Rawcliffe Meadows is a water meadow, or floodplain meadow. This means that at times it is inundated with water from the River Ouse that upon the water being allowed to discharge back into the river as the threat to the City of York subsides deposits a layer of silt. This makes the land very nutrient rich and under the traditional Lammas method a combination of grazing and hay-cutting reduces the opportunity for the potentially dominant rough grasses to drive out the tastier, to herbivores, flowering plants such as great burnet, knapweed and meadowsweet.

After 1st July the hay is cut and then at a suitable moment around Lammas day (1st August) a controlled number of cattle will be brought on to graze before the ground becomes too damp.

Centaurea nigra – Common Knapweed (c) M.Phythian 2013