Newton Farm Ecology Park is a small area of wood and grassland lying between Alexandra Avenue and Rayner’s Lane in the south of the borough. Although small it contains a wide variety of habitats including wet and dry grassy meadows, woodland, streams and a pond. The wooded areas contain many varieties of apple as well as ash, birch, cherry, dogwood, field maple, hawthorn, hornbeam, oak, black and white poplars and rowan.
Within the wood is a small area originally planted as a healing garden with plants that in earlier times were believed to have healing properties. The healing garden was recently restored with a grant from Greggs the bakers.
Birds foot trefoil in the Healing Garden
In 2018 an area of bramble in the southeast corner of the site was cleared to form the "New Meadow" and sown with wildflower seeds. This looks spectacular in spring and early summer - image above.
Things to look out for:
In very early spring (February onward) a hedge of blackthorn along the
northern edge of the wet meadow bears attractive white blossom on bare
branches. Later the small plums called sloes form. These are very
bitter but are often steeped in gin to flavour the spirit.
In May the dry meadow is a spectacular sea of white cow parsely blossom.
For a short period in late May or early June the site is made lovely by
the blossoms of dog rose which clambers over many of the fences and
hedges.
The site is naturally wet and so willow trees do well. The line of big
trees between the dry and wet meadows are the Great or White Willow Salix alba, while to
the north of the dry meadow is a thicket of Osier Salix viminalis.
This is a good site for butterflies. Look for speckled wood butterflies in the woodland areas and gatekeepers and small coppers in the open grasslands.
In summer dragonflies and damsel flies hawk around the pond.
Damselflies are the small, delicate ones while dragonflies are large, strong fliers.
The white willows at Newton Farm
How to find the reserve
Map above reproduced by permission of Geographers' A-Z Map Co.
Ltd. (c)Crown Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Licence number
100017302.
Newton Farm Ecology Park is situated south of Rayner's Lane station between
Alexandra Avenue and Rayner's Lane.
The car park is on the western side of Rayners Lane, immediately opposite Maryatt Avenue (The post code for this road junction is HA2 0ST). Look for a yellow height barrier. This is the meeting point for all walks and working parties.
The western entrance is a little
difficult to find: it is on a service road running parallel with
Alexandra Avenue and separated from the main road by a wall. Don't get
confused by a sign for the Newton Park Allotments: the entrance to the
Ecology Park is 100 yards south of the entrance to the allotments.
Bus H12 runs along Rayner's Lane while bus 398 runs along
Alexandra Avenue.