Yorkshire’s WallFest launched to protect crumbling boundary wall of ‘world’s first nature reserve’

Pioneering environmentalist Charles Waterton enclosed his parkland and lake near Wakefield in the 1820s Over four years in the 1820s, Charles Waterton built a 9ft-high, 3-mile-long wall around the parkland and lake of Walton Hall. The fox- and poacher-proof boundary enclosed what could be the world’s first nature reserve, completed in Yorkshire 200 years ago. Waterton, an eccentric, controversial and pioneering environmentalist, built nest boxes, special banks for sand martins and innovative ...

By Patrick Barkham