Bibliography
Benton, P. (1867) The History of Rochford Hundred.
Brown, E. (1927) An Essex Island Parish. Essex Review Vol. 36 pp. 164-186.
Flett, J.S. (1937) The First Hundred Years of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.
280 pages. H.M.S.O.
Leaning, F.E. (1951) The Dalton Book. Typescript copy at Society of Genealogists.
P. Thompson. (1930) Obituary Notice William Herbert Dalton (1848-1929). Essex
Naturalist Yo]. 23 pp. 41-42.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Angela Santamaria for kindly reading and correcting an early draft of
these notes.
Field Meeting for spring flowers in Jill's Field, 5 May, 2006
Mary Smith 33 Gaynes Park Road, Upminster, Essex RM 14 2H.I
Six people met at 2pm on a beautiful summery afternoon on Friday 5th May, 2006, in
Love Lane, Aveley. We set off towards Jill's Field, a wild area of original Thames
Terraces with very sandy, low nutrient soil west of Aveley but east of the new A13. Jill
Ireland, who lives in Love Lane, is a local naturalist who first drew our attention to this
interesting area which she had spotted while walking her dog. Part of it is a SSSI for the
geological exposures on the banks of the road cutting, but the plants on top are just as
special. Several surveys had already been done in this area a few years ago, but Tim
Pyner managed to find several more species of interesting or unusual plants. New finds
included Early Hair-grass Aira praecox, Little Mouse-ear Cerastium semidecandrum,
Lesser Chickweed Stellaria pallida and Great Brome Anisantha diandra. You will
soon realise that of these 4 species, 3 are tiny (hands and knees stuff) while the last is a
big chap, rather hard to miss. Most of the plants in Jill's Field are tinyworts, due to the
low-nutrient sandy soil, but the Great Brome was a little way away where plants are a bit
bigger. While Tim was bottom-up and head down, others were studying the scarce
plants already recorded, such as Spring Vetch Vicia lathyroides, Subterranean Clover
Trifolium subterraneum, Bird's-foot Ornithopus perpusillus, Changing Forget-me-not
Myosotis discolor, and spotting numerous butterflies such as Speckled Wood, Painted
Lady, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Common Blue, and enjoying the Sky Larks singing
overhead. The nearby woodland in a pit was declared very boring, and so was the ex-
grassy area now covered with Goat Willow and Silver Birch.
So at about 3:30 we decided to rum around and cross the A13 using the footbridge
slightly to the south. Over the other side on a sloping meadow, Martin Gregory spotted
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 51, September 2006 21