Location: Jubilee Road & Vesey Street, Devonshire NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Devonshire Marsh is the largest contiguous open space in Bermuda, giving the area significant aesthetic and ecological value. The marsh is comprised of a west basin, between Jubilee Road and Parson’s Lane, and an east basin, between Middle Road and Vesey Street. Containing Bermuda’s largest peat marsh habitat and fresh water lens, the marsh was never used for dumping rubbish, unlike most wetlands in Bermuda. It was, however, extensively filled around the edges with quarry waste to create farmland for growing celery, which, unusually, enhanced the value of the habitat. This filled area later became wet pasture. The habitat of the original marsh largely consists of sawgrass and bracken-fern savannah.
In the mid 20th century, to control mosquitos the Department of Health dug ditches around the marsh and created open water areas in which mosquito larvae-eating Gambusia fish could flourish. This also added to the habitat value, although today the ditches have become overgrown with invasive cattail.
Unlike some of Bermuda’s peat marshes, because of its brush fire prone habitat, Devonshire Marsh has been extensively burned, first in the “great fire” of 1914, and most recently in 2018.
A total of 35 acres of the marsh are under the protected ownership of the Trust, some of it owned jointly with the Bermuda Audubon Society.
