When you cut through from Audlett Drive, there are many Cudlesacs. The looping branching roads lead nowhere for road traffic. But on foot it is a different matter. You can avoid the culdesacs and go via The Abbey Fish Ponds.

The Abbey Fish Ponds nature reserve is looked after by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). The sign says that the earthworks were built to contain the fishponds in 1320 and should be treated with care, and that dogs should be kept on a short lead because of the grazing wildlife. As you can tell by the weaved fence it is a green area where conservation volunteers work. The nature reserve helps to conserve the fishpond banks.

This small steam may have supplied some of the water for the ponds. It runs the length of the nature reserve, from the Radley Road to Audlett Drive. The fishponds have been left as a rather boggy oasis among all the houses that surround.

At some places the dry reeds from last year surround areas of water, but none of them deep enough to host the carp that the monks kept to supply the Abbey with food.

You would have thought from this picture taken from the bank of the fishponds that you were in the countryside, but you are surrounded by recent housing estates in the town of Abingdon. So thanks to some old fishponds there are green areas to walk, where wildlife can thrive.