"Radway Meadows are two fields of unimproved grassland lying on the Edgehill escarpment near the Oxfordshire border. I have always had a great affection for this area as my grandmother lived nearby and I enjoyed many Sunday afternoons exploring the local countryside. The meadows are still much as I remember them today, even after 40 years.

The steeply sloping top meadow is the most interesting of the two, both for its wildlife and also for the fantastic views it offers. On clear days the Malvern Hills can be clearly seen 40 miles away to the South-West, and some say that even the distant Wrekin in Shropshire can be seen to the North-West on the clearest winter days. The top meadow lies just below the Grove, an ancient woodland growing on the steepest part of the escarpment. This top meadow is very diverse, with a small spring-fed marsh at its centre. This is dominated by sedges but interspersed are gems of colour in the form of ragged robin, marsh bedstraw and marsh St John’s wort. The drier parts of meadow support pignut, a small member of the carrot family, growing in profusion. Associated with pignut is the delicate day-flying moth called the chimney-sweeper, commonly seen on warm summer days, its wings being sooty black apart from their white tips.

Surrounding the meadows are dense hedgerows, their heavy crops of nuts and berries providing a valuable winter food source for local wildlife. In February and March the warm glow of the early flowering opposite-leaved golden saxifrage seems to illuminate the damp shady stream running beneath the far hedgerow.

At first sight the bottom meadow looks to have less of interest, having been heavily sheep grazed in recent years.  However, it is hoped that through traditional management as a hay meadow many of the wildflowers, currently cropped close to the ground, will be released to flower in profusion. Then plants such as yellow rattle (commonly known as hay rattle) together with the colourful spring flowering ladies smock and the diminutive little adder’s-tongue fern will thrive. "

Chris Ivin 
Trust volunteer