2. Doctor's Meadows, Little Missenden

Aims: Involve people with their local waterbodies; Improve wildlife corridors; Work together

Water body: River Misbourne

Project description

Project which restored natural chalk stream processes and created wetland features along a 500m reach of the R. Misbourne.

Doctor's Meadow is an area of water meadow by the Misbourne just upstream of Little Missenden. The Misbourne in the Meadow has been heavily modified over hundreds of years by man for a number of purposes including to provide water to a moat surrounding the nearby manor house and more recently, gravel extraction to provide aggregate to build the nearby road and railway line.  As a result, the river had been straightened, overwidened and had lost much of its natural chalk stream character.  In 2012, working in partnership with the Environment Agency and the landowner, the Chilterns Chalk Streams Project completed a scheme to restore the Misbourne to a more natural chalk stream and to create new wetland habitat.  Along the upper half of the site, where the river bed had been lowered significantly through gravel extraction, the river had lost its gradient and become overgrown with vegetation. This section of the river was opened up and the banks regraded and a series of wetland pools and scrapes were dug.  In the lower half of the site the river channel was narrowed using material that had been dredged from the river in the past and a new, more sinuous channel created.  In 2014 the Wild Trout Trust led a volunteer day to install woody debris features to the channel to help create pools and cover for fish and wildlife. 

Project lead: Chilterns Chalk Streams Project

Project partners: Environment Agency, Wild Trout Trust

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Project start: Mar 2012

Project end: Apr 2014

Funding source: Environment Agency , Chilterns Chalk Streams Project