Interesting Places
Here are some random sample locations of interest in Essex. Also take a look at sites shown on our sites map, geology site map and brownfield site map, with the site account and locate site facility.
locate Swaines Green
Area of four former agriculture fields unused since 1980s, now owned and managed as a nature reserve and Epping Forest buffer land by City of London Conservators and by Epping Town Council. Free public access.
locate Hales Wood
Hales Wood is an ancient, coppice-with-standards wood situated on the Chalky Boulder Clay of north-west Essex. It supports a rich assemblage of plants and animals, including the Oxlip.
locate Bushy Hill, South Woodham Ferrers
A remarkable south facing landslip scarp with some rare invertebrates.
locate Clacton Cliffs
Foreshore and cliff exposures and excavations in the Clacton district are one of the most important Pleistocene interglacial deposits in Britain.
locate Jills field
Area is a narrow triangle, above the A13. It has original Thames Terraces sandy soil, never been much disturbed. It is mostly open ground, with scrub Birch encroaching. On the cutting bank of the A13 is a geological exposure that is a SSSI. However, this does not protect the field on top.
locate Chafford Gorges
A series of old chalk quarries, now owned and managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.
locate Hutton Country Park
Managed as an area of conservation value in what is otherwise an area of vast intensive arable land and urban expansion. Situated on Wash Road Hutton - car parking available.
locate East Tilbury Silt Lagoons
Silt lagoons dating from the late 1970s/early 1980s (still too wet to walk on in 1985), now mostly dry sandy and gravelly grassland with areas of lichen heath and a certain amount of scrub invasion, adjacent to saltmarsh by River Thames.