The Lodge

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Address
The Lodge nature reserve, Gatehouse, The Lodge, Potton Rd, Sandy SG19 2DL
Grid ref
TL191485
What3Words
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The Lodge Nature Reserve and Gardens is a very special place, offering an exceptionally rich combination of wildlife and heritage experiences. The woodland, heath and acid grassland here cover an area of some 220 hectares, and now form the largest stretch of heathland in Bedfordshire.

Plan your visit

Opening times

  • Nature reserve: open daily, dawn-dusk. Closed outside of these hours.
  • Car park: open daily, 7am-7pm. Closed outside of these hours.
  • Shop: open daily
    9.30am-5pm, Monday-Friday. 
    10am-5pm, Saturday and Sunday. 
    10am-5pm, Bank Holidays.
  • Visitor Information Centre: open most days.
  • Toilets: open daily, 10am-4pm.

Festive Opening Times

  • Christmas Eve: nature reserve open, dawn-dusk. Car park open, 7am-7pm. Visitor centre, shop and toilets open, 9.30am-3pm.
  • Christmas Day: nature reserve open, dawn-dusk. Car park open, 7am-7pm. Visitor centre, shop and toilets closed.
  • Boxing Day: nature reserve open, dawn-dusk. Car park open, 7am-7pm. Visitor centre, shop and toilets closed.
  • New Year’s Eve: nature reserve open, dawn-dusk. Car park open, 7am-7pm. Visitor centre, shop and toilets open, 10am-4pm.
  • New Year’s Day: nature reserve open, dawn-dusk. Car park open, 7am-7pm. Visitor centre, shop, and toilets open, 10am-4pm.
  • All other days in the festive period are open our usual opening hours as above.

Entrance charges

Free entrance to RSPB members
Yes
Adults
Free
Children
Free
Car park cost
  • RSPB members: FREE (please display your membership card face down in your windscreen).
  • Non-members: £6 per car
  • Blue badge holders: FREE
Other discounts

Admission is free of charge for members or people just visiting the shop.

Facilities

  • Visitor centre
  • Car park
  • Toilets
  • Accessible toilets
  • Baby changing
  • Pushchair friendly
  • Refreshments
  • Picnic area
  • Binocular hire
  • Guided walks
  • Viewing point
  • Nature trails
  • Shop
  • Play area

Accessibility

How to get here

By train

The nearest station is Sandy, on the King's Cross to Peterborough main line, 0.9 miles (1.4 km) from the reserve entrance. From the station car park, turn right towards the Potton road. Turn right, cross the bridge and proceed up the hill. You can follow our nature trail or there is a paved footpath on the right.

By bus

Buses from Bedford stop in Sandy town centre; local buses between Hitchin, Sandy, Blunham and Biggleswade (Centrebus 188) stop directly inside the reserve entrance.

By bike

The principal route open in Bedfordshire is the section of Route 51 from Milton Keynes to Bedford and Sandy. Route 12 is still being developed and will meet Route 51 near the reserve.

By road

From Sandy town centre, take the B1042 Potton road, passing the railway station and cemetery on your right. After 1.2 miles (1.75 km), at the top of the hill, turn right into the RSPB-marked entrance.

Sat nav POI file: If you have a satellite navigation system that can accept POI files, please see our POI page for a download link and instructions.

Get directions from Google Maps
View on What3Words
RSPB reserves on Google Earth

Information for dog owners

 

Sorry, dogs are not permitted on the reserve, except for the Skylark trail (north of the B1042 / Gatehouse shop) or along the public bridleway which runs straight from the Gatehouse shop to Biggleswade Common. The only exception to this are assistance dogs, due to the sensitive wildlife and habitats here. We know that the countryside is a dog walking paradise. It’s important to remember the special surroundings here are wonderful havens for rare wildlife. Even if dogs are very well behaved, wildlife can easily become startled by a dog they perceive as a predator.

Disturbing wildlife does more than simply causing it to move away; it uses up their energy, decreasing their chance of survival regardless of season. Thank you for protecting the special wildlife by not exercising your dog here.

Dogs are welcome on a lead on the public bridleway around the reserve. Please keep to the designated rights of way only.

Please keep your dog on a lead / under close, effective control at all times, due to the sensitive wildlife and habitats here. We know that the countryside is a dog walking paradise. It’s important to remember the special surroundings here are wonderful havens for rare wildlife, we have dog-friendly routes for you and your pooch to enjoy. Even if dogs are very well behaved, wildlife can easily become startled by a loose dog they perceive as a predator.

Disturbing wildlife does more than simply causing it to move away; it uses up their energy, decreasing their chance of survival regardless of season. Thank you for protecting the special wildlife here by keeping your dog on a lead or under close, effective control in the signposted areas.

  • The Buzzard, Nuthatch and Woodpecker trails are not public footpaths, so sorry, no dogs are permitted here other than assistance dogs.
  • Dogs are welcome on the Skylark Trail and bridleway. Please keep dogs on a lead when using the bridleway from the reserve entrance to the Biggleswade Common exit and on the Skylark Trail through the farmland (as signposted).
  • Dog water bowls are available outside the shop.
  • Sorry, dogs aren’t permitted in the visitor centre, shop or café other than assistance dogs.
  • Dogs die in hot cars, please do not leave your dog in the car when visiting us.

Group booking information

Small groups can book guided walks by arrangement with the reserve team.  Charges/donations apply.

Downloads

Helping you find your way around. PDF, 3Mb

The Lodge trail guide

Contact The Lodge

Save nature with a staycation in the UK

Family arriving at a Travel Chapter cottage

Saving the nature that you love for future generations to enjoy. Make the most of your visit by staying in one of thousands of handpicked cottages across the UK. Simply book your stay here to support our partnership. Throughout 2021 holidaycottages.co.uk are supporting our conservation work – saving species and restoring habitats right across the UK at a time when the future of our planet has never been more important and protecting nature for future generations.

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What will you see?

Our star species

Recent sightings

Hawfinch female, Forest of Dean

Find out about recent wildlife sightings at The Lodge. 

Read more

Nature spectacles

Between December and January, our farmland areas come alive with hundreds of hungry finches among the wildbird crops. Winter thrushes feed on the acid grassland from January - March, and you can see woodland snowdrops, daffodils, then bluebells.

Gardens are most colourful from May, with flowering of the rhododendrom / Azalea collection and start of the roses. Sand martins busy feeding young at Sandy Heath Quarry. Summer sees breeding and hunting hobbies over the heath, and the heather flowering in August. In a warm damp autumn you can experience some of the 600 species of fungi.

Seasonal highlights

Spring sees woodpeckers drumming and calling in the trees, songbirds setting up breeding territories, snowdrops and bluebells on the woodland floor and azaleas and rhododendrons in flower in the headquarters' gardens. Chiffchaffs return in March, and the number of winter thrushes peak.

Summer has dragonflies and butterflies around the ponds and heath with hobbies hunting the dragonflies. Newly-fledged birds - blue and great tits in the woodland and green woodpeckers on the heathland. Common lizards bask with their young on dead logs. August is a great time to see the heather turn purple.

Autumn sees the first winter finches beginning to arrive, fungi appearing on the woodland floor, trees bearing nuts and seeds and the wonderful colours of silver birches and oaks before the leaves fall.

Redwings and other thrushes feeding on berries and flocks of tits, finches along with woodpeckers and nuthatches on the feeders signify winter is coming. Keep your eye out for a winter farmland bird spectacle. 

About The Lodge

Habitat

Heathland is a key habitat at The Lodge, home to breeding hobbies, ravens, common lizards, green tiger beetles and other invertebrates of bare, sandy soil. RSPB is restoring it for breeding nightjars and woodlarks and it is already one of the best inland sites for natterjack toads. In winter, large flocks of wintering thrushes use the acid grassland of Sandy Ridge and its scrubby margins. On the north side of the B1042 we manage an area of farmland for wintering farmland bird populations, together with parts of a sand quarry for their rare invertebrates, lichens and sand martin colony.

The hilly, oak-dominated woodlands offer a rich natural experience to those exploring The Lodge’s network of winding trails, with sunny rides and glades where spotted flycatchers catch food for their broods, and a developing under-storey is alive with bird song and insect life. Standing and fallen deadwood is an important microhabitat, used by deadwood insects, occasionally the scarce lesser-spotted woodpeckers, and many of the 600 fungi species found on site.

Conservation

Work began to restore lost heathland in 2005 and now heather seedlings are growing on Sandy Warren.

Heathland covered The Lodge for 5000 years, but almost all was lost to forestry and agriculture in the 1800s. In order to reseed the area with heather, our work includes mowing, grazing with sheep and stripping turf. We are also managing pools for reintroduced natterjack toads by maintaining water levels and removing encroaching trees.

We are managing the semi-native woodland at The Lodge to encourage wildlife such as beetles, bats and lesser spotted woodpeckers. This involves removing some non-native trees, while encouraging areas of oak and birch. A series of trails let you explore The Lodge and the heathland restoration project on Sandy Warren. Further trails lead from the reserve entrance onto Sandy Heath. The Lodge gardens are managed organically and peat-free for wildlife, and inspire visitors to give nature a home in their own gardens. 

In 2016 we built a wind turbine on a field adjacent to our headquarters at The Lodge near Sandy, Bedfordshire. It is found in Sandy Ridge, a field south of the B1042 Potton Road and east of the RSPB's Gatehouse shop. Siting the turbine close by means The Lodge receives energy directly from the turbine making it the most efficient location. Wind speed data suggested the turbine should produce 1.85 million kWh per annum, which is enough to power the equivalent of approximately 450 medium-sized homes.

At our current rate of consumption, this means the turbine should generate the equivalent of over half of the RSPB's total UK electricity needs across 127 sites, ranging from single person offices to our UK HQ. The wind turbine is predicted to reduce UK carbon emissions by around 600 tonnes of CO2 every year. It is expected to directly reduce RSPB The Lodge’s carbon emissions from energy usage by up to 63 per cent.

Wind turbines will typically ‘pay back’ the energy used during the manufacturing process in less than 8 months.

The wind turbine is 100 metres at its highest point, with a rotor diameter of 53 metres. In severe storms, when winds reach a speed of 25 m/s or more, the turbine will automatically shut down due to health and safety requirements set by the turbine manufacturers.

Ecotricity, in partnership with the RSPB, conducted assessments over three years on all aspects of the wind turbine proposal and how it could affect the surrounding area. We completed sufficient research to confirm that Sandy Ridge is a suitable site for a single wind turbine.

The full results of our environmental assessments were submitted alongside our application to Central Bedfordshire Council in August 2013. In April 2014, Central Bedfordshire Council granted planning permission for the wind turbine. No money raised from members, legacies or grants issued to the RSPB was used to fund the planning and construction costs of the turbine; these were covered by our partner, Ecotricity.

The RSPB will not receive any of the direct revenue or subsidies from the turbine, although we will make a small saving on our current electricity costs. This money will be used to support our conservation work.

We have no plans to build any further turbines at The Lodge reserve and our understanding is that, due to space restrictions, building further turbines would not be possible.

Partners

Site information

The Lodge nature reserve opened in 1961. The woodland, heath and acid grassland cover 220 hectares, forming the largest stretch of heathland in Bedfordshire.

You can explore this attractive nature reserve along 5 miles (8 km) of trails, visit the beautifully managed gardens, the Iron Age banks and ditches on Galley Hill, or watch woodland birds from a viewpoint.

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Latest blog posts

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What people are saying about The Lodge

Visited with all the family ages 6 to 71, we all had a great time. The quarry area was superb, saw plenty of woodpeckers, tits and even a treecreeper. Fantastic.

Andy Vine

Activities and events

Activities for children and families

The reserve is well used by families. The Wild Play Trail is very popular. Self-led activities are available from the visitor information centre and shop.

There are many events available for families, such as Big Wild Sleep-outs, and mini-beast safaris.

For more information on events and to book tickets, please visit events.rspb.org.uk/thelodge

Leisure activities

  • History - The Lodge is unique in Bedfordshire in that it holds two ancient hill forts, dating back to the Iron Age, more than 2,000 years ago. One of these, on Galley Hill, is in particularly good condition, and you can wander around the ancient banks and ditches and imagine about what life may have been like for the people who lived there.
  • Thinking of buying binoculars or a telescope? Interested in using a digital camera with a telescope, but don't know where to start? Book an appointment with one of The Lodge shop’s friendly team. We will be happy to spend an hour with you, helping you choose the right equipment. Whether it's your first pair of binoculars, or you're thinking of upgrading your telescope, we can help you find the one that’s best for you. We hold regular open days which run between 10 am and 3 pm and offer advice and help. Our friendly, trained staff are here every day and they're happy to provide assistance.

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