The Incredible Dungeness Wildlife Reserve - Part 1

From a barren, desert-like beach in the shadow of a nuclear reactor to wildlife haven - a bizarre photo-story of nature restoration in Kent.

Dungeness in Kent is truly England’s desert by the sea. Shingle to the horizon. Salt, wind, the thrum of power lines. The hulking silhouette of the retired nuclear station on one side; life reinventing itself on the other.

It has now become a wildlife haven. We decided to take a look.

A walk to the sea at the end of the beach, near the retired power stations.

Nature here didn’t wait for perfect conditions. It hacked the system. It’s restoration by pragmatism: use what’s broken, make it breathe.

Once barren, now speckled with life across the mile long windswept shingle beach.

Once a vibrant fishing village, now the scrappy fishermen’s huts boast just 4 working fishing vessels sitting idly on the beach. Some of the huts decaying, some being restored. Now a diverse clattering of new and old.

‘Old’ in all its glory.

This is the lesson Dungeness hands to rewilders everywhere: scale is optional; intent is not. You don’t need a headland - just a patch and a plan.

It could be a scene from an old Mad Max movie.

Gravel pits became glittering wetlands. Bitterns boom, marsh harriers quarter, terns stitch white threads over reedbeds. Hares sprint the margins. In winter, wildfowl turn the lagoons into a breathing mosaic.

The Dungeness nature reserve is set back from the sea, now boasting mile after mile of open shingle, freshwater pits, wet grassland and stunning wildflower meadows.

On the shingle, Derek Jarman, the famous filmmaker wrote a manifesto in plants. Prospect Cottage - black timber, poetry on the walls; a garden spun from flint, driftwood, iron, and hardy natives. Sea kale, santolina, verbascum, poppies.

Perhaps one of Jarman’s greatest masterpieces.

Jarman created a biodiverse pocket-planet, tuned to drought, salt, and wind, covered in white, gleaming butterfies. Beauty from limits. Ecology as art direction.

Dungeness proves the future isn’t elsewhere - it’s layered onto the present. A windswept, almost post-apocalyptic beach teaching us how to start again. Begin with what you have. Work with the wind. Invite the wild in. Let it scale.

A beach now sprouting with nature and wildlife. Who would have thought?

LettsSafari’s micro-rewilding takes that brief and runs with it: ponds the size of paddling pools, messy corners, deadwood stacks, unmown ribbons, native scrub allowed to shrug off the shears. Small acts, repeated, become corridors. Corridors become networks. Networks become refuge.

Even in the shadow of the now retired Dungeness nuclear power station in one of Britain’s most bizarre and barren corners, nature is being restored. Supported by one of its most creative and controversial past filmmakers.

A new place of renewal. A place of dreams. A tribute to Kent 2.0.

Next week we explore this place further - a behind the scenes look at Derek Jarman’s cottage garden. A space bursting with nature and wildlife where only shingle lay before.

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