Spindleberry Nature Park

My visit to Spindlebury Nature reserve in Blackbird Leys turned out to be very pleasant.

I knew various parts of the reserve e.g. the cycle track squeezed between Northfield brook and Windale Primary School; and some of the footpaths by Kassam stadium that I’d used to get to Grenoble road and Toot Baldon. In the past I’d cycled through parts of the reserve without realizing it was a reserve and without realizing that I should have explored it more thoroughly.

I got into the park from the Spindleberry Close entrance. What I saw was a large grassy open space almost circular in shape with trees around the periphery. I immediately thought of Doris Fields Nature park but I knew this nature park wasn’t going to be rescued by any views of the city centre. I started walking around the perimeter of the grassy area in an anti-clockwise direction to see what was beyond the facade of trees.

The area close to the Kassam Stadium is quite wild and the more I continued my walk around the edge of the grass, the more apparent it became that there were lots more wild areas in the reserve.

The shape of Spindleberry Nature reserve is one of the strangest of Oxford’s Nature parks. The northern boundary is like the teeth of a saw because the houses haven’t been built in a row but slanted away from each other to maximize privacy. The northernmost part of the reserve followed the zig-zag contours created by these houses. The wild areas south of these houses are very attractive with dry and flat footpaths wending their way through the semi-wild woods.

The south side of the Nature reserve stretches all the way from the Kassam stadium in the west to Windale Avenue in the east. The southern boundary is virtually a straight-line between two points. South of the boundary is Northfield brook and alongside that is a sandy footpath/cycle track. In turn, the footpath runs alongside Windale school. Both the brook and the track flow into Ley Park. The brook flows beyond the park and eventually joins up with Littlemore brook.

There are two substantial green areas beyond the nature reserve - one to the west of the Oxford United shop and the other to the east.

When I visited the reserve, it was almost free of litter and rubbish - which can’t be said for one of the car parks closest to the Kassam Stadium.

I was delighted by the unpredictable shape of the Nature park, its brook, cycle track and various footpaths through the woods not forgetting the very picturesque wild areas.

There are also a few transparently human features in the park from a wicker style fence to a wooden dragon. There’s also an almost perfectly circular pond in the centre of the nature reserve. This seems such an anomalous feature that it almost detracts from the goal of creating a natural, semi-wild, reserve.

From a distance I could see a group of people sitting around the pond so I decided to be cautious and didn’t go over to look at the pond. Later, as I cycled past the pond on the cycle track on the southern side of the Northfield stream, I saw a rather peculiar sight - a row of ducks were sitting on the edge of the pond in the company of the people I’d seen earlier which made me realize I needn’t have been so cautious.

This is an area that local people can feel proud about. They are lucky to have such an attractive and wildish area. Lucky also to have so many ducks who don’t seem disturbed by humans. Luckier still to be so close to the countryside beyond Grenoble road and the footpaths that run through farmers’ fields to Toot Baldon.

This place is definitely worth a second visit. I want to explore Spindleberry much more thoroughly the next time now that I know the lay of the land. I also want to explore the two green areas beyond the nature reserve on the west and east sides of Oxford United’s shop.