Birklands Meadow

At last week’s Earthworks Summer Fair Mr C and I found out about a place called Birklands Meadow on the outskirts of St Albans.

We’d not heard of the place before, so when we decided to go out for a walk on Sunday afternoon we thought we should go and explore. We set off on foot and decided to call in at the WWA en route. Here we were lucky enough to see one of the remaining ducklings taking a trip on the water with mum. Sadly, I think the rest have all been taken by the heron that seems to have set up residence on the water’s edge.

We then carried on on foot to Birklands Meadow which is just on the south side of London road as you come into the city.

Most of the area is meadow (as the name suggests) but it is a reasonably large piece of open space that seems to have escaped our attention until now. Mr C and I regularly explore places on foot and I’m very surprised that we hadn’t made it out to this part of the city before. It was nice to see one family group using the area for a Sunday picnic. I always like to see public open spaces being used like this.

Around the edge of the meadow are a large number of trees and we also found quite a nice pond area with a small stream flowing from it. Unfortunately most of this area seemed to be surrounded by heavy vegetation meaning that it was difficult to actually get to see the water from the path. I’m not sure of there are any plans to clear this area a bit more, but I do know that St Albans Community Forest Association do have some volunteer activities in the area, so hopefully they may do something in the future. It seemed a shame to have something like this hidden away.