The Lakes at Stanborough Park

The Lakes at Stanborough Park were opened in 1970. They are man made and were built as a result of gravel extraction at the time of the building of the A1(M) Motorway, although the thought of a riverside park had been considered since the Master Plan of 1949.

Below you can find information on habitats and animals around the lakes. See the pages on The River Lea for more information about plants, animals and water quality on and around the river as it travels through Stanborough Park

The Boating Lake

The Boating Lake (the north lake) at Stanborough is 4.6 hectares in size. It is a shallow lake, under one metre in depth with several small islands. The boating lake is fed by water from the River Lea at its north end and from a spring. Excess water flows over a weir back into the river at the south end. Coarse fish such as carp are bred in the boating lake and fishing is banned here.

The Sailing Lake

The Sailing Lake (the south lake) is 6.2 hectares in size. This lake has no islands but is deeper than the boating lake, more than 2m deep in places. Unlike the Boating Lake the Sailing Lake is ground water fed. Before the lakes were built the River Lea used to flow through part of the Sailing Lake but it was re-directed to the west side. Many water sport activities take place here, including sailing, windsurfing and angling.

Water Quality of the Lakes

The only significant problem for the lake is Eutrophication or nutrient enrichment. Eutrophication is when plant nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, increase in the water. This causes excessive plant growth and algae in particular will increase rapidly if there are excessive nutrients, creating a 'green pea soup' look to the water in the lakes. Very few other plants can grow in the lakes due to the algae blocking the light, thus the other plants die.

When the algae begin to die off, the bacteria that decomposes them increase greatly in the lake and they use up lots of oxygen. The oxygen levels in the water fall, starving fish and underwater insects of vital oxygen and many will die. The cause of the nutrients input can be caused by high nutrients flowing into the lakes from the River Lea, from people feeding the wildfowl and excrement from such a large number of birds that feeding the birds can result in.

Wildlife of the lake

The lakes are visited by and provide a home for many animals. Even with their artificial nature they, like many other gravel pits in the UK, have become important wildlife sites. As well as fish and birds, Daubenton's bats come to the lakes at Stanborough to feed on insects around the water's surface. You can see these bats just after dusk in the summer months as they swoop low over the water to pick off insects.

Fish

The Sailing Lake was originally stocked with bronze bream, roach, common carp, mirror carp and perch. These species are still found, along with species such as rudd, tench, crucian carp and chub. Pike and zander have been introduced in the past illegally.

Birds

Stanborough Park is home to a variety of different waterfowl throughout the year.

Habitats and Plant life