Great Ouse Valley Flood Plain Meadows Background
Great Ouse Valley flood plain meadows Dr J Patrick Doody, Brampton and Martin Baker, Wildlife Trust BCN Background The River Great Ouse is approximately 230km long and runs from Northamptonshire in the west in a roughly north easterly direction, to the Wash. In the upper catchment, although a highly regulated waterway, it largely follows its original course until it reaches Earith. Flood plain meadows are significant features bordering the River Great Ouse and its tributaries. They have provided an important source of hay and pasture for domesticated stock, which may date back a thousand years or more. They seem to have had a diverse flora and fauna, remnants of which survive today. This paper looks at the meadows that lie within the river valley running through Huntingdonshire District between St Neots and Earith (Figure 1). This article seeks to bring together the work already undertaken on assessing the nature conservation importance of meadows within the River Great Ouse Valley, describe what has happened to them and consider their conservation. Figure 1 River Great Ouse Introduction In southern and eastern England, three of the more recent glacial periods helped form the present River Great Ouse valley. The Anglian Glaciation, lasting from approximately 478,000 to 424,000 years ago, covered much of the area with glacial till (boulder clay). Two further glaciations affected Britain. The Wolstonian spanned a period of 245,000 years but only came as far south as Huntingdon about 160,000 years ago, when an ‘ice lobe’ the ‘Tottenhill glaciation’ projected into the tundra. This may have been key to the final position of the Great Ouse valley with the northerly course of the river being “diverted sharply to the east at Huntingdon, blocked by the till sheet to the north.” (Gibbard et al.
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