The woodland flora of the Forest of Writtle and surrounding area
are to be found on the eastern edge of Mill Green Common, adjoining Haldin's (Harding's) Farm,
both of which appear to be flourishing fifteen years on. In the Forest as a whole, though, fallen
coppice stools - both Hornbeam and Sweet Chestnut - seem to have survived better than standard
trees. In the aftermath of the storm several of the woods (or parts thereof) on the Coptfold estate
were clear felled and replanted; so too much of Great Edney Wood at Writtle Park. A Scots Pine
plantation in Fryerning Wood was completely flattened by the hurricane and this area was also
cleared and replanted with native woodland trees while large numbers of mature oaks were removed
from a broad swathe of nearby College Wood, adjoining Maple Tree Lane. All this work greatly
benefited the flora. Elsewhere, though, most of the trees were left where they fell and they remain
there to this day, slowly returning to the soil and providing a habitat, much appreciated by insects
and fungi, that was in short supply before the coming of the storm. That other great natural event of
the past few decades - Dutch Elm Disease - has devastated the farmland landscape in the Forest but
has had relatively little impact on the wooded areas as only a few woods - ancient or modern -
contain much elm, and in those it is mostly confined to the margins.
Thus, today, at the onset of the twenty-first century, the Forest is beginning to resemble once more
a mosaic of clear-felled and mature woodland with mostly small (but occasionally more extensive)
patches of recently worked coppice, while the partially restored Heather grassland at Mill Green
and the large area of long-term set aside grassland at Writtle Park bring to mind the open common-
land familiar to me as a boy. Deer, which can be a serious threat to young coppice, do not seem to
have caused much damage in this area apart, possibly, from one small section of Barrow Wood.
Unfortunately they do have a sweet tooth, many delighting in nibbling the flowers of helleborines
and other orchids! They are certainly common in the Forest - I counted over 200 Fallow Deer
Cervus dama during one recent walk - but numbers are controlled by shooting at both Writtle Park
and Coptfold, possibly elsewhere. Of course, unless a ready market can be found for the cut wood,
coppicing will never be resumed on the kind of regular cycle that is so important for the maintenance
of the woodland flora but the situation is greatly improved on that of thirty years ago and although
much has been lost - including the four species of fritillary mentioned earlier - there are signs of
hope for a better future.
THE WOODLANDS
Set out below are brief descriptions of all the woodlands in the area, their current condition, and a
few notes on the more notable plants to be found in each.
1. The Main Forest Springs and Associated Commons.
Great Edney Wood: TL658035. Size: 22 ha/54 acres, of which around two thirds were grubbed
out in c. 1970. The remaining woodland was clear-felled and replanted following the hurricane of
1987 while the thirty-six or so acres of converted arable land has lain fallow since the early 1990s.
Nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos returned to breed in the wood for the first time in many years
following this work while the set aside grassland has developed into an ideal nesting habitat for
Tree Pipits, up to four pairs occurring some years. Woodlarks Lullula arborea have also prospected
the site in two recent Springs. Very few saplings have as yet colonised this site, possibly because of
grazing pressure by the large populations of both Fallow and Muntjac Deer Muntiacus reevesi that
are present in the Forest. The wood has a typically impoverished dry acid-ridge flora but a small
rubbish dump inside it, used for waste soil and garden rubbish from elsewhere on the estate, recently
produced the only area records of both Dense-flowered Fumitory Fumaria densiflora and Common
Fiddleneck Amsinckia micrantha. Common grasses such as Yorkshire Fog Holcus lanatus, Soft
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Essex Naturalist (New Series) 20 (2003)