What?
This website is supposed to be a pamphlet about the cultural and natural history of High Woods. Something you can pick up in the Visitor Centre. A pamphlet I’ve been writing, in my head, for years. Numerous self-imposed annual deadlines for completion have come and gone, and all I’ve done is amassed more information, and identified more interesting (to me) topics that I need to better understand.
My own personal Catch-22 therefore is the more time I spend on this the further I get from an ending. But with the needle of my personal fuel gauge firmly in the red I’ve finally started to try and do more than just think these words. My son told me to start ‘publishing’ sections piecemeal via a website, and win the war of attrition that way. Apparently that is similar to how Joyce wrote Ulysses, although he only took seven years, and used magazines instead of the internet.
Anyway, this is a collection of words, pictures and maps regarding High Woods, and this is the beginning. One day it may be a fully fledged pamphlet, if my fuel lasts.
Why?
Someone needs to carve the runes of this place, before its too late. There are so many books about Colchester, focussing on the Romans, the Castle, the Civil War, but very little detail on High Woods, the true jewel in Colchester’s crown. And thats a pointer about how little we understand, and value our green spaces.
Looking south from the slopes at High Woods Country Park (Colchester’s best view™) we can pick out the tower of Colchester Castle, built 1076AD by Eudo the Dapifer, and William the Conqueror, on the site of a destroyed Roman temple from 49AD. Quite rightly we venerate and protect the ancient Castle site because of its fascinating history, but we should value similarly the living historical monument of High Woods, or Kingswood as it was known for centuries.
It’s effectively an open-air museum, predating the Castle by more than eight thousand years. We can learn so much about the past from the Castle, and the town within the walls, but HWCP is telling us about the future; there are warnings here should we choose to see and understand them.
And in 2026, HWCP is the single most valuable natural asset in terms of Colchester’s health & wellbeing (this is explained more under ‘The Country Park now’ heading).
But its a place that is facing challenges from every angle; on the ground it is being squeezed to within an inch of its life – every year there is more development around it, every year more footfall through it, more litter thrown into its brambles, every year more desire lines through the Ancient Woodland, and thus every year less Bluebells.
And every year it becomes less important to the council, less people and resources to care for it, less(nil) investment, and worst of all, less(nil) understanding of the true value of the site to people and nature. (I could go on for hours, and I probably will, but I’d rather not get distracted here – again, there is more about the value of the site under ‘The Country Park now’ heading).
And then we have the climate and nature crises. Having walked this place for over 40 years I can see the affects of climate change. In the winter the Southern Slopes are wetter with each passing year, yet in the summer the streams are dry much earlier, and much later. In 2026 autumn has arrived in July, parched leaves and distressed branches falling to leave a threadbare canopy.
The stream in the Central Valley, Aug 2026
So High Woods needs to be recorded and documented within the context of today, before its snatched away on the wind.
More than anything, I want to capture a snapshot of what we know right now – about its past, which is still only a fraction of what is out there, its present, which we know most about, and then the future, of which we know nothing for certain but have a gut feeling. It would be good to think that in 10 years time someone will read this, and think well nothing has changed, its still the same, what was he going on about? But, thats unlikely.
There is probably nothing new here, most of this is already known by many, but its a way of getting it all into one place.
As foundations, there are three main inspirations for me:
“A Landscape in the Making” written by Richard Mash. This is a booklet about High Woods, once available in the Visitor Centre way back when, and the single artefact that stimulated me to try and record things as they are now. I have used Richard’s work as a foundation for mine, but reading it now I am struck with how much has changed in the years since its photocopied production circa 1990.
There were of course many challenges for us all back in the late 80s/early 90’s but through rose-tinted glasses its easy to remember a relatively positive national disposition, a point where we had the good stuff, but were blissfully unaware of what was just around the corner.
Looking back now we can just about make out those halcyon days way out on the shimmering horizon, but between us and them lie dark features on the map we didn’t even need symbols for back then – I won’t give any oxygen here to the names and organisations that we would be better off without, but the Nature and Climate crises, unimagined back then, are now unavoidable truths.
The Rangers, past & present that I have worked with – Sonya, Nicola, Carla & Nick As a volunteer I joined for the local cause, but I stay because of the people. These are people with good hearts and good souls, the latest in a long line of stewards for High Woods who put nature and people at the forefront of their work every single day.
I’ve lost count of the number of times when, during a work party, one of the Rangers has halted proceedings to move a beetle or an insect from our work area to a safer spot a couple of metres away. We all stop and watch, with our digging, cutting, sawing, or hammering suspended until our friend has reached its safe haven. They do great work.
The site itself. I’ve been lucky enough to see so many of Essex’s (and Britain’s) wild places through my work with Conservation NGOs and my other volunteering roles. And I truly believe High Woods takes some beating for its genius loci, the breadth and depth of its habitats, its cultural history, and the views from its wide open spaces.
High Woods is effectively a living museum, a place with so much wisdom to impart, if we can only drag our eyes from our phones, follow the Countryside Code and start to understand, value, and care for our heritage.
How and When?
This project is a work in progress – as I work though sections I will add them to the website. My latest goal is to get it done by the end of the year, I’m just not sure which year. There are empty placeholders for which I have masses of raw information, and these will be populated when they are ready.
I now realise that, for the reader, a website doesn’t flow as well as a book but please rest assured I am doing this in the full knowledge that its highly unlikely that anyone else will be interested in any of this. For the sake of clarity these are just some of the things I am not; scholar, academic, historian, geologist, archaeologist, conservation expert, writer.
There is no comments section, or even my contact details, because of my luddite aversion to online communication, but if you’re reading this you probably know how to contact me.
I am always keen to hear new information about High Woods, so let me know if you have anything you can share, or you have any ideas for improving accuracy.
All pictures have been taken by myself unless stated otherwise. I have sourced some photos from the internet and have stated this and credited where possible, but if you see something that is yours that you want removed just let me know.
Climate Emergency Declaration & Green Hosting – I realise the irony that you are reading this via electronic means, and thus a server is quietly whirring away somewhere, simultaneously heating us up, and using our water, and so I’m trying hard to keep all the flashing bells and whistles to a minimum. If this all looks a bit old-school then good as thats my intention. I hope one day to put into an old-school, analog pamphlet with pages and a cover, because that will no doubt last longer than this version.
high-woods.org declares a Climate and Ecological Emergency.The scientific evidence is clear: we are on course for a catastrophic rise in global temperatures if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero. The 2018 Special Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave us until 2030 to avert the worst effects of this man-made environmental disaster, but we are way off course.
high-woods.org is a Heritage Declares signatory as an expression of its commitment to take action about climate change. The roots of heritage conservation, with its call for inter-generational solidarity and responsible stewardship of the inherited world, are deeply interwoven with those of the environmental movement. high-woods.org is a digital heritage project hosted on a verified green hosting service.
