Reserves

Clapton Moor

Grid ref: 458 735 / Area: 39.7 hectares

Set within the Gordano Valley, Clapton moor is a fundamental part of the levels and moors landscape. Networked with species-rich rhynes, this grassland is important for its breeding waders and wintering wildfowl.

Clapton Circuit
A new circular walk linking the nature reserve to the village of Clapton-in-Gordano. Find out more about the history and wildlife of the area and take a virtual tour of the Gordano Valley. You can also download a circuit guide to take with you on the walk.

How to get there
We encourage visitors to use environmentally friendly forms of transport wherever possible. Most of our reserves are easily accessible by bicycle, with many close to the National Cycle Network. The Avon Cycleway passes the entrance to Clapton Moor and there are good bus services to the Gordano valley from major centres. Click here to view a location map of the reserve on the National Cycle Network website.

Alternatively, at Clapton-in-Gordano take Clapton Lane towards Clevedon. After two miles the entrance to the reserve is on the right-hand side opposite the entrance to New Farm. Clapton Lane has narrow bends and caution is advised. Parking is restricted. Please do not park and block any farm or field entrances.

Access
The birds are easily disturbed and the rhynes and wet grassland areas potentially treacherous. Access is therefore restricted to the path that leads to the hide, which gives excellent views over the moor.

Wildlife and conservation
Species-rich rhynes, wet pasture, fen and hay meadows. The rhynes are full of many rare plants such as frogbit, greater spearwort and fen pondweed along with nationally scarce invertebrates such as hairy dragonfly and ruddy darter.

During the spring and summer the wet fields of the moor attract breeding lapwing, redshank and snipe.

These timid waders find the waterlogged conditions of the fields to their benefit because of the readily available food source in the invertebrates. Buzzard, peregrine and hobby have been recorded over the reserve, the latter often chasing some of the many swallows, martins and swifts that feed over the grassland.

Barn owl feeding corridors (areas of long grass with a large population of small rodents) have been created along the boundaries of the most southerly fields in order to attract this secretive bird of prey back to the area.

The grassland areas are kept wet by water level control structures in the rhynes, allowing the site to maintain a high water table during the summer months - important for the breeding waders and wetland plants. During the winter the reserve is deliberately flooded to attract flocks of wildfowl and waders. This management follows the natural flooding of the moor during the winter months, which has in the past been reduced through improved drainage.

Further information
This site was purchased and managed through support from Heritage Lottery Fund, YANSEC, Countryside Agency, Alan Evans Memorial Trust, Ritchie Charitable Trust and public donation.