| Westhouse Wood | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Nature reserve |
| Location | Colchester, Essex |
| OS grid | TL 974 271 |
| Area | 2.8 hectares |
| Managed by | Essex Wildlife Trust |
Westhouse Wood is a 2.8 hectare nature reserve north-west of Colchester in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. [1]
Colchester is a historic market town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in the county of Essex. Colchester was the first Roman-founded city in Britain, and Colchester lays claim to be regarded as Britain's oldest recorded town. It was for a time the capital of Roman Britain, and is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network.
Essex is a county in the south-east of England, north-east of London. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and London to the south-west. The county town is Chelmsford, the only city in the county. For government statistical purposes Essex is placed in the East of England region.
The Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) is one of 47 wildlife trusts which cover the United Kingdom. The EWT was founded in 1959, and it describes itself as Essex's leading conservation charity, which aims to protect wildlife for the future and the people of the county. As of January 2017, it has over 34,000 members and runs 87 nature reserves, 2 nature parks and 11 visitor centres.
The wood is mainly coppiced hazel, and other tree include small-leaved lime, crab apple, oak, ash, sweet chestnut, field maple and rowan. There are flowering plants such as wood anemones and foxgloves. [1]
The rowans or mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus Sorbus of the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western China and the Himalaya, where numerous apomictic microspecies occur. The name rowan was originally applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia and is also used for other species in Sorbus subgenus Sorbus.
Anemone nemorosa is an early-spring flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to Europe. Common names include wood anemone, windflower, thimbleweed, and smell fox, an allusion to the musky smell of the leaves. It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing 5–15 centimetres (2–6 in) tall.
There is access from a slip road off the B1508 road. [1]
