Barking & Dagenham offers over 500 acres of beautiful, open, green space for visitors to enjoy! Known as The Dagenham Corridor, it stretches from Hainault to the River Thames and includes Eastbrookend Country Park, The Chase Local Nature Reserve, Beam Valley Country Park and Beam Parklands.
The Dagenham Corridor is a hugely important landscape for wildlife and with a combination of wetlands and drier acid grasslands, it provides a crucial habitat for a wide variety of birds, insects and invertebrates.
Eastbrookend Country Park
In 1991 the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham began landscaping the area to create a country park for everyone to enjoy. Thousands of tonnes of soil were moved, hundreds of trees planted, and the park was opened in June 1995. The park has continued to develop and now provides plenty of opportunities for formal and informal recreation, including:
- wildlife areas such as woodlands and wildflower meadows
- community orchard
- fishing lakes
- self-guided nature trail
- outdoor gym
- network of footpaths and cycle ways
In the heart of Eastbrookend Country Park is the Discovery Centre, the focal point for visitors to the Dagenham Corridor. The building forms a natural gateway into the wide-open spaces of Eastbrookend Country Park, the Chase Local Nature Reserve and beyond. A self-guided, circular nature trail, which begins and ends at the Discovery Centre, provides an easy way to explore some of the surrounding woodland and lakes.
The Discovery Centre was built using a variety of environmentally-friendly and sustainable building methods and materials. The centre is fully accessible and features a display introducing the history of the site along with the following facilities:
- café and seating area
- public toilets (including accessible toilet and baby changing facilities)
- education room (available for school visits, events and private room hire)
- bicycle racks
The centre is also the base of the Park Ranger Service and is one of the venues for outdoor learning in the borough, which you can find out more about on our school visits page.
The Chase Local Nature Reserve
Come and explore one of the best urban nature reserves in Essex. The Chase LNR covers 48 hectares with a patchwork of habitats, including shallow wetlands, reed beds, horse grazed pasture, scrubland, river and woodland.
The reserve is home to an impressive array of animals and plants, including the UK’s rarest native tree, the Black Poplar. Other notable plants include spiny restharrow, warty cabbage and black mustard.
The site is also a haven for birds with around 200 different species recorded here throughout the year; from snipe on The Slack and kingfishers along the River Rom to reed warblers in the many reed beds dotted around the reserve. Skylark, little ringed plover and lapwing have all been recorded breeding here, but The Chase is best known for its rare visitors during the migration periods such as pine bunting, great snipe and spotted crake.
Other animals include water voles, great crested newts, slow worms and badgers.
Beam Valley Country Park
As the River Rom flows onwards it becomes the River Beam and enters the Beam Valley Country Park South of the railway line. This area of river floodplain, scrub and grassland habitat supports a wide range of wildlife. Hidden amongst the vegetation you may notice pillboxes and other historical features dating back to the second world war.
In 2014 a new footbridge was installed, which links Beam Valley to Bretons Park, opening up the valley for informal access on foot or bicycle. Look out for the Sustrans portrait bench with 3 life-size sculptures of historical and cultural figures from the area, chosen by the local community.
Beam Parklands
Managed in partnership with The Land Trust, Beam Parklands is located where the River Wantz meets the River Beam. The parkland’s primary function is as flood defence, providing safe storage of 450,000m3 of water – equivalent of around 180 Olympic swimming pools – that in turn protects neighbouring homes, schools and businesses from flooding.
For a few days each year, after heavy rains, some parts of the site will be underwater. However, the paths and bridges have been designed to withstand flooding and the habitats created here represent environments that naturally experience regular flooding.
Along the rivers and floodplain are wildlife-rich reed beds, shallow ponds and marsh areas. The Parklands also support large areas of acid grassland which is scarce in the South East.