AS you wind down the leafy country lanes between Bransford and Suckley, the road suddenly takes an extra dip at Bridge's Stone, where the Leigh Brook tunnels under the road on its way to join the River Teme about a mile away.

It is a lovely part of Worcestershire and where you will find one of the county's most fascinating and beautiful nature reserves.

Home to kingfishers, otters, green winged orchids and rare butterflies, the Knapp and Papermill could easily be described as a "best kept secret".

Between 5,000 and 10,000 people visit its wooded slopes, shady pools and sweet smelling summer hay meadows each year. About the same as Worcester Rugby Club would hope to attract to a single home game.

In a way this is no bad thing, because car parking facilities at Bridge's Stone are not vast. In fact they are quite compact, consisting of a lay-by and some space on roadside verges. When a neighbouring big house opened its gardens to the public a few years ago, vehicles blocked the lanes like Worcester in the rush hour. That problem has now been ironed out by the temporary use of a field, but there are no spare acres on a regular basis for the nature reserve, so a trickle of visitors actually suits it.

The Knapp and Papermill is one of more than 70 reserves totalling over 2,500 acres run by Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and one of the most delightfully traditional. A real hark-back to days gone by.

Stretching alongside the babbling Leigh Brook and through the adjoining woods and meadows, it leads away from its base at Knapp House, at one time a roadside country butcher's shop.

Signs of its former life are still there in the ancient building, which in parts dates back 800 years. Renovation is due soon. Not before time. For when you lift the floorboards in some rooms bare earth stares back from underneath.

A hint of modernisation will be welcomed by current warden Fergus Henderson and his partner Tina Deooray, who have lived at The Knapp for six years and are the latest in a long line of custodians stretching back to 1971, when the original 13.5 acres around the house were presented to the Trust.

The same year the adjoining Papermill reserve was acquired and subsequent gifts and purchases of small parcels of land have increased the total size to around 65 acres.

As spring rolls over into summer, it is a lovely place to be and not only for the leafy beauty and the dappled sunshine through the trees.

There is a special appeal to the Knapp, possibly due to a feeling that you are stepping back in time. The old trees have been there many years and alders still stand silently by the slow-running brook near Pivany Bridge, where ponies once brought rags for Gunwick Mill, the original papermill washed away in the floods of 1852. Nearby is Big Meadow, in summer a sloped carpet of wild flowers and butterflies embraced in a woodland bowl.

Red clover, knapweed and cowslips grow in season and currently there is a marvellous display of green winged orchids.

Now maintained as a traditional hay meadow, most of the land was actually a hopfield in the mid-1800s.

But it has been pasture for more than a century and hay is made on it every July before cattle are turned out to graze there until the autumn.

Otters have been gradually making their way back into Worcestershire, having been driven out by river pollution by the early 1970s, and signs of them are all up the Leigh Brook.

"One of the reasons is that especially here in the reserve, it is stuffed full of brown trout," said Fergus.

"There are some really good sized fish and four weeks ago I spotted a dipper, which is another good sign the water quality of the brook is improving."

Admission is free, although there is a donations box, and it's open every day except Christmas Day - which won't worry you now.