A report by Fiona Agassiz reprinted from the Essex Wildlife Trust Brentwood and Billericay Group Newsletter, Spring 2008.
The glorious February sunshine brought the daffodils and many other bulbs out very early at Warley Place this year. The crocuses, daffodils and late snowdrops all bloomed at the same time, making a glorious sight for the many visitors who came to our first open weekends in March. Two groups of Miss Willmott's red rhododendrons, one to the left of the main carriage drive and the other near post 6, also bloomed in February. At least one red admiral butterfly was spotted in the walled garden area on 11th February. It is no wonder that Warley Place is so popular in the springtime!
We had lovely sunshine for our two guided snowdrop walks this year, on 13th and 17th February. Between 40 and 50 people joined the walks on each of the two days, escorted round in three groups, with other visitors walking round on their own, and a total of £443.76 was taken in donations on those two days.
Many visitors have been delighted by the small birds on the reserve this year. Firecrests, tree creepers, wrens, nuthatches and long-tailed tits are amongst the particular favourites, while the woodpeckers have been tapping away, often echoing each other, in the Spanish chestnuts and other trees. A lesser spotted woodpecker has been sighted by several visitors and several people have reported seeing a muntjac. The rabbit population, however, seems to be in decline.
A survey of bats on the reserve was undertaken by the Essex Bat Group on 27th January. Eight hibernating bats were found, 6 Natterer's Myotis nattereri and 2 Soprano Pipistrelle Pipistrellus pygmaeus. The group made various recommendations to increase our bat population in the future. Other visitors to Warley Place this spring have included Beth Chatto, Sue and Wol Staines who own Glen Chantry, Mark Flanagan who is the Head of the Savill Gardens, and Kate Portman who is head gardener at Spetchley Park in Worcestershire. Spetchley Park is where Ellen Willmott's sister Rose lived after her marriage, and where so many of the precious Warley Place plants were taken after Ellen's death.
The huge beech tree near the bridge over the gorge, originally formed by planting several beech saplings together, had to have its branches felled this spring for safety reasons. This very old tree used to be regularly coppiced so that its wood could be used, but this had not happened for very many years, so it had become much too large. Carting away the logs and brash from this tree and from two large sycamores which were also felled this winter was one of the major jobs for the Monday work party, which now numbers well over 20 people each week. Very many thanks to this friendly and dedicated bunch of people, especially of course Jim and Len, who work so hard for our enjoyment of the reserve.
The monthly Tuesday Research Group has also been busy, checking and tagging or re-tagging many of our rare trees on the reserve. In the autumn they visited some of the properties once owned by the Willmotts on the other side of the road, by kind permission of the present owners. It is easy to forget that in her heyday Ellen Willmott owned as much land on the other side of the B186 as on the Warley Place side. There are still many fascinating features there from a century ago.
The year 2008, which is both the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ellen Willmott and the 30th anniversary of the opening of Warley Place to the public as a nature reserve, began with the launch of our website, http://www.warleyplace.org.uk/. It tells you all about the reserve, including our opening times and our current news, and it has some superb photos which can be enlarged if you click on them. Please visit it!
The biography of Ellen Willmott, Miss Willmott of Warley Place, by Audrey le Lievre, will be re-published in July by Faber and Faber, in time for the anniversary of her birth in August, so please look out for this. Meanwhile, John Cannell's second novel about Warley Place, 'The Walnut Tree' is now available at the Trust's visitor centres and at Waterstones in Brentwood. We would like to thank the manager of Waterstones, who is not making any administrative charge for the sales of 'The Wall' and 'The Walnut Tree', thus ensuring that all the proceeds go the Essex Wildlife Trust. 'The Walnut Tree' is a completely different story from 'The Wall', but it follows the same format, being partly set in 1920 and partly in the present. It is a very enjoyable and informative read, and I thoroughly recommend it.
