EFFORTS to save a nationally important patch of land near Swindon have been given a £45,000 boost.

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust aims to create a new nature reserve in the hay meadows at Morningside Farm just outside Royal Wootton Bassett and just two weeks ago managed to raise £50,000 for a deposit that will mean it can be bought over the space of two years.

Dr Gary Mantle, the trust’s chief executive, said: “The support we have received has been incredible. It’s very exciting to see that we are already over a quarter of the way towards the £451,000 needed to secure the future of these stunning meadows.

He added: “We would like to thank everyone who has donated to the appeal.”

So far more than £130,000 has been raised – including a £45,100 donation from the Banister Trust, which works to promote the conservation and protection of the natural environment.

Described as a glimpse of paradise and a national treasure on the doorstep of the Bassett area, the meadows are a riot of colour in the summer, with rare and beautiful wildflowers.

Home to flowers like meadow cranesbill, meadowsweet, ladies bedstraw and betony, they also attraction wildlife.

Only 1,600 hectares of important wildflower meadow remain in the UK. Many thousands more have been lost as a result of intensive farming methods although some farmers are trying to encourage rare species to return by leaving wide field margins and converting arable land to grassland.

The 25 hectares at Morningside Farm were put on the open market with a £450,000 price tag and a suggestion that they were suitable for an equestrian buyer – a use the WWT warned would destroy them.

Designated a county wildlife site and nominated for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Coronation Meadows Scheme, the site had no legal protection.

So the trust launched a desperate appeal to raise the substantial deposit in the space of a few weeks so it could save the fields and preserve them for the nation. It now has 22 months to raise the rest and finally secure the site.

WWT currently has 38 nature reserves, including two at Lower Moor Farm and Clattinger Farm not far away at Oaksey, where green hay from similar meadows was harvested and spread on Prince Charles’s wildflower meadow at Highgrove.

The method, once used by farmers to repair bare patches of land, is a way of dispersing seed and boosting diversity.

More information about the appeal can be seen online at wiltshirewildlife.org/morningsideappeal