| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 | |
| Area of Search | Northamptonshire |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | SP 640 425 [1] |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 17.8 hectares [1] |
| Notification | 1985 [1] |
| Location map | Magic Map |
Syresham Marshy Meadows is a 17.8 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Silverstone in Northamptonshire. [1] [2]
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I".
Silverstone is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Towcester on the former A43 main road, 10 miles (16 km) from the M1 motorway junction 15A and about 12 miles (19 km) from the M40 motorway junction 10, Northampton, Milton Keynes and Banbury. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,176. The A43 now bypasses to the south-east of the village.
Northamptonshire, archaically known as the County of Northampton, is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015 it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by Northamptonshire County Council and by seven non-metropolitan district councils. It is known as "The Rose of the Shires".
This site consists of two nearby areas of wetland in valleys which drain into the River Great Ouse. The northern one is a mire on shallow peat, and the southern one is agriculturally unimproved grassland and marsh on diverse soils, which has over a hundred flowering plant species. [3]
The River Great Ouse is a river in the United Kingdom, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in central England, the Great Ouse flows into East Anglia before entering the Wash, a bay of the North Sea. With a course of 143 miles (230 km), mostly flowing north and east, it is the one of the longest rivers in the United Kingdom. The Great Ouse has been historically important for commercial navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows; its best-known tributary is the Cam, which runs through Cambridge. Its lower course passes through drained wetlands and fens and has been extensively modified, or channelised, to relieve flooding and provide a better route for barge traffic. Though the unmodified river probably changed course regularly after floods, it now enters the Wash after passing through the port of King's Lynn, south of its earliest-recorded route to the sea.
A footpath leads into the northern area, but there is no public access to the southern one.
