Letcombe Valley is a nature reserve south of

Letcombe Regis Letcombe Regis is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The village is on Letcombe Brook at the foot of the Berksh ...

in Oxfordshire. It is managed by the

Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), is a wildlife trust covering the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of S ...

(BBOWT), with the assistance of the Friends of Letcombe Valley. The reserve was part of a manor formerly known as Benhams, which was purchased in 1851 by a racehorse owner called Thomas Parr. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the manor became a centre for scientific research, which was acquired in 1985 by a chemical company, Dow Elanco. The company created a nature reserve on land next to

Letcombe Brook Letcombe Brook is a stream in the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, England. It rises at the foot of the Berkshire Downs in Letcombe Bassett and flows through Letcombe Regis, Wantage, Grove and East Hanney to join Childrey Brook, which is a ...

, and when the research centre closed in 2002 the main part of the site was developed for housing. BBOWT was given a fifty-year lease on the nature reserve in 2010 as a condition of planning permission for the housing. Letcombe Brook, which runs through the reserve, is one of only two chalk streams in Oxfordshire and 161 nationwide. Wildlife includes

water voles The European water vole or northern water vole (''Arvicola amphibius''), is a semi-aquatic rodent. It is often informally called the water rat, though it only superficially resembles a true rat. Water voles have rounder noses than rats, deep brow ...

and fish such as bullhead,

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morp ...

and the primitive

brook lamprey The brook lamprey (''Lampetra planeri'', also known as the European brook lamprey and the western brook lamprey) is a small European lamprey species that exclusively inhabits freshwater environments. The species is related to, but distinct from, ...

. There are also

Daubenton's bat Daubenton's bat or Daubenton's myotis (''Myotis daubentonii'') is a Eurasian bat with rather short ears. It ranges from Ireland to Japan (Hokkaido is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and n ...

s, while insects include rare flies. Additional habitats are ancient woodland and a small area of chalk grassland. There is access from a bridleway at the top of South Street.

References

{{Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust Nature reserves in Oxfordshire