Chafford Gorges

Much of it has chalky soil and as a result some of the grassland areas have a great diversity of plants that like alkaline conditions, including kidney vetch, bladder campion and nine different species of orchid. It has a variety of chalky, sandy and gravelly soils and these support a large number of unusual insects. The large lakes, the woodland and the chalk cliffs provide habitats for a wide range of other animals, including great crested newts, bats, kingfishers and sand martins.

Warren Gorge

This is the largest gorge and can be viewed and accessed from the visitor centre and from the cycle path that runs around most of its perimeter. Much of the meadow in the base of the gorge has been translocated from chalk meadows on land near Chafford Hundred station that has now been developed.

In summer look out for kingfishers and house martins, feeding in or above the lake, and for common spotted orchids and pyramidal orchids in the meadow. In winter the gorge is visited by birds such as siskin, redpoll, pintail and pochard.

Lion Gorge

The large lake supports a variety of species of fish, including tench, rudd, pike and bream. A community-led fishing club has been set up to help manage these waters.

This gorge is also important for bats: four different species have been recorded here and they make a spectacular show feeding over the lake on warm summer's nights.

The cliffs at the southern end have important Pleistocene Thames deposits containing many fossils.

Grays Gorge

This gorge is well known locally for its great range of wild flowers, including nine different species of orchid. Other unusual plants that grow here include common milkwort, fairy flax and autumn gentian. It is important also for reptiles and butterflies, including grayling, green hairstreak and holly blue, and a host of nationally important species of bees, wasp and beetle.

The chalky meadows are managed to encourage the rare plants that may have survived in the seed bank within the soil, such as by removing some of the invading scrub. The rock exposures on the cliffs are important for many animals and are kept open by removing the buddleia that has colonised. Similarly, open areas in woodland are important for insects, so scrub is removed to maintain open glades.

Chafford's rocks tell a fascinating story of past dramatic changes in climate and sea level Ð both issues relevant today. Its chalk, deposited between 97 and 65 million years ago, is evidence of a 'greenhouse Earth'. Our present reserve would have been at the bottom of a deep and still tropical sea. This sea then retreated and a shallower sea was established around 60 million years ago, when the Thanet sand was deposited. This is present above the chalk in several places, but is best seen at the Mill Wood sand cliff. Much of it originated from ancient rocks in the Scottish Highlands which were then transported more than 500 miles along the coast to Essex, by a process known as longshore drift. Archaeological evidence indicates that settlement, farming and industrial development started around 10,000 years ago. From the 18th century to the end of the 1950s a large part of this predominantly upland chalk area was quarried for brickearth (used to make bricks), gravel and chalk (used to produce lime for mortar and whitewash and, from the 1870s, cement), with flint as a by-product. The companies involved in the quarrying have left their mark locally, with roads and places named after them Ð in the Nature Park both Wouldham Cliffs and Lion Gorge are named after extraction companies. More recently some of the derelict quarries were developed for housing and the consortium involved adopted the name Chafford Hundred in 1987. In June 2005 Essex Wildlife Trust took over what is now called Chafford Gorges Nature Park.

Visiting