Marsland Valley Nature Reserve
The Marsland valley nature reserve is located on the Cornwall-Devon border and managed jointly between the Cornwall and Devon Wildlife Trusts. The reserve provides habitat for a number of butterfly species including the Purple Hairstreak and a butterfly recording transect has been running here since the 1980s.
The land was donated to the Wildlife Trust by Christopher Cadbury who pieced together land purchased from 32 owners to form the 500 acre reserve. Christopher was grandson of John Cadbury who invented the chocolate bar, and he worked in the Cadbury Brothers factory as a young man. Later in life he spent much of his time and fortune on setting up nature reserves such as this one.
On walks
- Morwenstow to Marsland (4.4 mile walk)
Get the iWalkCornwall app
Download the app and use it to explore the walks and to purchase a guided route.
The app will direct you to the start of the walk via satnav.
The app guides you around the walk using GPS, removing any worries about getting lost.
The walk route is described with detailed, regularly-updated, hand-written directions.
Each time there is a new direction to follow, the app will beep to remind you, and will warn you if you go off-route.
A map shows the route, where you are at all times and even which way you are facing.
Each walk is packed with information about the history and nature along the route, from over a decade of research than spans more than 3,000 topics.
Once a walk is downloaded, the app doesn't need a phone or wifi signal during the walk.
The app counts down distance to the next direction and estimates time remaining based on your personal walking speed.
We keep the directions continually updated for changes to the paths/landmarks - the price for a walk includes ongoing free updates.
