There are two areas of interest in this park, the Parsloes Lake itself and ‘The Squatts’, an area of rough grassland a little to the north of the lake. The Squatts has been declared a Local Nature Reserve by the borough. The rest of the park consists of wide expanses of amenity grassland, which are not included due to their limited value to wildlife. However, there is considerable potential for enhancement of the nature conservation value of these areas, particularly where elements of acid grassland still survive. The ‘Just Walk’ project uses this site as part of the Walking the Way to Health (WHI) scheme.
Local Wildlife Site
Accessible Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation
Parsloes Park
Borough: Barking and Dagenham
Grade: Borough Grade II
Access: Free public access (all/most of site)
Area: 13.01 ha
Description
Wildlife
The lake in the south-west corner of the park supports good numbers of common waterfowl, with tufted duck among the species nesting on the two wooded islands, and little grebe and shoveler regular in winter. Marginal vegetation is quite diverse, and includes sea club-rush and hemlock water-dropwort as well as the more common great reedmace, hard rush, and gypsywort. The small-flowered cranesbill, which is scarce in London, is found in this area. The grassland of The Squatts is largely dominated by false oat-grass, Yorkshire fog and cock's-foot. It contains typical meadow flowers including hairy tare and meadow vetchling, as well as hemlock water-dropwort, more usually associated with watersides. It supports many invertebrate species, particularly butterflies such as meadow brown, large white and various skippers. Skylarks have nested in The Squatts, and meadow pipits are frequent in winter.Facilities
Playground; trim trail
No photo yet available for this site
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