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The Bingham Linear Park, which starts at the Saxondale end of Nottingham Road and continues south-east from there across the parish boundary to the River Smite, is rapidly becoming the focus of the natural history interest in the parish. The Park already supports a variety of wildlife and, no doubt, this will increase and develop in the future.

The Park follows the course of a dismantled railway line, one of two lines that passed through Bingham before linking together at Saxondale.

For information about the local railway history click on:
Bingham’s Railways

After removing the rails and sleepers, demolishing the bridge over Nottingham Road and landscaping where the bridge had been, the track was left undisturbed to the south-east of the road. Then, in March 1977, Bingham Town Council approached Nottingham County Council to purchase the old line from the point where it crossed Nottingham Road south-eastwards to the parish boundary. A nominal sale price of £10 was agreed. Since then the line has been developed as the Linear Park (sometimes called the Linear Walk), a recreational facility for the people of Bingham. The Town Council planted a number of trees and shrubs to augment the natural colonisation that had taken place.

In 2000 the Friendship Tree, a gift from the people of Wallenfels in Bavaria, twinned with Bingham, was planted near the start of the Park.

In 2001 Bingham Town Council asked EMEC Ecology to prepare a Management Plan for the Park continuing across the parish boundary as far as the River Smite. The site had already been designated a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC no 2/970) due to the presence of grassland and scrub communities of zoological and botanical interest. The habitats the site provides include secondary woodland, mature trees, scrub and grassland, occupying the former railway track bed and the verges on either side. The woodland areas are mostly to the west and the grassland is in the central and eastern sections.


Hogweed growing in the Linear Park Photo: Bill Bacon

For a précis of the Report made to Bingham Town Council by the EMEC team in November 2001 there are three pages:
A management plan for the Linear Park
List of plant and animal species recorded in the Linear Park
An account of the species found along the Linear Park and a management strategy for them.

The original species list made by the EMEC team may be read in their report. Since then many additions have been made. Richard J Penson added to the flora list between 2001 and 2005. In 2004 Mohammed Imran Ashraf and Chris Terrell-Nield of the School of Biomedical and Natural Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, studied the ground-running invertebrates. Information on the moths and micro-moths was acquired during 2004 in a project coordinated by the Friends of Bingham Linear Park. Access to all of these reports can be made through Bingham Town Council.

In addition an account highlighting the different species that may be seen on a walk along the Linear Park has been prepared called:A walk through the Linear Park.

For those who do this walk and are interested in the plants and animals they see, a brief guide for a walk from Nottingham Road to the River Smite has been prepared as a leaflet, which can be downloaded and printed to take out on the walk. To get a copy click here.


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