When we were thinking of buying the sales woman mentioned meadows etc which were on the actual development but we have not had the chance to investigate. Thankfully the route isn’t signposted (so it keeps out the riff raff) yet it does have a substantial passageway to it…
Literally a 5 minute walk from the house and you find yourself at a secluded entrance to what looks like a dodgy subway under the railway line – walk through it’s grim interior (although much nicer than most subways I have ever encountered) and you find yourself at a set of country gates and the entrance to Cymbeline Meadows and Charter Wood.
As I mentioned before I am both impressed and proud by the effort that Colchester and Essex council go to to preserve such spots and I am especially impressed that this one is within spitting distance.
On Tuesday morning Richard and I were lucky enough to spy Monkjack deer from the window of our kitchen and wondered where they came from… Now we know! Passed the wood outside the house, across the railway and you have miles upon miles of open meadow and protected Oak wood which rolls into farm land.
I say 2 miles as you can see from the map the start and end points are different – this is because I didn’t start the GPS tracker until we had already embarked on our walk!
The End point gives a good idea of the area as our house (and indeed no roads etc) are listed as it’s so new.
We saw all manner of trees, flowers, insects etc but best of all we saw very few people. This really does seem like a haven on our doorstep (although I wouldn’t venture down the subway on our own).
I have no doubt we will be spending more time taking walks, especially as we enter Autumn. What a lovely way to spend an autumnal morning…
Next time I am walking past the Meadow towards the station I can be grateful that it is just a stones throw from the station and our house.
Keith Tomlinson Photography 