Milton Creek Country Park is situated in 128 acres between

Milton Regis Milton Regis is a village in the district of Swale in Kent, England. Former names include Milton-next-Sittingbourne, Milton Royal, Middleton, Midletun and Middletune. It has a population of about 5,000. Today it is a suburb of Sittingbourne, alth ...

and

Kemsley Kemsley is a suburb of Sittingbourne in Kent, England. According to Edward Hasted, in 1798, who quoted Asserius Menevensis in his survey, the Danes built themselves a fortress or castle here in 893. At a place called 'Kemsley downe'. This then l ...

, on the west bank of Milton Creek in

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separa ...

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 ...

, England. This site was once called Church Marshes Country Park.

Geography

Church Marshes is at the base of Kemsley Down (hills near Kemsley), on the banks of Milton Creek where it flows into

the Swale The Swale is a tidal channel of the Thames estuary that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the rest of Kent. On its banks is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches from Sittingbourne to Whitstable in Kent. It is al ...

. It is partly due to these two

navigable A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel (e.g. boats) to pass safely. Such a navigable water is called a ''waterway'', and is preferably with few obstructions against di ...

waters which link directly to the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

and its estuary across the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, that marshes formed and gave nearby locations their rich history. The marshes are named after Holy Trinity Church in Milton Regis. (See

for more details on the church).

History

The site of the country park has been used since early times and archaeological evidence shows that Saxon and

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

settlements were present in the vicinity. Holy Trinity Church and Castle Rough are the last remaining local historical features. In the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

the region was used for barge-building and gravel extraction for

brick-making A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a quarry for ...

. Barges transported the bricks to London and returned with London’s domestic waste to be burnt or buried at the site. Churchfield Wharf was also formerly the site of a ship breaking company. The

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...

formerly had a site in the Milton Creek area.http://www.swale.gov.uk/assets/Regeneration-Projects/Milton-Creek/Milton-Creek-Community-Engagement-Strategy.pdf It was a former brick and

gravel pit A gravel pit is an open-pit mine for the extraction of gravel. Gravel pits often lie in river valleys where the water table is high, so they may naturally fill with water to form ponds or lakes. Old, abandoned gravel pits are normally used either ...

; the area became a landfill site, which closed in 1973. After the site closed, it needed remedial work due to the

Environmental Protection Act 1990 The Environmental Protection Act 1990 (initialism: EPA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that defines, within England and Wales and Scotland, the fundamental structure and authority for waste management and control of emissions ...

, carried out jointly by Swale Council, Groundwork Kent & Medway and Rural Arising Ltd (a firm of engineers and ecologists, who specialise in urban regeneration of landfill sites and other similar industrial sites). Rural Arising Ltd, together with Groundwork Kent & Medway and Sittingbourne Community College also provided training and education to a group of 15- and 16-year-olds. The main purpose of the country park was to create a green space which met the needs of a predominantly urban population within a countryside setting rich in biodiversity. Groundwork started work in 2001. The project took place over eight phases, including dealing with the

contamination Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc. Types of contamination ...

and

landfill gas Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane ...

es, wildlife conservation works, planting of trees, scrubs, pond-side and meadow plants, construction of paths, picnic/play areas, etc. When Swale Council started planning for the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road (SNRR) which passes on the northern boundary of the park near Church Wharf on Milton Creek, it decided in 2008 to increase the size of the park to incorporate the

Saxon Shore Way The Saxon Shore Way is a long-distance footpath in England. It starts at Gravesend, Kent, and traces the coast of South-East England as it was in Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, in total. This means that around Romney Marsh the ...

(running along the Milton Creek), which links Sittingbourne town centre to the country park, which was renamed in 2009 as Milton Creek Country Park.http://www.swale.gov.uk/assets/Regeneration-Projects/Sheerness-Gateway/Milton-Creek-Monitoring-and-Evaluation-Report-FINAL-REPORT.pdf The Saxon Shore path passes through a sequence of viewpoints, one at each of the historic wharves along the creek, including Grandsdens Wharf, Eastwoods’ Wharf and Church Wharf. The aim of the project was to provide a ‘green heart’ for Sittingbourne. Creating the park cost £2.25 million – £2 million of which was

Thames Gateway Thames Gateway is a term applied to an area around the Thames Estuary in the context of discourse around regeneration and further urbanisation. The term was first coined by the UK government and applies to an area of land stretching east from ...

funding awarded via the

Homes and Communities Agency Homes England is the non-departmental public body that funds new affordable housing in England. It was founded on 1 January 2018 to replace the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). HCA in turn was established by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2 ...

. The rest was provided by Kent County Council. Groundwork established a Friends of Church Marshes voluntary group, which meets quarterly and a summer fete was held in 2007. They also helped construction of various paths within the park. Various artists have been commissioned to create works to promote the country park. The official opening of the country park was on 4 June 2012.

Facilities

As part of the

Parklands development, new footpath surfaces and various artworks have been placed along the Milton Creek on the

from Gas Road to the country park. A new car park on Saffron Way was finished in 2012. There is a large community events space and Churchfield Wharf, located next to the new road bridge, provides a 'mini-destination' next to the creek. The 'sandscape' area has been designed for toddlers and has slides, a bridge and a large seat for parents. The 'marshland' space, has been primarily designed for older children, it features a 7m space-net, reminiscent of the rigging on barges that travelled on the creek. The hill is a place where teenagers can sit. The large lake within the park is controlled by Kemsley Community Angling Preservation Society (KCAPS) which is a community run club for members and the public. .

Wildlife

Working with

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 ...

, various groups have created ecological habitats for several rare creatures, including

great crested newt The northern crested newt, great crested newt or warty newt (''Triturus cristatus'') is a newt species native to Great Britain, northern and central continental Europe and parts of Western Siberia. It is a large newt, with females growing up to ...

and the shrill carder bee. Other wildlife found within the park includes the common lizard, ''

Colias ''Colias'' is a genus of butterflies in the family Pieridae. They are often called clouded yellows; the North American name "sulphurs" is elsewhere used for Coliadinae in general. The closest living relative is the genus '' Zerene'', which is so ...

'' (clouded yellow butterfly),

glow worm Glowworm or glow-worm is the common name for various groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females that glow through bioluminescence. They include the European common glow-worm and other members of the Lampyridae, but bioluminescence also o ...

s and

slowworm The slow worm (''Anguis fragilis'') is a reptile native to western Eurasia. It is also called a deaf adder, a slowworm, a blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple and hazelworm. These legless lizards are also sometimes called common slowworms. T ...

s. The land at the northern end of the creek lies within the Swale Estuary

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certa ...

(SPA), Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Ramsar Site. A small orchard, which was ‘lost’ is being restored as a feature of the park. Some trees have already been planted in the woodland area – funded by the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respon ...

. Known birds visiting the site include the redshank, black-tailed godwit,

teal alt=American teal duck (male), Green-winged teal (male) Teal is a greenish-blue colour. Its name comes from that of a bird — the Eurasian teal (''Anas crecca'') — which presents a similarly coloured stripe on its head. The word is oft ...

and

grey plover The grey plover or black-bellied plover (''Pluvialis squatarola'') is a large plover breeding in Arctic regions. It is a long-distance migrant, with a nearly worldwide coastal distribution when not breeding. Taxonomy The grey plover was forma ...

Park access

The park can be accessed in various ways, for example via Kemsley Recreation Ground, Grovehurst Road, Newman Drive (as it turns into Recreation Way), Walsby Drive (in the housing estate), Miller Close (in the housing estate), Green Porch Close (by Holy Trinity Church), Gas Road (by CPM - formerly Milton Pipes) and via the Northern Relief Road. Also,

National Cycle Route 1 The cycle-path is located in the United Kingdom. Route Dover to Canterbury Dover , Deal , Sandwich , Canterbury Links with National Cycle Route 2, Regional route 16, and Regional route 17 in Dover. Leaves Dover passing Dover Castle. S ...

passes the country park via the B2005, Saffron Way. The Swale Heritage Trail (another long distance local trail) now ends at the park via the Northern Relief Road.

External links

*http://www.swale.gov.uk/milton-creek/ Swale Council's site

References

{{reflist Country parks in Kent Allington Quarry Sittingbourne