Ladies Walk Meadows are a new edition to the Reserves we carry work out on. It is the only site we work on with no nearby water.
The walk itself was planted with 121 trees in 1863 to commemorate the wedding of The Prince of Wales to Princess Alexander.The walk also has an Iron Bridge crossing the road which was built by Tasker & Fowler in 1851, which had their Iron Foundary neary in Anna Valley.
The meadows are made up of remanent Chalk meadows and still contain many wildflowers like cowslips, Field Scabious, orchids and Salad Burnet. They are also home to Slow Worms and Common Lizards
So far 3 of the meadows have been aquired to manage for wildlife.These are grazed by cattle, and most of the practical work so far has been scrub removal to save the remaining wildflowers. A lot of the trees along the walk have become rather old and decayed now and gaps have appeared in the hedgerow. TARCA and Andover Trees United have been replacing this hedgerow along the field boundary year by year with a native mix of hedging and standard trees.