The Meadow
Six and a half acres of woodland and grassland a quarter-mile east of Charing, at the foot of the North Downs. Two and a half acres of wood, four of grass, and a chalk stream running through both. It is a Local Wildlife Site, and it is open to anyone.
What happened to it
The land was once part of Palace Farm. In the 1960s, housing and the playing field were built across the ground that joined it to the rest of the farm, and it was left stranded — too small to work, too awkward to reach. It fell out of use and stayed that way for decades.
In 1999 it passed into local care. Cattle grazing was brought back to the grassland, and coppicing — an old practice on this ground — was reintroduced in the wood, cut on rotation to open sunny clearings for plants and butterflies and to hold back the scrub that would otherwise close over everything.
It survived, in other words, by being forgotten, and then by being looked after.
Why it is wet
Springs rise at the foot of the Downs where the chalk meets the ground below it, and their water crosses the site as the headwaters of a chalk stream, running on into the Charing Stream and then the Great Stour. That water is the reason for everything else: boggy ground thick with alder, drier rising ground where ash takes over, and a grassland of rushes, sedges and wet-loving plants rather than ordinary pasture.
The wood holds centuries-old oaks alongside saplings and every age in between.
What lives there
The recorded counts are worth stating plainly, because they are what sustained attention to a small place actually produces:
- Thirty species of bird
- Eight small mammals — three mice, two voles, three shrews
- Forty-three species of crane-fly, two of them nationally notable
- Wood anemone, meadowsweet, and other ancient woodland indicator plants
Six and a half acres. Forty-three kinds of crane-fly.
Who looks after it
The work on the ground is done by volunteers and by children from the village school. Without them there would be no boardwalk, no cut rides, no way through the wet ground in winter — and none of the photographs on this site.
Visiting
It is open. There is no charge and no gate to ask at.
Find Alderbed Meadow on Google Maps
- On foot from Charing — the footpath from the Market Place, through the churchyard and across the playing fields
- By car — the entrance and car park off Pett Lane to the north-east, or via The Meadows to the west
- By bus — the 510 between Ashford and Maidstone
- By train — Charing station is a short walk away
The boardwalk carries you over the wettest ground in the wood. Everywhere else, in winter, expect mud.
Sources
- Site history, habitats, species counts, management and access: Charing Alderbed Meadow, Kentish Stour Countryside Partnership site guide.
- The plan is drawn from the ground and from memory. Boundaries are approximate and it should not be used for navigation.