Kilnhurst Ings is a post-industrial washland on the River Don that we’ve transformed into a fantastic new wetland habitat to be enjoyed by both wildlife and people.
Our work has created wide and shallow pools known as foot drains and scrapes, and we’ve added more marshy grassland, ditches and backwaters to encourage species like water voles, dragonflies and wildfowl and wading birds such as lapwing and redshank to thrive there.
These new ditch networks have enhanced the grassland and wetland features, meadow flowers and aquatic plants are flourishing. Successes as a result of these improvements have included the presence of snipe and black-tailed skimmer dragonfly on the reserve.
Additional sluices control water flow, industrial archaeology features from Kilnhurst Forge have been protected, and annual grazing takes place from April to October.
This is all part of the Living Don, a 25 year strategic partnership programme (since 2009), managing the River Don catchment in South Yorkshire, creating a green network from the Peak District to the Lower Don Valley, taking in the floodplains of Sheffield and Rotherham, and reducing the risk of flooding in the urban centres by encouraging wetland habitats. Email us for more information.
