About the reserve

A delightful meeting of old and new, people and wildlife, Wymondham Rough is a mosaic of woodland, ponds, grassland and marshes – with a length of disused canal thrown in! Whilst some of the habitats here are very recent, being heavily modified by the building of the canal and the railway in the 19^th Century, around 4ha of grassland could be over three centuries old! The mixture of habitats brings a whole range of plants and animals, including contain cowslip, bugle and water avens in the spring; dropwort, great burnet, betony, devil's-bit scabious and yellow rattle bloom later. The locally rare hybrid avens occur in the woodland. Nests of harvest mice have been found in the hedges and common lizards may be seen alongside the railway. Barn owls and little owls have nested in a hollow oak and specially provided boxes. Butterflies are abundant in the summer especially skippers and browns, while green hairstreaks have occasionally been spied. The hedges contain some venerable ash trees and barberry, a shrub now rare in Leicestershire.