Essex Wildlife Trust, Abbotts Hall Farm, Gt Wigborough, Colchester, Essex CO5 7RZ
Hunsdon Mead
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67 acres, Owned
Grid ref: TL 421 114 (click for O/S map)
SSSI
Last updated 20/7/2008
An area of common land between the River Stort and the Stort Navigation, half in Essex and half in Hertfordshire, and one of the finest surviving unimproved grassland sites in the two counties. The Hertfordshire & Middlesex and Essex Wildlife Trusts acquired it jointly in 1981.
It provides a superb display of flowering plants. In April and May it is yellow with cowslips and marsh marigolds. As May gives way to June colours change continually, as plants such as yellow rattle, ragged robin, cuckoo flower, meadowsweet, bugle and many others flower in profusion. There are small colonies of green-winged orchid and adder's-tongue fern. Quaking grass and several uncommon sedge species are also present.
All the typical butterflies of hay meadow occur and the day-flying small yellow underwing moth is also established. Mayflies and dragonflies are much in evidence.
During the winter, when the Mead floods, large flocks of lapwing and golden plover come to feed along with other winter migrants.
For over 600 years the Mead has been managed on the ancient Lammas system under which local farmers graze their cattle in late summer after a July hay cut. If it were cut earlier some of the flowering plants would not have time to set seed for the following year. Grazing by cattle and sheep is allowed only between 1st August and 1st March, after which the vegetation is allowed to grow up.The remarkable abundance of wildlife found there is a result of that management regime, which we are continuing today.
Visiting
The reserve is about one mile north-east of Roydon and can be reached by following the Stort Navigation towpath from Roydon in the direction of Harlow a walk of about one mile. The easiest parking is at Roydon BR station.
Roydon station (Liverpool StCambridge).
Accessible at all times.
From mid-April until the end of June for flowers, and later in the summer for dragonflies and other insects.
Between March and July please do not walk across or into the Mead itself until the hay is cut. Trampling damages the plants and also reduces the value of the grass as hay for the farmer. During this period please keep to the towpath or walk in single file along the permissive path beside the River Stort.