Dinton Pastures Country Park

The park is 450 acres (180 ha) in size.^[1] It has seven lakes, two rivers, three public bird hides, and meadows.^[2] One of the lakes, Lavells Lake is designated as a local nature reserve.^[3] The two rivers that flow through the park are the River Loddon and the Emm Brook.^[4][5] The Museum of Berkshire Aviation and the headquarters of the British Entomological and Natural History Society are both located in the park.^[6][7]

The site is popular for a number of sports including sailing, angling, kayaking, canoeing,^[2] and running, playing host to a parkrun.^[8] Other facilities include play areas and a cafe.^[9][10]

Anglo Saxons farmed the park's river meadows and called the area Whistley, where "wisc" means marshy meadows and "lei" means a woodland clearing.^[11] From the start of the 17th century, much of the area then belonged to Windsor Forest.^[12]

The present-day cafe was originally a farmhouse built in 1904, which was called 'High Chimneys'.^[13] In 1924 the area was sold to a farmer who renamed the farm after his home village of Dinton, near Aylesbury.^[14]

The country park is part of the river Loddon's flood plain and so makes a good source of gravel, between 1969 and 1979 an extensive gravel extraction program was carried out. Much of the gravel was used for the M4 and the A329(M).^[15]

In 1979 Dinton Pastures was opened to the public.^[16] In 1992, part of the country park, Lavells Lake, was declared as a local nature reserve by Wokingham Borough Council.^[3]

Eurasian chaffinch

Rose-ringed parakeet

Beris vallata

Eurasian teal

A collection of fauna located at Dinton

The site has the following fauna:^{[5][12][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]}

The site has the following flora:^[30][31][32]