Hadleigh Great Wood: Introduction

Page x facing Page 1 of 278

Newspaper April 1808

Book Cover

Spooner and Bowdrey

Great Wood showing Poors Lane

Spooner and Bowdrey

LOCATION, TOPOGRAPHY AND DRAINAGE
J.P. Bowdrey and B.M. Spooner
Hadleigh Great Wood lies on the lower south-eastern slopes of the Rayleigh Hills, centred on National Grid Reference TQ51:820876. It is situated in the district of Castle Point on its boundary with the borough of Southend in south-east Essex.
The Belfairs Nature Reserve comprises the Great Wood and Dodd’s Grove, with a total area of 92.5 acres (37 ha). It lies on the south-western side of the valley of the Prittle Brook, situated between Poors Lane to the north-west and the old Corporation nursery and housing development to the south, where the main entrance is located in Warren Road.

Dodd’s Grove lies to the north of Poors Lane and is surrounded by farmland, with a small remnant of Coxall Wood to the north-west. The north-east boundary is formed by the Prittle Brook. This brook eventually flows into the River Roach at Sutton.

A small tributary of the Prittle Brook enters the Belfairs Nature Reserve on its western boundary and flows east-north-east. This tributary, often referred to as the Wood Drain, has now been dammed in two places to form the pond and scrape. The Prittle Brook itself formerly possessed many meanders but some of these have often been cut off during straightening of the brook which was done some time after the 1920s (Rackham 1986).

The dry beds of some  meanders are still visible, and the small pond in the south-east corner of Dodd’s Grove may be a former meander which, following management work, now retains water.

Various minor drainage ditches also occur, the most important of which now drains into
the bomb crater north-west of the warden’s hut.  The crater now usually retains water as a result of management work which was based on proposals put forward in 1948 by South Essex Natural History Society (SENHS) and carried out in 1951. The crater was deepened to form a pond and a small area around it cleared (Tutt, 1952).

Unaccountably, the surrounding area was planted with alien species including bamboo, Gaultheria and a few conifers. It is likely that the drainage ditch formerly flowed into the Prittle Brook but was diverted into the bomb crater, presumably in an attempt to form a permanent pond. Other temporary ponds and some dry hollows exist, principally in the west of the Reserve.

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