Nene Wetlands

The Nene Wetlands includes the Upper Nene Valley Gravel Pits Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Area. Four Wildlife Trust nature reserves - Irthlingborough Lakes and Meadows, Ditchford Lakes and Meadows, Higham Ferrers Pits and Wilson's Pits are now linked up with Skew Bridge Lake, Delta Pit and Higham Lake - flooded gravel pits, wet meadow, wet woodland and reedbed at the heart of the Wildlife Trust's Nene Valley Living Landscape.

This extensive series of shallow and deep open waters are surrounded with a wide range of marginal features, such as sparsely vegetated islands, gravel bars and shorelines, and habitats including reed swamp, marsh, wet ditches, rush pasture, rough grassland and scattered scrub. This range of habitat and the varied topography of the lagoons provide valuable nesting, resting and feeding conditions to sustain nationally important numbers and assemblages of breeding and wintering birds.

Twenty thousand waterbirds use the wetlands every year, for breeding, for their winter quarters or as vital stopping points on their long migration routes, from as far away as Arctic Russia and southern Africa.

Our new Visitor Centre - a low-lying wooden, grass-roofed building on the edge of Skew Bridge Lake - is hugely symbolic for the Wildlife Trust BCN. A first visitor centre for the Trust's three counties and a wonderful opportunity to engage with an entirely new audience coming to experience the retail park at Rushden Lakes. Visitors will experience an adventure at a place where wildlife, industrial history and modern retail culture come face-to-face. The Trust's visitor centre officially opened in July 2017, and is open 10am-5pm every day except Christmas Day.

Outdoor play specialists Flights of Fantasy have created 14 beautiful wildlife sculptures in a trail along the edge of Skew Bridge Lake. Designer Russell Bowlby's creations also include interactive installations in a Wildlife Discovery Area - an abandoned barge and an otter holt. Carefully positioned trail cameras around the lake deliver footage to screens in the visitor centre (e.g. images from the heronry on Delta Lake - not publically accessible), and with the boathouse of Canoe2 just next door, access to the lakes - with portage on to the river Nene - couldn't be easier.

Maps of the reserve are now available to buy from the Nene Wetlands' Visitor Centre.