Bradwell Waterside. This scheme was proposed in response to an EU directive which
requires the Government to replace saltings lost during recent expansion work at
Felixstowe docks and Weymark's came top of a list of possible sites in East Anglia and
Kent. The announcement met with a good deal of local hostility, much of which was
centred on the loss of Weymark's Beach, where many people like to walk their dogs or
enjoy Sunday afternoon strolls. In my opinion their criticism was ill-judged as the beach
is likely to disappear within a few years irrespective of whether this development goes
ahead or not. In the past decade alone several hundred yards of Shrubby Seablite on the
edge of the beach has been uprooted by the tides and many tons of sand and shell
deposited on the marsh behind. The same is true of the beaches elsewhere along the
Dengie coast: they remain in place but are 100-150 yards closer to the seawall than they
were twenty years ago! This process seems to be accelerating and if the saltings are not
allowed to reform naturally, inland of the current seawall, then my generation may well
be the last to enjoy the solitude of these marshes, where you can walk for many thought-
filled hours with only the wind and sea for company. Much of the salt marsh bordering
the creeks and channels upriver of Bradwell has already been all but destroyed. The
problem that the Environment Agency has is to get people to think long term and to
accept that land at the mouth of the estuary may have to be given back to the sea in order
to relieve the threat of flooding to communities further upstream.
During the winter I made a bryophyte survey of both this beach and others at Sales Point
and on Gunner's Saltings. The last named area is situated midway between Bradwell St
Peter's and Glebe Outfall and forms part of the EWT Bradwell Cockle Spit Reserve.
The tiny shell-spits that form a barrier betwixt mudflats and marsh have received a
terrible pounding from the sea in recent winters and I was amazed to find any mosses at
all but a surprisingly rich community has survived on two of the spits and includes
species such as Eurhynchium swartzii (tucked away among the Suaeda), Homalothecium
lutescens, Bryum gemmiferum and Drepanocladus aduncus; the last a species normally
associated with the margins of ponds and other wet areas inland but which also, according
to A. J.E.Smith (The Moss Flora of Britain & Ireland) occurs in the upper reaches of salt
marshes. The communities on the other two beaches were subtly different from mat on
Gunner's. All three had E. swartzii in common but two of the dominant mosses at Sales
Point were Tortula ruralis and T. ruraliformis while at Weymark's, Pottia heimii was
very common in one area, Leucodon sciuroides was found on concrete blocks on the
edge of the beach and Brachythecium populeum on rotting boards along the edge of the
seawall. The rarest find, though, was at Sales, where several plants of the diminutive
Pottia crinita were found growing among other bryophytes. This is a very distinctive
member of the family, with rounded tips and long hair points to the leaves but
unfortunately it was not in fruit and so the record still awaits confirmation. The boards
along the edge of the wall, by the way, were put in place around twenty years ago. I
remember it well as each one was proudly stamped 'Produce of Malaysia' and gave rise
to the thought that a few months previously Orang Utans were probably clambering
around in the trees from which they came. Conservation has come a long way since
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 41, May 2003