WHAT IS HEATHLAND?
The definition of lowland heathland is accepted but the theory of its origin
is another matter. It is an easily recognisable open landscape dominated by
shrub species growing in packed mono-culture to the exclusion of other plants.
The soil is invariably acid and usually too wet or dry to be a good agricultural
prospect. Much heathland became common land used by all for stock grazing
and the cutting of furze and small wood. To keep it open for grazing, heathland
was periodically burned off to destroy developing woody growth. Consequently
the absence of trees is typical of the heathland landscape, although in the 1970's
this diagnostic point is unreliable, especially in lowland sites.
Lowland heathland is an artificially suspended transitional stage in the
natural succession culminating in oak woodland. This fact is readily demon-
strated in Essex, where most of our remaining heathland is disappearing
beneath scrub and secondary woodland, as a result of inadequate stock and
rabbit grazing.
Geology and climate obviously play an important part in the formation of
heathland. Lowland heaths and the vast hill heaths or moors in the north are
both treeless and yet are also completely different in geology, rainfall, tem-
perature and altitude. The absence of trees on the moors however is thought to
be as much due to the unsuitability of the present-day climate for native tree
growth as to the systematic burning of heather for the benefit of grouse. It
would be wrong to assume that hill heath has developed because trees could not.
Pollen research on similar heaths in northern Europe has shown that forest
always preceded heathland. The forest was cut by man allowing, through
grazing and burning, subsequent development of heathland, which gave way to
forest when the early farmers moved on. The cycle was apparently repeated
several times until changing climatic factors in recent times brought about
unfavourable tree conditions which stabilised the hill heaths.
Essex lowland heathland seems to have evolved along similar lines. The
earliest maps show it as part of the Great Forest of Essex. Following clearance
and several centuries of grazing and burning, a heathland flora developed over
ridge areas capped by the Bagshot Hill Zone deposits; a Pleistocene glacial
outwash of sand and gravel overlying the London Clay. These deposits are well
drained and situated in one of the driest regions in the country; ideal conditions
for the development of extensive heathland north of Maldon and east of Great
Braxted.
RECENT HISTORY OF TIPTREE HEATH
Tiptree Heath nowadays is to be found straddling the B1022 road half a
mile on the Maldon side of Tiptree. The present-day Heath is a mere fragment
of the huge area of heathland that once embraced 16 parishes. The bulk lay
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