,water vole which might have been a water shrew and a heron which just missed my hed when it was flying over it was magnifisant.
it is just next to riverside road.