Celebrating 25 Years of the Chilterns Chalk Streams Project

BEFORE DURING AFTER
RIVER RESTORATION
ACTIVITIES
Over the years, the Chilterns Chalk Streams Project has worked with local groups on numerous river
restoration schemes. Here we highlight two award-winning ventures on the Chess and Bulbourne
respectively:
Meades Water Gardens, River Chess (images above)
Meades Water Gardens was originally a formal water garden comprising two ornamental ponds with weirs
created in the 1970s, built on the site of a former watercress bed and mill pond. However, the ponds slowed
water flow, and silt rapidly accumulated in the ponds as a result, decreasing their wildlife and aesthetic value.
The gardens were also permanently in shade from tall trees, and the focus of anti-social behaviour.
Over-shading prevents the growth of the in-stream vegetation that is an important defining characteristic of
chalk stream environments. The Chilterns Chalk Streams Project led a restoration scheme with the Impress
the Chess project between 2007 and 2008 to remove the weirs, narrow the channel and thin out the trees.
The scheme won the Wild Trout Trust Conservation Award in 2009, and the ‘Environment and Culture
Award’ in the SE England Market Towns Awards 2008.
Bringing Back the Bulbourne
Between 2014 and 2017, CCSP worked in partnership with the Box Moor Trust, Environment Agency (EA) and
Wild Trout Trust (WTT) to restore a 1km section of the River Bulbourne at Box Moor near Hemel Hempstead.
Historic modification had resulted in an over-widened, impounded and straightened river channel that
was unable to support the diversity of wildlife typically found in chalk streams. Originally proposed by the
Chilterns Chalk Streams Project in 2010, the multi-phased project began with a series of volunteer habitat
enhancement work parties, followed by the removal of a weir in 2016, to facilitate fish passage and to
re-energise flows. The second and largest phase of the Project, carried out by the EA, involved the creation
of a narrower, more sinuous channel as well as backwaters, wetland scrapes and a kingfisher nest bank.
Two fords and public access points were created and the reach was fenced by the Trust to protect the banks
and enable marginal vegetation to develop. The project received several awards including ‘Best medium
scale habitat enhancement scheme’ at the 2017 WTT Conservation Awards.
RIVER RESTORATION PROJECTS | 25
BEFORE
AFTER
BULBOURNE