Follow this LINK to obtain detail from the Environment Agency on the flood state of the River Derwent.

The Lower Derwent Valley

• Stretching twelve miles from Newton on Derwent to Wressle and along the old Pocklington canal, the Lower Derwent Valley is one of the most important places for wildlife in Europe. Within its two and a half thousand acres lies the Lower Derwent National Nature Reserve - a patchwork of more than 1000 acres of haymeadows and pastures set amonst similar, privately owned farmland.
• Throughout the year, a tremendous variety of wildlife lives in the valley. During spring and summer the flower-filled meadows, marshes and ditches are alive with nesting wildfowl and wading birds. In autumn and winter huge numbers of swans, geese, ducks and waders arrive from the Arctic to spend the winter on the windswept and flooded landscape.
• Today, wetlands of this size and quality are so rare in Europe that the Lower Derwent is specially protected by international laws and treaties.

The Past

Since the earliest records in the mid C10th local people have made their livings by making hay and grazing animals on the Ings - a Norse word for winter-flooded grassland.

In 1520, Henry VIII's chaplain, Leland noted:"This ryver at Greate Raynes ragith and overfloweth, much of the ground there aboye being low meadows".

• Throughout history, the floods have attracted large flocks of wildfowl, an important food supply for loca; people in times gone by.
•  In the early part of this century the renowned figure of Snowdon Slights still made his living on what is now the reserve, as a punt gunner in the winter and as a basket maker and fisherman in the summer 
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• The Present

• Wildfowl continues to thrive and increase in the Lower Derwent Valley through a combination of traditional farming and nature conservation management. Along the valley the hay meadows are cut in early July, then grazed with sheep or cattle until the late autumn. In pastures, light summer grazing gives the right conditions for nesting birds.
• From time to time, the silt is removed from ditches to prevent them being choked with coarse plants. Careful year round control of water levels maintains ideal conditions for feeding birds and wetland plants and insects.
• Visitors are encouraged to enjoy the Derwent's spectacular wildlife from a range of paths and hides, whilst leaving other areas as quiet refuges.
• Follow this LINK to the location of bird watching hides in the area.

Page prepared with thanks to the

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

and the

Carstairs Countryside Trust