Warley Place - An Essex Wildlife Trust Reserve.

 

 

My goodness, hasn't the weather been awful this winter? The snow and the rain made it difficult to maintain the paths in the condition we would have liked, although there was little shortage of volunteers turning up to do their best. In fact they were there, in reduced numbers, every Monday in rain or snow or when it was literally freezing.

 

 

It was a shame that, because of the weather, the snowdrops were far from their best during the snowdrop walks – in fact they proved to be three or four weeks later than last year. Despite that, and the cold damp conditions, Olive and Thelma had two large groups to take round on the Wednesday and a full car park. Two more of us helped on the Sunday and four groups were taken round. On the Thursday a group of forty-eight knowledgeable and very friendly Dutch enthusiasts were shown round and said how delighted they were with the reserve. Some promised to come back during the warmer weather and spend much longer there. Other groups were able to postpone their visits until later and they got the benefit not only of the greater number of snowdrops but also the slightly warmer weather.

The daffodils too were very late. In fact when the specialist group came round on the last Tuesday in February, with the open weekends about to start, we joked about putting a notice up with an arrow on it and saying 'See the snowdrop', because there was only one out at the time. However the weather did improve and eventually we got our usual spread of yellow to greet our visitors.

 

 

In the autumn newsletter we said that we had re-started removing rubble from the basement kitchen, and this work is now complete. Only part of the floor has been uncovered and the rest has been left as the base for banks on which ferns etc. will grow for the benefit of wildlife and visitors alike.

 

 

Quite a bit of effort has gone into Health and Safety aspects around the Reserve. Both seating and fencing have been improved, and we are trying to do the same with the paths. There are many low areas that collect rainwater but filling them with a material that does not spoil the appearance of the paths themselves is proving difficult. Some have been drained using small gullies to lower areas, but these are the exception and there is much to be done.

The main drive is a particular problem because of its age and construction and anything permanent would spoil the appearance of this lovely old road. It really wasn't designed for the weight of today's traffic.

Roots across the paths are another problem. We may be able to build the paths up over them or alter the path to go round them, but again we do not want to affect the ambience of the place.

 

 

For safety reasons we have had to remove the top section of the walls of the old coach house. Parts were continuing to fall down and the contractor was able to just lift many of the bricks away from the old lime mortar. The biggest problem was that as the very last part of the wall was removed a number of hibernating bats fell out. That is another story and covered elsewhere in this edition of the Newsletter.

The Essex Bat Group paid one of their regular visits in December and identified Soprano Pipistrelle and Natterer's bats, but there are probably other species hidden away. A bat survey is planned for later in the year.

 

 

The specialist group still goes round on the last Tuesday in each month, happy to pass on their knowledge to those of us who are still struggling to identify many of the plants at Warley Place. Old ruins are still being uncovered to reveal a little more each time of the work Ellen Willmott and her team carried out.

 

John Cannell