Alverstone Mead Local Nature Reserve

Local Nature Reserve

Local nature reserve or LNR is a designation for nature reserves in the United Kingdom. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite...

 is a lowland freshwater wetland nature reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

 close to Sandown

Sandown

Sandown is a seaside resort town and civil parish on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, neighbouring the town of Shanklin to the south. Sandown Bay is the name of the bay off the English Channel which both towns share, and it is notable for its long stretch of easily accessible...

, Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

. it is a part of the Alverstone Marshes

Alverstone Marshes

Alverstone Marshes is a 83.8 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the Isle of Wight, notified in 1951.The Alverstone Marshes are the site of a wetland restoration project by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds....

 SSSI.

The site is on the floodplain of the Eastern Yar

Eastern Yar

The River Yar on the Isle of Wight, England, rises in a chalk coomb in St. Catherine's Down near Niton, close to the southern point of the island...

, and is a popular spot for birdwatchers. The old trackbed of the Newport-Sandown railway runs through it, and is now a cycleway.

It is owned by the Isle of Wight Council

Isle of Wight Council

The Isle of Wight Council is a local council. It is a unitary authority covering the Isle of Wight, South East England. It is currently made up of 40 seats, with the Conservatives as ruling party with 24 councillors at the latest local election in June 2009....

 and leased to the Wight Nature Fund.

External links

• Alverstone Mead - Wetland focal Nature Reserve, Newchurch Parish website
  Newchurch, Isle of Wight
  Newchurch is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. It is located between Sandown and Newport in the southeast of the island. Anthony Dillington, owner of the Knighton Gorges Manor in Newchurch wrote to his son Robert in 1574 that, "This is the very Garden of England, and we be privileged...
  
  
• Isle of Wight Council entry