Aubrey Buxton Nature Reserve is a nature reserve west of

Elsenham Elsenham is a village and civil parish in north-west Essex in eastern England. Its neighbouring towns include Bishop's Stortford, Saffron Walden and Stansted Mountfitchet. History Elsenham is recorded in the ''Domesday Book'' of 1086 as ''Alsenh ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. It was donated to the

Essex Wildlife Trust The Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) is one of 46 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 ...

Aubrey Buxton Major Aubrey Leland Oakes Buxton, Baron Buxton of Alsa (15 July 1918 – 1 September 2009) was a British soldier, politician, television executive, and writer. Biography Early life He was born on 15 July 1918. His father was Leland William Wilbe ...

and his wife in 1976. The site was previously a park for Norman House. It is woodland on a sandy and gravel soil, with meadows and six man-made ponds. Grassland plants include cowslips, wild strawberries and

common spotted orchid ''Dactylorhiza fuchsii'', the common spotted orchid, is a species of flowering plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae. ''Dactylorhiza fuchsii'' is one of Europe's commonest wild orchids. It is widespread across much of Europe, with the range ext ...

s. There are birds such as nuthatches and woodpeckers, and many species of butterfly.

Black poplar ''Populus nigra'', the black poplar, is a species of cottonwood poplar, the type species of section ''Aigeiros'' of the genus ''Populus'', native to Europe, southwest and central Asia, and northwest Africa.Flora Europaea''Populus nigra''/ref> ...

s, which are the county's rarest native tree, have been planted to replace trees lost to storm damage. There is access from a track off Alsa Street.

References

{{Authority control Essex Wildlife Trust