JUST off the High Street, if you follow the path through St Andrew’s churchyard towards Weydon School you’ll cross a stretch of open land running alongside the River Wey.

The Bishop’s Meadow Trust was set up nearly a decade ago to buy this land and prevent development on the town’s last remaining flood meadow. Over 500 townspeople pledged anything from £5 to £5,000 to save the meadow and local volunteers have since managed it for the preservation of wildlife.

Now the National Lottery have recognised their efforts with a grant of nearly £10,000 to do a full survey of all the birds, reptiles, moths, bats, and other animals living on the meadow. Surrey Wildlife Trust had experts out on the meadow at the crack of dawn all over the summer counting critters, with help from the volunteers.

Using their findings the Trust are working towards making the meadow a haven for wildlife, improving the habitat by encouraging native wildflowers, plants and trees to flourish.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for the bigger beasts too. From early spring you will see a few cattle at the far end of the meadow, adjacent to the cemetery.

This is part of a plan to reintroduce the traditional method of keeping the meadow grass down. Not only do the cattle eat the grass, but their hooves are also really good at treading wildflower seed into the ground so that flowers grow again the following year. But don’t worry, fencing is already in place to make sure the bulls don’t escape and go running up the high street!

Dog walkers who live in the middle of town have known about the secret meadow for ages. At the end of the day they often meet on the meadows for a chat while their furry friends chase each other around exhausting themselves before bedtime.

In contrast, down by the river you can see people quietly fishing, finding a moment’s peace in the middle of the busy town centre, with only the rumble of the A31 in the background to remind them that the rat race isn’t far away.

Come down and check it out for yourself. Or better still get involved and volunteer at www.bishopsmeadowtrust.org