Ham Fen is a nature reserve south of
Sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. It is one of
Kent Wildlife Trust
Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom that was founded in 1958, previously known as the Kent Trust for Nature Conservation. It aims to "work with people to restore, save and improve our natural spaces" and t ...
's nature reserves and is being extended in 2018 by an extra 33 acres.
This old fenland site has wet grassland with deep
mire
A mire, peatland, or quagmire is a wetland area dominated by living peat-forming plants. Mires arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, due to water-logging and subsequent anoxia. All types ...
s, dykes and ditches, and is the last surviving ancient fen habitat in Kent. The reserve was established in 1991 and as of mid-2018 covers over 100 acres. Considerable damage was caused by two major episodes of land drainage in the 18th century and early 1980s, which led to significant habitat deterioration and loss of wetland species.
Work to repair the natural environment includes the successful reintroduction of
beavers
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...
to the site, which first took place in 2002.
The site is not open to the public.
References
{{coord, 51.249, 1.336 , type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Nature reserves in Kent