The Meadow looking west

Keyworth Meadow is a small field on the outskirts of the large village of Keyworth in south Nottinghamshire, central England. On its western margin flows Fairham Brook, to the south is arable land, to the north is a small pasture and to the east is Lings Lane, an unmade track, via which the meadow is accessed.

The village children used to spend a lot of time playing in this area especially during the summer. The main attraction was the brook, which meanders naturally and flows in a series of pools and rifffles. Before local authorities provided swimming pools, the brook had a particular attraction on hot days, as the article “Certain Punishment” by Mr Booth reveals.

Otherwise the attraction was fishing, with makeshift rod and line, or, more often with a cane-handled net bought from the village hardware store, for catching tiddlers - sticklebacks and minnows. Occasionally a modest chub was landed from the bigger pools.

The village children knew the pools by name and an article in the village newsletter elicited several recollections summarised in the article “Sailors at Fairham Brook”.

The meadow really consists of two small fields totalling about 1 hectare. The bigger field slopes steeply and is partly clothed in hawthorn scrub. At the foot of the slope is the original course of the brook which is now a series of pools and marsh. It seems that at the time of the enclosures in about 1750, the brook was straightened in this vicinity and the pools are a remnant of this. The brook itself is indeed quite straight for a hundred metres where it passes the meadow. Upstream it meanders very markedly.

Nature Reserve
The meadow had been traditionally managed as pasture for the last century or so - grazing cattle for as long as the growing period permitted and supplemented with feed in winter. The effect of this was to produce a dense sward of grass, peppered with the flowers of buttercups, daisies and creeping thistle. The neighbouring field to the north is still managed in this way.

In 1985, Keyworth Parish Council exchanged some land known as the Stone Pits, for the meadow and it was designated a conservation area. In 1992 a management plan was prepared and the site was designated as a statutory Local Nature Reserve.

Current Management Process

The intricacy of the reserve inhibits the use of machinery: Through the centre of the field, an earlier course of the brook remains wet and ponded in winter and to the east the ground rises steeply out of the flood plain. The area between the old course and the present course of the brook is however mown annually in autumn by tractor driven mower and the hay is raked and burnt - the intention being to remove the nutrients from this area to allow slower growing flora to compete with the more vigorous perennial grasses.

The remaining land has been largely allowed to "grow wild", the result being the encroachment of patches of bramble in some areas, but mostly, perennial grasses dominate in the big field whilst the smaller field has developed a tussocky nature.

Scrub encroachment in these "unmanaged" areas has been surprisingly light; ecological theory being that a succession of scrub and trees occurs on such sites if they are not grazed or cut. Occasional, additional management tasks are carried out by voluntary working parties when they are required. This includes rotational pollarding of the willows and burning of excess timber, scrub clearance along the brook and clearance of obstructions from the channel.