We are celebrating 50 golden years of giving nature a home this year, so once a week we are looking back on a particular feature of our past....

Now the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that our address is Myers Farm - giving a hint into what was here before it became a nature reserve. As you approach our visitor centre, you will notice features of its agricultural past such as some of the old hinges on which the barn doors would once have hung. So how did the conversion from farmstead to visitor centre come about?

When Leighton Moss became an RSPB nature reserve back in 1964, it was leased from Leighton Hall, but this didn't include the farm buildings which were still in use. John Wilson, the first Warden of the reserve spent the first year surveying the wildlife, deciding on how to manage the site, and installing visitor infrastructure. The first visitors were allowed onto site from April 1965 and so a visitor reception was needed.....

  The first visitor centre, 1965 (RSPB)

The first visitor centre was located in an area that is now the start of the path that runs parallel to the road (heading to the causeway). It served as a tool store and visitor welcome point. In the first year of being open to the public, Leighton Moss received 375 visitors. However, by 1975 we had reached the 10, 000 visitor mark, and needed a somewhat bigger place to meet and greet them. 

Now we had purchased the reserve from Leighton Hall in 1974, and the farm buildings and house at Myers Farm had been included in this, but they were in a very bad state of repair. Although an architectural student  had chosen the buildings as a project and had drawn up detailed plans for their conversion into a visitor centre, the cost was well outside the means of the RSPB. However, in 1979 a stroke of luck hit in the form of the Countryside Commission. They had been given some extra money by the government and wanted to know if the RSPB had any suitable projects, the only catch being it had to be spent within six months. Well thanks to the student, we had our designs in place and after gaining planning permission, work started late in 1979. The new visitor centre was then officially opened in May 1980 by Lord Winstanley, Chairman of the Countryside Commission. The facility that was most well received was the new toilet block which replaced the old Portaloos! Over the next few years, as money became available, an office, laboratory and much improved residential volunteers accommodation were added into the building. 

The old barn now houses our award winning cafe, shop and education room, offering facilities to over 100,000 people that visit every year to enjoy the wonderful wildlife and beautiful scenery at Leighton Moss and the surrounding area. 

  The visitor centre today (Ken Harrison)

And what became of the old shed? Well it is actually still in use! It now lives in the orchard at the end of the visitor centre and provides extra storage space for the Wardens.