RWF Stubbers Memories-2013

STUBBERS OUTDOOR ADVENTURE CENTRE: OCKENDON ROAD, UPMINSTER, ESSEX, RM14 2TY

MEMORIES: FLORA, FAUNA & GEOLOGY 1990s – 2000s

I first visited Stubbers in the mid 1990s as a voluntary youth worker when the then “Essex Association of Boys’ Clubs” acquired the site from the London Borough of Havering as an outdoor pursuits centre.

Since then Stubbers has been run alongside the now “Essex Boys and Girls Clubs” as a not-for-profit company running outdoor activities for youth clubs, schools and other groups.

The small fishing lake and the Warden’s house at Stubbers – December 2009

I assisted in organising a county angling match on the small lake by the Warden’s house. This small lake, which was obviously part of a smaller area of the original gravel workings, held a number a fish including Carp, Roach, Rudd and, most interestingly, a head of small Barbel. These are normally found in clean, fast running rivers (the River Lea in Essex for instance) but these strong little torpedoshaped fish must have been introduced and they had obviously grown to like the clean, gravel pit waters and looked healthy. There was said to a be a population of these fish in Gloucester Park Lake in Basildon but it is doubtful whether they would ever breed and I am not sure if they still exist at Stubbers. There were introductions of Barbel to the Essex/Suffolk Stour in the 1980s, some more recently in the Roding between Ongar and Passingford Bridge and I am also aware of a netting report of one lone specimen from the River Wid in the Hutton area. Later on, as a consequence of a dry, hot summer when it was feared the water level in this small lake was falling, we spent a happy afternoon catching as many of the sizeable carp we could and moved them to the much larger nearby Russell’s Lake which is used for sailing and other water activities, where its larger area and deeper water would make for a safer habitat. The other slightly smaller Coys Lake was at that time not so heavily used and on the Saturday of our angling match a local model boat and aircraft club were using it. I do not think any of the three lakes on the site have been seriously fished since then but it would be both interesting to try and to carry out some sort of ecological survey of these special areas. All three main lakes have populations of various waterfowl.

Cross-country by Russell’s Lake, Stubbers - December 2009

Also at this time, I was fascinated to see the famous walled garden which still existed behind its high walls behind the Warden’s house and further secured by a pair of large wooden gates at the eastern end. I had already been impressed by several heavily laden Damson trees that stood out on either side of the drive up to the centre itself and I was keen to see if any old plants in the garden remained.

One afternoon, I managed to get permission to go into the site which necessitated a rather The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe affair by which you went through a locked door in a lean-to potting shed and thence through another locked door into the garden itself. That afternoon it was being worked on by volunteers funded by a Thames-side oil company and you were still able to see the path ways and I noted various old style fruiting trees and bushes, namely Medlar and Quince. This was my only view of the walled garden until I returned to Stubbers in December 2009 to assist and take photographs at a national cross-country event (which is where the photographs in this article were taken) but sadly the large doors had now gone and one could easily enter inside and see where the majority of the paths and planting had been. Now nearly some four years later, I am not sure what the plans are for the garden but possibly this could be the site of educational projects for horticultural and ecoactivities.

The shell of the walled garden at Stubbers – December 2009

Whilst walking around the whole site that cold day I encountered a large noisy flock of Ring-Necked Parakeets on the southern boundary of the two main lakes, Russell’s and Coys, and took photographs from the top of the artificially created eminence, both west towards the distant hazy skyline of Canary Wharf and back east over Coys Lake looking towards Langdon Hills with the M25 motorway walling in the middle distance.

Stubbers - view over Coys Lake to the M25 and Langdon Hills beyond – December 2009

Written in response to the article by Mary Smith, on William Coys (1560 – 1627), from the Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 71, May 2013, pp 10-11.

Useful websites:

http://www.anglingtrust.net/ http://www.essexboysandgirlsclubs.org/ http://www.essexfieldclub.org.uk/ http://www.essexwt.org.uk/ http://www.rspb.org.uk/ http://www.stubbers.co.uk/ http://www.upminster.com/

Robert W Fletcher - rfletcher189@aol.com Ingatestone, Essex June 2013