Pope's Meadow

Green Flag Award Once part of the grounds of Pope’s Manor, this small 13.7 acres of established parkland, includes open grassland, a pond, a play area and a copse as well as several veteran trees. Pope’s Meadow car park is located off St Mark's Road, Binfield, Bracknell RG42 4AY. View a map of the location.

Pope's Meadow in autumn Facilities and key features

The children's play area is regularly used and the football pitch is available for junior clubs to hire or for the public to use on an informal basis.
Other amenities include an interpretation board, a circular disabled access path, benches and picnic tables.
For those who are looking for more adventurous pursuits, the site is intersected by Bracknell Forest Ramblers Route. This enters off Mark’s road and runs left alongside a fence, skirts around a pond and waymarks guides walkers across Pope’s Meadow to an exit in its north-west corner.
A permanent orienteering course is available for both adults and children giving you the opportunity to explore the site at your own pace. For further information about the orienteering courses provided in our parks and countryside sites in association with Berkshire Volunteers and The Big Lottery Fund, see our Orienteering web page.
The meadow area is managed as a traditional hay meadow and is home to many wildflowers, insects and small mammals.
The large trees of the parkland (some of which are veteran) are mostly common or pedunculate oak, although there are also limes and conifers and a mixed hedge of native species.
The balancing pond which holds excess water in times of flood is essential for supporting a variety of wildlife including . frogs, toads, damselflies and dragonflies.
The copse area mainly consists of holly, oak, hawthorn, and hazel which provides good shelter for birds such as chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, robin, dunnock, great tit and blue tit. In the summer the site is visited by migrants such as blackcap, chiff-chaff and willow warbler.
The copse is also an important habitat for shade-loving plants such as wood sorrel and bluebells. Decaying wood is host to a wide variety of fungi, the fruiting bodies of which can be seen in the autumn.
Other management measures to try and encourage wildlife include the installation of stag beetle loggeries and hibernation places for toads called hibernaculum's.

Leaflet available Parking available Surface paths Disabled access Picnic area Play areas for young children

History

Pope’s meadow is named after Binfield’s most famous resident, the poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744). Known for such works as ‘Pastorals’, ‘Essay on Criticism’ and ‘The Rape of the Lock’, Pope sang in the local choir and is also remembered locally for his poems on Windsor Forest and the River Lodden. Much of his work was written while living in the village.

Award winning

Pope's Meadow was the first site in Berkshire to receive the prestigious Green Flag Award and has now won the award every year since 2001/02. The site has been praised for its access, facilities, maintenance and nature conservation. Ongoing work at the site, including nature conservation tasks, has improved facilities and greater community involvement will continue to make sure that Pope's Meadow retains this prestigious award.

You may also be interested in other Green Flag sites in these other Green Flag sites Shepherd Meadows / Sandhurst Memorial Park in Sandhurst and Lily Hill Park in Bracknell.