THE WOODLANDS OF ESSEX.
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covering an area of 700 acres with much woodland surrounding
it. There is much oak with a few birch, chestnut, larch, and
Scotch fir, also some small hornbeam. I shall later allude to the
finer oak trees in this park.
South Weald, also near Brentwood, has some fine timber
consisting of Elms, Oaks and Beeches, but the Hornbeam
Pollards form the principal feature in this park, possessing the
peculiarly quaint knarled and almost distorted appearance
associated with ancient pollarded trees. At Braxted, the seat of
Sir Charles Du Cane, there is a beautiful well-timbered park of
500 acres, the walls enclosing it extending three and a half
miles. In this park there is a very beautiful avenue of re-
markable Lime trees. The Park at Marks Hall is remarkable
for its fine oak timber, and those at Moynes Hall and Gosfield
Hall, as also many others in the county, are well timbered.
It will be impossible to refer in detail to all the well-wooded
parks within the compass of this paper.
If a curved line be drawn from Dedham to Mersea, including
an area some four miles west of Colchester, the woods to the
east of this line will be found to possess Hazel undergrowth
almost exclusively, the Hornbeam being absent, but in all other
parts of the count)' the woodlands, most of which border upon
Boulder-clay formation, have Hornbeam as the principal under-
growth. The Elm frequently provides the undergrowth in
woods upon the London-clay, though Hornbeam and Hazel are
both also found on this formation. It is noteworthy that whilst
the Oak is a frequent wayside tree on sandy districts, the Elm is
the only abundant tree in such situations on our Essex clays,
upon which it flourishes so well as to have been appropriately
called the "Essex weed."
[An account of the more noteworthy trees of our County
from Mr. Shenstone's pen will appear in a later part of the
Essex Naturalist.—Ed.]