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History
Conwy is an upside-down nature reserve. Until the late 1980s, it was a river. Twice a day the tide went out and revealed huge mudbanks. Waders fed on the mud, and at high tide roosted along the railway embankment.
And then their world changed. What happened could have been disastrous for wildlife, but thanks to some inspired thinking and hard work, new habitats and a popular reserve were created. We also highlight some of the historic features to look out for when you visit.
This is where we came from
We're an upside-down nature reserve because the earth you walk over sat at the bottom of the Conwy estuary for thousands of years. In the 1980s, the government decided to build a road tunnel through the estuary to relieve traffic congestion in the old walled town of Conwy.
The design was revolutionary - it was the first immersed tube tunnel in the world. But it came at a price: the final outside bend of the river would be 'reclaimed' and covered with the silt from the riverbed. After the tunnel was built, this land might have been grassed over and grazed, but for a moment of wisdom from a town planner from Aberconwy Borough Council, Dave Phillips.
Over a pint with countryside ranger John Davies, they wondered whether the lagoons could become the centre of a new wetland. A phone call to the RSPB, and several years of meetings and negotiations later, after the tunnel was opened by HM The Queen in October 1991, work began to create the neighbouring reserve.
Flick through the gallery to reveal the story.
From the 1960s to the ‘80s, Conwy had become a traffic bottleneck. Building a huge bridge was rejected in the 1970s, but a traditional tunnel through rock was not feasible.
After 20 years of debate, work began on a tunnel under the estuary. It was a revolutionary design - the world’s first immersed tube tunnel.
The first step was to build a new sea wall across part of the estuary, using limestone blocks brought from Penmaenmawr quarry. This is now the reserve’s estuary path.
The area behind the new wall was filled with mud, silt and sand from the bottom of the estuary. A huge Dutch suction dredger pumped 3.5 million cubic metres of mud along more than a mile of pipe.
The heavy mud settled and the water was pumped back into the river. This photo is taken from where the Tal-y-fan Hide now is! Originally, this area was to be grassed over and grazed, but an idea emerged for it to become a nature reserve.
Meanwhile, a huge dry dock was built north of Conwy. The tunnel was fabricated in six sections that together weighed 180,000 tonnes, equivalent to three new Royal Navy aircraft carriers.
Then the dock was flooded and the sections were floated. On high tides, each section was towed into the estuary. The engineers had just two hours of slack water to lower each section gently into the trench created by the suction dredger.
Once the tunnel was complete, local people had a unique opportunity to walk through the tunnel before it was opened by HM The Queen in October 1991.
With the tunnel open and the settling lagoons dried out, the tunnel contractors began to move the earth to create a nature reserve to the RSPB’s design.
It took three years for one warden and a team of volunteers to turn a muddy moonscape into a new nature reserve.
Trails were formed, hides built and thousands of trees were planted. When RSPB Conwy opened to the public in April 1995, it was still quite bare but wildlife was already moving in.
The estuary remains important for wildlife, and when the mudflats are covered at high tide, waders roost on the lagoons
From the mud, hundreds of different types of plants have grown, and the reedbed now provides habitat for water rails and sedge warblers
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Stand on the reserve and you can see 4,000 years of human history that stems from the Conwy valley's importance as a 'highway', first by boat, later by train and more recently by road. More... |
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