The park environment: woods, meadows, wetlands and more

Arrow Valley Country Park has a wealth of natural resources. Many of these features are found on our waymarked trails.

The wetlands, including Arrow Valley Lake

A huge variety of wetland habitats exists in Arrow Valley Country Park including the river Arrow, steams and culverts, marshland, reed beds, wet meadows, seasonal ponds and of course the 29-acre Arrow Valley Lake.

Arrow Valley Lake was created in the early 1970s after colossal quantities of material was dug out to landscape the new town of Redditch, such as for all the embankments that were built along the dual carriageways to reduce the impact of traffic noise and pollution on homes.

Today it has an excellent stock of fish, many species of migratory birds use the lake during the year and it is a breeding ground for native birds in the summer. It’s also a hub of activity for water sports and recreation.

With the lake as the focal point of the park, and with the decline of British wetlands due to the development of land for farming or buildings over many centuries, we believe our wetlands are a very important asset.

The woodlands

You can find two types of deciduous woodland in Arrow Valley Country Park: original woods that we continue to manage, and new woods that were planted during the creation of the park.

Bluebell Wood is an area of Ancient Semi Natural Woodland, which is a woodland with native species that has been managed. These are remnants of Britains long-gone Ancient Natural Woodland, and the only places bluebells can now be found. As the name suggests, Bluebell Wood is home to swathes of bluebells, which are stunning every spring.

The impressive Redditch Arboretum, on the other hand, is a new plantation.

The meadows

The wild flower meadows in Arrow Valley Country Park are stunning in their summer bloom.

Proctors Barn Meadow is a designated Local Nature Reserve, and Bordesley Abbey Meadows are an extremely rich and diverse habitat with remnants of the fish ponds that the medieval abbey monks probably used for food as well as a bog.

We manage all our meadows according to the needs of the wild flowers - grazing at certain points in the year and hay cutting in the summer are essential parts of this.

Wildlife and habitats

Arrow Valley Country Park is protected as a green space and has undergone an amazing transformation since it was first created in the late 1960s, as part of the development of Redditch new town. What was once farm land is now a stunning wild space full of flora and fauna.

At 900 acres the park has a range of habitats and biological communities seldom seen in an urban setting. It’s rich in mammals, birds, invertebrates and aquatics.

The diverse habitats include deciduous woodland, wild flower meadows, playing fields, scrubland and wetlands brings a wealth of biological communities – that’s the various species that are found within a habitat – to Arrow Valley Country Park.

We take our management and protection of the park very seriously and we will ensure that it is stewarded and improved for future generations.

We strongly urge park users not to disturb the animals unnecessarily, and to keep dogs under close control in the park.