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Join Mark Clay, Trail volunteer and Artist in Residence at the Hinksey Heights Nature Trail for the first public activity of his new residency, on Sunday 1st June from 10.30am: an art talk (followed by an optional walk of the Trail) in which he presents some of the artworks he has been inspired to create by the Trail and his work on it as a volunteer.
The event is free but we will be inviting you to make a donation to support the work of the Hinksey Heights Trail volunteers in 2025.
Please click here for more information and to sign up.
About
OUR STORY
The Hinksey Heights Nature Trail is a privately-owned permissive path connecting with Chilswell Valley and Harcourt Hill and leading to other famous local walks. The Nature Reserve, covering more than 12 hectares, is home to diverse wildlife, including robins, magpies, cuckoos, green woodpeckers, bullfinches, deer and red kites. The park has been designated an Oxfordshire County Wildlife Site since 2000. A stroll along the nature trail offers stunning views over to the city of Oxford and winds through woodland, reedland and fen.
The project to build a boardwalk through the reserve began in 2003, carried out by students from Peers School (now Oxford Academy), which improved access through marshy areas of the reserve. The nature trail is a place for people from the local area to come to enjoy a walk or a picnic by the pond. Teachers and students from local schools are also welcome to come and use the trail for outdoor education.
Recent conservation projects at the Nature Park have seen degraded areas of the alkaline valley fen restored by clearing out overgrown willows and reeds which were drying out the land. The alkaline fen is among the most bio-diverse habitats, supporting a rich variety of invertebrates and plants. The alkaline fen at Hinksey Heights is one of the few existing examples of this habitat, which is nationally rare and endangered. The loss of a number of ash trees due to ash dieback disease has presented a further opportunity to restore and expand the area of fenland under management, and the trail volunteers work closely with colleagues from the Freshwater Habitats Trust to ensure that our efforts support and enhance their vital work, as well as other volunteer groups such as Abingdon Green Gym, who also make an invaluable and welcome contribution.
Since Summer 2020, a renewed volunteer-led effort has worked hard to repair parts of the boardwalk which had become damaged due to age and heavy usage. Five years later, volunteers from the local community are still giving their time and enthusiasm to this project. which has grown in numbers and ambition in the pursuit of a beautiful, accessible and sustainable site that works for both people and nature.
In 2020, the volunteers also formed a not-for-profit company, Hinksey Trail Regeneration CIC, to put our efforts on a proper, safe and accountable legal footing, and to source and channel the funding needed to realise our long-term goals for the trail and to manage.
Members of the public can make a donation via this webpage at: www.hinkseytrailorg.donate
Photos courtesy of Jenny Atkinson, Ruth Stavris and Nick Thorn.
Profile: John Brimble, Co-Owner
John’s history with the land up at Hinksey Heights goes back to 1954. He was thirteen when he first visited his school friend Addy, whose father Percy Gresswell was a tenant farmer at Hinksey Hill Farm. John and Addy helped on the farm during school holidays, earning six old pence an hour. Addy and John became life-long friends, and John later married Addy’s sister Judy.
In 1985 Percy bought 310 acres overlooking the ‘Dreaming Spires of Oxford’ from the Harcourt Estate. After Percy passed away, the family began plans to use the land as a golf course and nature park. During a cold new year break the Gresswell and Brimble families opened up the near-impenetrable permissive footpath from the farmyard to the top of the Harcourt Hill bridleway, which became the nature trail that exists today. The families’ hard work was realised when the golf course was opened in 1996, and the nature trail opened to the public.
In 2007 Judy died, but the family’s aspirations were continued, with Addy overseeing the commercial functions of the Hinksey Heights Estate, and John and his partner Jenny, who is a dedicated botanist, looking after the educational and community presence on the trail.
With Thanks for Support from
Hinksey Heights Nature Trail 