Paget Marsh

Paget Marsh is a few hectares of wetland in the middle of a built-up parish that escaped clearance, and it holds what Bermuda looked like before settlement: stands of endemic Bermuda cedar and palmetto, mangrove, fern and sedge, growing on peat several metres deep. A raised boardwalk runs through it from the road, kept above the wet ground, and interpretation panels explain what is growing. It is jointly held by the National Trust and the Audubon Society.

Background

The reserve covers 25 acres beside St. Paul's Church on Middle Road, south of Hamilton Harbour. It was listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 11 May 1999, the same year its boardwalk was built. That boardwalk is 400 feet long and 6 feet wide and rests on floating pontoons. The acidic peat reaches 20 to 30 feet deep and floods at high tide. Between 1946 and 1951 two introduced scale insects, Carulaspis minima and Lepidosaphes newsteadi, caused heavy damage to the cedar forest. The Audubon Society was behind the creation of the pond, on ground that had been a garbage dump in the 1920s.

Source: Wikipedia, "Paget Marsh Nature Reserve"

Highlights

• The endemic cedar - stands of the Bermuda cedar that once covered the island.
• The palmetto - the endemic palm growing alongside it.
• The boardwalk - the raised route through the wet ground.
• The peat - the deep organic ground the marsh has built up.

When to go

Year round; the boardwalk is open and free. Mornings are quietest. Mosquitoes are worst in the warmer months.

Before you go

The reserve is very small and the boardwalk takes twenty minutes. Mosquitoes are persistent. It sits in the middle of a residential parish, so the setting is not remote.

Nearby

The Botanical Gardens are east, and Hamilton is north.

Key facts