Louise Dennis takes us on a tour of Firs Farm. She concentrates on the wetlands, which are an example of a Sustainable Urban Drainage Scheme (SUDS), as as the much smaller wetlands in Broomfield Park. The Firs Farm area was once marshy, before the Moore Brook was culverted - put into a pipe and buried. To create the wetlands, part of the brook was "daylighted" - brought back to the surface. The land was reshaped to create the wetlands, with the spoil from excavations used to create embankments to hold excess water in wet weather, to prevent flooding of properties in Edmonton. As the water passes slowly through the wetlands, pollution is filtered out. It then goes underground again, before flowing through more wetlands in Pymmes Park, eventually entering the River Lee, then the Thames and finally the ocean.
However, well before the wetlands scheme was implemented, Firs Farm was a designated nature conservation area because it contains ancient hedgerow and woodland, which Louise also takes us into.
