Darland's Lake Nature Reserve is a nature reserve south of

Totteridge Totteridge is a residential area and former village in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a mixture of suburban development and open land (including some farmland) situated 8 miles (13 km) north north-west of Charing Cross. It ...

Village in Barnet,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is owned by the

London Borough of Barnet The London Borough of Barnet () is a suburban London borough in North London. The borough was formed in 1965 from parts of the ceremonial counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. It forms part of Outer London and is the largest London borough ...

and was managed from 1971 by the Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, and more recently by the borough council. In 2007 the council spent £215,000 on repairing the dam and other works, and then proposed leasing the reserve to the Wildlife Trust. The transfer did not take place and in September 2017 a trust was set up by the

London Wildlife Trust London Wildlife Trust (LWT), founded in 1981, is a local nature conservation charity for Greater London. It is one of 46 members of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (known as The Wildlife Trusts), each of which is a local nature conservatio ...

and local residents associations which took over the management of Darland's Lake. In 2020 Darlands Conservation Trust launched an appeal to raise £450,000 for excavation to prevent the lake drying up. The site was once part of

Copped Hall Copped Hall, also known as Copt Hall or Copthall, is a mid-18th-century English country house close to Waltham Abbey, Essex, which has been undergoing restoration since 1999. Copped Hall is visible from the M25 motorway between junctions 26 a ...

, an estate dating from the sixteenth century. From 1780 it was occupied by William Manning MP,Darland's Lake Nature Reserve, London Gardens Online
/ref> and his son Cardinal Manning was born there. Darland's Lake was created as an ornamental lake by damming

Folly Brook Folly Brook is a long brook in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a tributary of Dollis Brook, which is a tributary of the River Brent, which is a tributary of the River Thames. Folly Brook is lined for most of its length by narrow strips of wo ...

, probably planned by William Manning's wife, Mary, with advice from

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

. The lake is very shallow, with extensive reed beds, and the reserve also includes woodland. It has a diverse range of breeding birds and eighteen species of mammal have been recorded, including

stoat The stoat (''Mustela erminea''), also known as the Eurasian ermine, Beringian ermine and ermine, is a mustelid native to Eurasia and the northern portions of North America. Because of its wide circumpolar distribution, it is listed as Least Conc ...

and

weasel Weasels are mammals of the genus ''Mustela'' of the family Mustelidae. The genus ''Mustela'' includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender b ...

. It is also of value for

grass snakes Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

, amphibians,

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

and

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordat ...

. Folly Brook and Darland's Lake Nature Reserve are together designated a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade 1. Darland's Lake was formerly a Site of Special Scientific Interest, but the designation was withdrawn when it was discovered that the rarest plants had been introduced. According to the London Ecology Unit's ''Nature Conservation in Barnet'', published in 1997, Darland's Lake was one of seven sites identified by Barnet Council as meeting the criteria for designation as a Local Nature Reserve, and it is the only one of the seven which the Council has not designated. There is access by a path from The Close, Totteridge Village, and by a footpath from Southover which follows Folly Brook to the lake, as well as by footpaths opposite St.Andrew’s church and from Mill Hill.

Footnotes

External links

Darlands Lake Nature Reserve, Parks & GardensDarlands Lake Nature Reserve, London Gardens OnlineDarlands Conservation Trust
{{Coord, 51.6254, -0.2047, type:landmark_region:GB-BNE, display=title Nature reserves in the London Borough of Barnet Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Barnet Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust reserves Totteridge

See also

Footnotes

External links