About the reserve

A missing piece of the Suffolk Broads landscape for wildlife and people, Worlingham Marshes is at the very beginning of its journey from a private grazing marsh to a nature reserve.

Located just north of the village of Worlingham within the Lower Waveney Valley, the reserve is in a unique position within the Broads National Park where we can extend the impact of our work downstream at Castle Marshes and Carlton Marshes. By securing Worlingham Marshes for nature, we take another big step towards our ambition to create a vast wildlife corridor from Lowestoft to the source of the River Waveney at our Redgrave & Lopham Fen nature reserve.

The land that has become Worlingham Marshes was previous privately-owned used for grazing on the marshes and wildfowling in the wet woodland, and with the fen, scrub, dykes and foot drains - as well as the River Waveney on the northern boundary - there is ample opportunity for us to extend wildlife-rich habitats, create new wetland features, and to restore a classic Broadland landscape.

Since securing the land in the winter of 2023, we have already seen a thrilling array of wildlife including kingfisher, merlin, short-eared owl, marsh harrier, otter, and grass snake - giving us a sense of the potential the reserve has for wildlife.