Paradise Local Nature Reserve

Paradise is a Local Nature Reserve in Newnham, a suburb in the south of Cambridge, UK. It is owned and managed by Cambridge City Council.

Geography

This site of 5.4 acres (2.2 ha) on the west bank of the River Cam has marshland and wet woodland with mature willows. Upstream is Skaters' Meadow, managed by the local Wildlife Trust, and downstream is the Sheep's Green and Coe Fen Local Nature Reserve. Flora include butterbur, and the reserve has the uncommon musk beetle, which lays its eggs in the willows.

There is access by a road from the junction of Newnham Road and Barton Road.

History

Today, the name Paradise designates the nature reserve adjoining Owlstone Croft, but formerly it embraced the whole area up to the Lammas Land. There were once tennis courts known as the Paradise Courts on the University Hockey Ground. This hockey ground, located at the junction of Barton Road and Grantchester Street, has since been developed for housing. References to Paradise go back a long way. The earliest mention of bathing in Cambridge records that in 1567 the son of Walter Haddon, while at King's College, was drowned "while washing himself in a Place in the river Cham called Paradise", and William Stukeley, the eighteenth century antiquary, when at Corpus College in 1704 wrote: "I used to frequent, among other lads, the river in Sheep's Green, and learnt to swim in Freshman's and Soph's Pools, as they are called, and sometimes in Paradise, reckoning it a Beneficial Exercise".