History

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'The Upper Slopes area was formally cultivated as allotments.

As a result, previously cultivated trees and flowers have survived and flourished.

Plum, damson and apple trees are visible. Redcurrant bushes fruit into the summer, also Michaelmas Daisies, Golden Rid and Evening Primrose.

Near the entrance to the Upper Slopes is an ancient boundary stone dated to 1987.

This marked part of the eastern boundary of Bristol.

A seasonal pond near here is usually dry in the summer.

It was originally built as a ‘wheel washing’ pond in the days when wooden wheeled horse drawn carts were common.

The Green Lane runs through the Reserve, it is a public Right of Way and is over one hundred years old.

This tree lines lane is a good place to hear and see blue, great and long-tailed tits feeding in the tree canopy.

This canopy is also a hunting area for bats at night.

Six species have been recorded including Common pipistrelle, Soprano pipistrelle and Long-eared bats.’

– Bristol City Council

 

Established by the council and designated a Local Nature Reserve in 2009.

The site was part of a large area of surplus allotment land part of which was sold for the development of a new hospital in 2003.

The hospital developer provided funds as a condition of their planning approval to establish the site as a nature reserve which included the construction of new entrances, footpaths, fences and the dewpond, the undertaking of habitat management works and new native tree and shrub planting.

The adjacent field area was purchased by the council from a private landowner to add to the new nature reserve.