Land > Hinksey Meadow
The grassy harvest of the river-fields
Above by Ensham, down by Sandford yields;
Matthew Arnold - Thyrsis
The Trust Land at North Hinksey consists of two parcels of land alongside North Hinksey Lane, and to the rear of the warehouses/superstores of the Botley Road. The fields are adjacent to the City Council's Seacourt Nature Reserve and lie either side of Willow Walk, the popular tree lined avenue which leads from Hinksey Village into Osney Mead and onto the City, and which is not in the ownership of the Trust.
Hinksey Meadows
Hinksey Meadows were bought by the Trust in 1997 (its 70th anniversary year) and comprise 33 acres of pasture within the Oxford Flood Plain and the Green Belt. The land is managed as part of the Upper Thames Environmentally Sensitive Area, and by sensitive conservation management the diversity of species in the grassland is being encouraged and the field is now rich in meadow and wetland species including fritillaries, greater burnet, meadow foxtail, pepper saxifrage, Adder’s-tongue fern, knapweed, lady's bedstraw, meadow sweet and sheep's fescue.
Snakeshead Fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) have declined considerably in the UK since the second world war, because of gravel extraction, and the ploughing, fertilisation and drainage of water meadows. According to Mabey (1996), its numbers were ‘savagely cut by agricultural drainage and development from 27 counties before the war to roughly the same number of meadows today’. There are large populations at North Meadow, Cricklade, Wiltshire; Ducklington; Iffley Meads; and Magdalen College meadows, but in Oxfordshire, one of its strongholds, the plant only occurs in twenty 2x2 km squares (Killick et al. 1998). Its persistence depends on the management regime – periodic flooding, mowing in late June/early July, aftermath grazing by sheep, cows, horses or deer, and removal of the grazing animals before March to allow the fritillaries to flourish. OPTs Hinkesy Meadow has a small population whose numbers appear to be growing.
Fritillaries are also found on the Trust's land at Swan Island, Meadow Lane, Iffley. With thanks to Dr Tim King
In 2002 the Trust worked in partnership with the West Oxford Wildlife Group, Oxfordshire Nature Conservation Forum and Oxford City Council to create one of 10 Oxfordshire Jubilee Wildlife Spaces to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee. The Project involved the creation of a wetland area at the north west corner of the field following the meander which marks the original boundary of medieval Oxford's Franchises or Liberty, and which was, until 1991, the local authority boundary.
The Trust was also pleased that the site was granted a CLA Wildlife Sites Award in 2001.
A semi circular permissive path around the Meadows can be accessed from Willow Walk.
Over the winter of 2010/11 the Environment Agency will be working on the Trust land at Hinksey Meadows as part of the Oxford Short Term Flood Relief Measures. Preliminary work is scheduled to start in early December with the main works due in March.
Land at North Hinksey
To the south of Willow Walk lie two water meadows, bordered by Hinksey Stream, the Bulstake Stream and Willow Walk, which were bought by the Trust from the van Heyningen and Pirie families in 1978, subject to an undertaking that they would be retained in agricultural use. The land, which often floods in winter, is let for pasture.
The two meadows are shown on the 1739 Brasenose Estate Map as divided by an ancient causeway that was once the main route into Oxford from the west. In 1994 the bridges over the streams were rebuilt and work to clear the way along the raised Causeway made a pleasant path from Osney Mead to North Hinksey and The Fishes public house. The stretch of the Causeway beyond the Bulstake Stream, formerly known as the River Hope, is now part of Ferry Hinksey Road. It has been suggested that the crossing over the River Hope was the 'Oxenford' from which the city's name derives.
In 1996 the Ashmolean Natural History Society of Oxfordshire's Rare Plants Group introduced a colony of Creeping Marshwort (Apium repens) to the field. Creeping Marshwort is a small, creeping umbellifer which grows in open, wet, permanent pasture subject to winter flooding, and spreads both by runners and seeding. It is on the Endangered Species list and at one time the English population was restricted to one other site in Oxfordshire. The ANHS Rare Plants Group is closely involved in monitoring the population and drawing up and executing a detailed action plan for the species. The introduction of a small patch of plants at North Hinksey was part of this plan, and we are delighted that the plant appears to like its new home as the main patch seems to be increasing and there are signs of newly seeded areas.
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