Marston Vale

Get A Taste Of A Real English Community At Marston Vale

Marston Vale is a little known area of Bedfordshire but is also one of the true delights of the county. The history of the area is not very inspiring at all, but it does have many redeeming features! It used to be in the heart of the brick making district of Bedfordshire and actually played host to the London Brick Company for some time, that is until the clay pits that were a part of the landscape were exhausted and could no longer provide what the brick industry there needed. As such, the majority of the industrial plants have been destroyed and Marston Vale has undergone a major facelift!

The Marston Vale area had been characterised by the brick industry for so long that the area had been degraded as a result. It was aesthetically really ugly and the environment had been seriously damaged so the people of the area decided to do something about it and the Vale is now the home of a Community Forest. The Forest of Marston Vale is the result of an ongoing project to restore the area to its former, pre-brick industry glory!

The Marston Vale Trust is overseeing the project and welcome visitors so it is an interesting place to visit if you are interested in environmental issues. The project began to take shape in the 1990s and the country park was officially opened in the year 2000. It is one of only twelve such projects in the UK today and that makes it somewhat attractive to visitors, but the lakes that have been created out of the clay pits left there and the community activities that take place in the Forest of Marston Vale also prove to be big attractions.

There is a visitor centre at Marston Vale and you can hire bicycles from there to ride around the park at your own leisure. It really is a fantastic opportunity to see what we can do if we put our minds to it, and over 250,000 people every year do. Why not be one of them?