1913 - 2001: a lifetime of difference
GRAHAM SMITH
48 The Meads, Ingatestone, Essex CM4 OAE
While browsing through some old copies of the Field Club Annual Report in the Essex Record
Office a few months ago, I came across an article relating to a botanical field meeting held at Fyfield
and Norton Heath on Saturday July 19th 1913. The leaders of the group were Mr Percy Thompson,
Miss Kate Skinner and Miss E. Willmott, F.L.S, (the last-named of Warley Place fame) and they led
their "small but determined band" from Ongar Railway Station to Fyfield and Willingale along the
banks of the River Roding. After being given a guided tour of the twin churches of Willingale Doe
and Willingale Spain by the vicar, the Reverend C. Lennard Payne, they retired to The Bell Inn for
tea and refreshments at four-thirty; the sensible opening-hours that prevailed prior to the First World
War are only now being reintroduced, nearly ninety years after the event! There then followed some
formal business of the Field Club, during which Mr F.J. Bennett, F.G.S., of The Cottage, Hatfield
Peverel (late of H.M. Geological Survey) was elected a Member. The party was then driven - whether
by pony and trap or car is unclear - to Norton Heath for further botanising before returning to Ongar
Station to take the home train.
As I had a week-long holiday planned for early July this year I thought it would be fun to re-enact
their outing and so on 9th July 2001 I scrounged a lift to the now defunct Ongar Station and set out
to follow in their footsteps. At the onset of th ei r ramble in 1913 they had to endure a steady downpour
of rain and the writer commented that "practical proof of the clayey nature of the subsoil (Boulder
Clay) being afforded by the muddy, slippery paths, along which the devoted band splashed and
'skidded' with but little leisure to look for flowers; hence, perhaps, the reason why Bupleurum
rotundifolium was sought in vain in the cornfields towards Fyfield, where it normally occurs".
Quite so. At this point I must confess to a bad botanical habit. If I get it into my head that a plant is
rare in Essex then I automatically assume that I'm never going to find it and, mentally, switch off.
Thus, even if I had stumbled across great swathes of Thorow-wax during this walk I would probably
have overlooked them!
The weather was kinder to me than it had been to them but, to begin with, the prospects for plant
finding did not augur well, my route taking me through acres of improved (ie flowerless) grassland
and cornfields spring-cleaned of weeds by modern herbicides. Still, the River Roding appeared to
be little changed; once, that is, you had forced a path through the five-foot high barrier of fertiliser-
fed Common Nettles Urtica dioca, Cleavers Galium aparine, Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium
and coarse grasses to view the water. Among the waterside plants found by the river in 1913 were
Yellow Water-lily Nuphar lutea. Square-Stemmed St John's-Wort Hypericum tetrapterum. Hemlock
Conium maculatum, Great Burdock Arctium lappa, Water Forget-me-not Myosotis scorpioides,
Brooklime Veronica beccabunga, Blue Water-speedwell V. anagallis-aquatica and Common Water-
plantain Alisma plantago-aquatica. All remain plentiful, as indeed are species not listed by Miss
Skinner, such as Purple-loosestrife Lythrum salicaria, Hemp-agrimony Eupatorium cannabinum,
Water Chickweed Myosoton aquaticum, Common Fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica, Skullcap
Scutellaria galericulata, Marsh Woundwort Stachys palustris, Greater Bird's-foot-trefoil Lotus
uliginosus and Lesser Pond-sedge Carex acutiformis. Perhaps these were so abundant in the Essex
landscape of that era as to be deemed unworthy of attention, but even Miss Willmott would surely
have noticed and remarked upon the pink and white flowers of Dame's-violet Hesperis matronalis
and the striking, three-foot tall columns of Great Yellow-cress Rorippa amphibia, a local plant along
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Essex Naturalist (New Series) 19 (2002)