Queen's Hills Country Park

Queen's Hills Country Park is situated in the Tud Valley to the west of Costessey which is itself a western suburb of Norwich. It was created at the same time as Queen's Hills housing estate around 15 years ago. The park is roughly delineated by the estate at its north and the River Tud to its south. Over the past year we have all become more familiar with our immediate surroundings than we would ever expected and I have enjoyed discovering how much the park has to offer.

The geography of this part of Costessey has been heavily influenced by gravel quarrying. The clatter of gravel travelling through the steel tubes of Longwater Gravel's processing plant on the other side of the Tud valley is familiar enough to have become part of the ambient noise here. When the plant restarted after England's first lockdown in 2020 however, the renewed noise and light came as quite a shock. To the east lie Costessey Pits which have been repurposed as watersports and fishing lakes. My Ordnance Survey map of the area dated 1999 shows sand and gravel pits situated in the east of what is now the estate. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who has tried digging their garden in Queen's Hills. The western section is enigmatically labelled 'Works'. The old maps also answer a question that has been bothering me for some time. The school is Queen's Hill and the estate sits on a single hill but the area is more commonly known as Queen's Hills. My 1999 OS map and this one from 1951 display it as Queen's Hills and who am I to argue?

Walks through the estate are often quiet, partly due to the absence of a natural hub around which people might gather. Perhaps a small shopping centre that is currently being built will fulfil this role but, in the meantime, there is a thriving online community. When I requested information about the park on Facebook, district councillor Sharon Blundell and town councillor Gary Blundell were quick to put me in touch with Queen's Hills Community Park CIO. When I followed that link, former town councillor Chris Mahn also replied swiftly with a detailed report of the ecology of Queens Hills carried out by the Friends of the Tud Valley in 2014.

There are two designated footpaths in the park, both of which are accessed via Sir Alfred Munnings Road, the main (and only) road in and out of the estate. There is a circular walk which takes you on a circuit round what is romantically known as 'the lagoon'.

There is a small area which I think was originally intended for car parking near the entrance gate but it is now blocked by a locked gate after travellers encamped there around 2015. There is an information board here with a map of the park and an introduction to some of the flora and fauna that inhabit the park including bats and some unusual moths. There are various spurs off this path which can take you towards the estate, into Snakes Hills Woods or down to the river.

The photo of the sunrise was taken in the grassland (defined as area 12, 'Rank grassland / scrub' in the ecological report) looking towards Costessey Park golf course. Being a bit of an insomniac I've spent a few mornings there recently photographing sunrises and I've been lucky enough to have a resident barn owl for company on several occasions. I've included my least blurry photo here but I've seen much better ones on the Queen's Hill Community Facebook page.

The footpath on the other side of the road takes you through the fabulously named Bog Wood. The ecology report says of this area:

It would appear that this is secondary woodland established in the 17th or 18th centuries as part of the Costessey Hall Estate.

Apart from the footpath and the escarpments up to the estate, this area appears to be unmanaged. There are some ancient trees here although many of them have fallen, presumably largely due to the permeating damp that comes from being near the bottom of the valley.

I wrote a bit about the key role that fungi play in breaking down dead vegetation when we visited Hoe Rough and they are in their element here growing alongside thick moss.

Although the provided footpath ends abruptly in a dead end, a network of secondary footpaths through the woods have formed particularly since lockdown. I was looking at a map site while researching the blog and i was interested to see that these paths were marked on there. The woods conceal them from satellite so I wondered how they were added. It could be that someone has diligently recorded their walks and uploaded them but I also wonder if the data is harvested from our smartphones as they track our GPS.

These paths take one through muddy ditches, fallen trees and up slippery slopes. If you follow them in spring the undergrowth opens to reveal sunlit patches of ground carpeted with native bluebells. Near the river rainwater gathers in the dips to form still pools. The water has rotted the trees' roots and they lay where they fell.

The Friends of Tud Valley report notes:

In the context of the ongoing management needs of this site, it is critical that long-term, sustainable resourcing is secured.

This is slightly troubling given that the report is six or seven years old and the consortium of developers who had responsibilty back then (Bovis, Kier and Taylor Wimpey) still own the land. Since the lead developers, Cofton, went into administration in 2011, the consortium have expertly prevaricated to avoid basic responsibilities such as surfacing roads in the estate so effective management of the country park is likely to be completely off their radar.

Having said that, I am in agreement with their conclusion:

Queen's Hills 'Country Park' is a wonderful area, that has the opportunity to become an exemplar of urban nature conservation. By and large, it is resilient to access, and has the opportunity to bring the local community into contact with a very wide range of amazing plants and animals. It is hoped that this small survey provides a first step in understanding that rich resource, managing it sympathetically into the future, and bringing the local population into greater contact with the rich wildlife of Queen's Hills.

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Here's a bit of music that I hope will suitably accompany this blog entry: Winterlight by Clearlake.