Our Nature Reserves

During this period of restriction, I have been taking daily exercise walks with the exception of Sundays. I normally go out about midday and return around one ‘o’ clock, on average about 9,000 steps or that is what my phone is telling me. Last week I decided to spend two days walking around Marks Hill Nature Reserve which is managed by the Basildon Natural History Society. It must be at least two years since I last walked around the reserve and I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of coppicing work that has been carried out in this time, resulting in abundance of lovely wild flowers.  Also due to the clearance one can see signs of our Plotland Heritage i.e.  plotland footpath, the odd well (safely filled in), gate posts and the odd pile of building materials. In its heyday it must have been a beautiful tranquil place to live on the slope of the hill overlooking Laindon towards St Nicholas Church. As you would expect I took a number of photographs and I congratulate the volunteers for their hard work, it is certainly paying off. I still have not covered the whole reserve so it will see me back in the weeks to come as long as we are able to continue taking our exercise walks.
In between these walks I also visited Lincewood, the Old Cow Fields, Langdon Hills Country Park and the Essex Wild Life Reserve and again I was impressed with the amount of work the volunteers have been doing. Within a week the bluebells will be in full bloom. I wonder how many of our 170,000 Basildon Borough population realise what a gem they have on their doorstep.

Ken Porter
6th April 2020