Peasmoor Piece

Peasmoor Piece is a strip of woodland in Marston which has been designated as a Nature park and has been accredited as a SLINC.It covers 1.2ha and is squeezed between New Marston school playing fields and the housing estate around Dora Carr Close.Oxford City council’s website states that, “Peasmoor Piece has small areas of grassland near the pond and at the south end of the site.” The pond also plays a part in flood alleviation.The park can be reach from Marsh Lane and can be found to the south of Oxsrad playing fields. From the southern end of Peasmore Piece, the park can also be reached via Copse Lane.Peasmore Piece is basically a strip of woodland with a cycle track running through it. I have always really enjoyed walking/cycling through it. The woodland is wide enough to blot out most of the surrounding buildings on both sides of the cycle track.On a personal level, it provokes feelings of nostalgia because it reminds me of what Barracks Lane and Rhymers lane used to be like before they had roads built over them. The only giveaway that this was the present, not the ghostly past, was that the cycle track was perfectly level and smooth and made of compressed sand. It wasn’t the roller coaster of mud that Barracks Lane, Rhymers Lane, and indeed some stretches of the Thames between Folly Bridge and Iffley Lock, used to be.It might not sound very extraordinary calling the park ‘a strip of woodland’ but I found it to be very beautiful and a huge delight.In my opinion, it is a considerable achievement to have saved this strip of greenery and transformed it into such a delightful place.Peasmore Piece is only a few hundred yards away from Court Place Farm Nature Park so visitors have an opportunity to see two nature parks for the price of one.