As an addition to our my normal blog about things in general I thought you'd like to know more about a proposed new information room that our warden, Richard Barklem, would like to provide at Warley Place. Here is his article about it.....
NEW INFORMATION ROOM AT WARLEY PLACE
For some considerable time, the information room roof has been leaking down the back wall and damaging some of our displays. These have to be reprinted quite often and put back into their original frames. On inspecting the top of the wall, last year, I discovered that the first course of half round bricks was loose and the lime mortar was falling apart. Over a lengthy period of time lime mortar gradually begins to disintegrate and eventually crumbles away. The only way to fix the wall is to dismantle the top section and rebuild it with new lime mortar. Sadly since Len Dewell is no longer with us, we do not have an expert able to carry out this task. I'm sure many of you will know that Len, with the help of volunteers, rebuilt a lot of the walls that you see today, including the terrace wall from the ground up. Also, with the lime mortar in such a poor condition, once you start dismantling the wall the next course of bricks then becomes loose, and before you know it, you're at ground level. Therefore this is not an option with the current information room. We also use it as a "tea room" when we have a break during work party days. In the spring this can cause a conflict, if visitors want to look at the displays and it's full of volunteers! The only solution I could come up with was that we ought to have a new information room, bigger than the original, so we can display more of the history of Warley Place.
We had several lengthy discussions as to how we could go about this and where we should site it. It was decided to put it in the walled garden not too far from the current one. At around this time John Cannell received a call from a gentleman in Romford, a Mr Johnson, who asked if he could make a donation in memory of his wife who had sadly passed away, as they had both loved Warley Place. John told him about the possibility of us having a new information room, and he said he would be more than happy to pay for it.
The whole of Warley Place is a conservation area, so I contacted the council to see if we could erect a new wooden structure in the walled garden, and was told that it was likely going to need planning permission. I arranged a meeting with the conservation officer and the Arboriculturalist from Brentwood Council. They didn't have any issues with my proposal, providing I didn't dig down and disturb the roots from an adjacent oak tree. At the time of writing this (at the beginning of June), a planning application has just been submitted to Brentwood Council. I'm hopeful that this should only be a formality and we will be able to progress with this project and have it installed by September, depending on how long it takes for it to be constructed.
I can't thank Mr Johnson enough for his very kind and generous donation to Essex Wildlife Trust. The majority of the money was for Warley Place, and some allocated to a project at Fingringhoe. Not only will it pay for our new information room, but we will have some for other projects or equipment. He also paid for 10 tons of the granular sub-base we put down in the car park during the wet winter months.
A simple plaque, along the lines of the ones on the bird hides, will be put on the information room in memory of his wife, and once we have the building installed I'm hoping Mr Johnson can come and formally open it for us.
It is due to people like him that The Trust can carry out these projects to enhance the visitor experience of the countryside and wildlife. Thank you, once again.
Richard Barklem
