Ifton Meadows Nature Reserve

There is a surfaced route to the viewpoint providing easy walking and is suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs. Easy, reasonably level walking on other unmade paths, stout footwear recommended, can be very muddy. There are some steeper sections of path in the woodland. Parts of the site now have cattle grazing.

Refreshments and toilets are available locally in St Martins.

The site is accessible but you will need a ‘radar key’ to fully open the entrance kissing gate to allow access for a wheelchair.

Visitors are requested to keep to the paths and keep dogs under control especially during the skylark breeding season (April-July)

Ifton Meadows is a countryside site reclaimed from what was once colliery spoil. An example of an industrial wasteland being reclaimed by nature.

The 20 hectare (equivalent in area to 40 football pitches) site includes a variety of habitats:

• Price’s Dingle woodland and stream
• A pool at the top of Price’s Dingle
• Rough grassland provides summer nesting for skylarks
• Extensive views of the Clwydian hills

The site supports a wide variety of wildlife, from a magnificent display of spring woodland wildflowers, to birds such as skylarks and woodpeckers, bats, dragonflies, adders and grizzled skipper butterfly.

The area had been mined for coal for 400 years until Ifton Colliery was closed in 1968, and in the mid-1970s the spoil tips were regraded and covered. The site was opened to the public in 1978.