Attenborough Nature Reserve – August 2024

After putting in some long hours at work recently (the joys of being self-employed!) I decided to take a random day off to enjoy the sunshine and headed out to Attenborough Nature Reserve. I’ve been here before a number of times but this time I travelled there from Nottingham on the train (an all day ticket is £3.70 and the journey takes around 10 minutes). Attenborough is a tiny station with only two platforms but the nature reserve is well signposted from there and it only takes about 5-10 minutes walk through some streets lined with very beautiful houses to reach one of the entrances to the reserve.

There are several routes around the nature reserve – I decided to go along the Church Path and then turn left down Barton Lane and the weir (where I stopped off to have sandwiches on one of the benches next to the pond) before walking next to Clifton Pond, along the Wet Marsh Path and back round to Barton Lane. You can find a map of the site here. It took around two and a half hours, bearing in mind I was stopping regularly to take photos and to reapply my sunscreen.

What I love about Attenborough is the range of habitats from ponds to meadows, all full of wildlife and accessed through well laid out paths.

I was pleasantly surprised, given that it was a sunny day in the school holidays, that there weren’t more people about, and the train station was deserted on both journeys.

I’d always recommend a visit and getting there on public transport is much easier than dealing with often overcrowded parking facilities.