Brett 110 - Helping Essex Wildlife Trust At Chafford Gorges

As part of Brett 110 a group of volunteers were invited to assist Essex Wildlife Trust to help manage parts of their Chafford Gorges nature reserve.

The reserve is a 200 acre former quarry, a source of chalk for cement production until it closed in the 1950’s. Part of the location is now designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for the plant life that exists there, in particular it is a popular spot for seeing calcareous grassland and orchids.

The team was tasked with removing unwanted tree growth from an area that was affecting the quality of the nature reserve. Simon Treacy, Planning Director for the Brett Group said, “Once we arrived on site we quickly recognised the size of the task in hand - an area containing scrub and silver birch trees most of which were around 10m tall all needed to be removed. A meaty task indeed! By the end of the day the team had successfully cut down and removed more than 100 trees from the area. It was hard work, but great to be involved in making a difference.”

The team of Brett people and apprentice lumberjacks were aided by members of the wildlife trust who usefully described the reserve, its importance and the purpose of the work and kept the team topped up with drinks and good humour.

The volunteers on the day were:

Simon Treacy and Angela Watts from Robert Brett House, and Tracey Bentley, Dave Gent, Tom Shenton, Martin Smith and Kyran Standing from Brett Aggregates.

Chafford Gorges Revisit August 2021

Simon and Angela recently revisited Chafford Gorges to check on progress. Simon commented: "Angela and I visited Chafford Gorges to review the volunteering efforts of 2019 (Brett 110 years).

"Dean Williams was keen to describe the benefits of our work which is creating some wildflower meadows on site. The area we worked in felling trees, has been renamed ‘the Brett Willis Corridor’ By Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT). He was keen to show some orchids that were flourishing in the area and was expecting, in time, for other wildflowers to migrate from other areas in the Gorge to the corridor. In particular we observed two strains of wildflower in the corridor that EWT were particularly pleased to see – Common spotted orchid and round leaved wintergreen."