Case Study: Meadow Restoration – Wetland Design & Construction – Barford


Client: Private individual, 2009

Project outline

An element of the enhancements the clients wanted to make to their land to qualify for HLS funding was the restoration of medieval water meadows to ensure that they regularly flooded during the winter and spring. The aim was to encourage waders particularly Snipe to use the fields in the winter months.

Ditch for water level control at Barford wet meadow restoration and wetland creation
Ditch for water level control
Earthworks for wet meadows restoration and wetland creation at Barford in Wiltshire
Earthworks


Services Provided

JPR Environmental undertook a topographical, habitat and species survey and wrote a management plan for the two principal water meadows on the farm. This project focused on the East Meadows and was designed to create a flow of water around the meadow by clearing the ditch that lay at the north of the site and restoring and replacing the inlet sluices along the length of the ditch. To do this a proportion of the hedgerow had to be thinned to allow access and the ditch scraped by excavator.

Wetland creation on wet meadows at Barford in Wiltshire for a private client
Wetland creation
Ditch construction at Barford for the restoration of wet meadows and for wetland creation
Ditch construction

Wet meadow restoration and wetland habitat creation on a former water meadow at Barford in Wiltshire
Restored wet meadows
Water control at wet meadow and wetland creation project at Barford, Wiltshire
Water control


 We installed one new inlet onto the fields and constructed a dam near the end of the irrigation systemon the field to retain the water on the field to a certain level. The dam was constructed to a design that would allow any fish that enters the new system to escape back into the adjoining river Nadder through the over topping weir.

A new pipe was installed at the beginning of the system to set the high water level mark above which excess water flowed directly back into the river from the feeder ditch.