Magor Marsh Nature Reserve

This is the site on the Welsh side of the Severn Estuary where the visitor can most readily appreciate the past environments of the Severn Estuary.

These environments have elsewhere have been changed by drainage, agriculture and the expanding extent of industrial activity. Here there are wet meadows with a diversity of plant species, areas of Phragmites reedswamp fen woodland and open water. Reedswamps and fen woodland are two of the environment types within which botanical evidence shows the prehistoric sites excavated in the intertidal zone at sites such as Goldcliff were situated. Wet meadows would have been much more extensive in the agricultural landscapes which existed in Romano-British and Medieval times.

The Nature Reserve is on the South side of Magor village at Whitewall Common. It is approached from the Magor to Redwick road. There is a car park and a small Interpretation Centre named after Derek Upton for many years the voluntary warden of the reserve and the person who discovered many of the archaeological sites in the Severn Estuary.

For other important nature reserves see Gwent Levels Wetland Reserve and Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve.

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