Colne Valley is a 5.1 hectare Local Nature Reserve north and east of

Earls Colne Earls Colne is a village in Essex, England named after the River Colne, on which it stands, and the Earls of Oxford who held the manor of Earls Colne from before 1086 to 1703. History Manor of Earls Colne In the time of Edward the Confesso ...

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 is owned and managed by

Colchester Borough Council Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colchest ...

. The site is a linear strip along the route of the former

Colne Valley and Halstead Railway The Colne Valley and Halstead Railway (CVHR) is a closed railway between Haverhill, Suffolk and Chappel and Wakes Colne, Essex, in England. History A railway in the Colne Valley was first proposed in 1846 when the Colchester, Stour Valley, ...

, which has been converted to wildflower meadows. There are otters, bats,

stag beetle Stag beetles are a family of about 1,200 species of beetles in the family Lucanidae, currently classified in four subfamilies.Smith, A.B.T. (2006). A review of the family-group names for the superfamily Scarabaeoidea (Coleoptera) with corrections ...

s and birds. There is access from Colne Park Road in

White Colne White Colne is a village and parish in Essex, England, on the north side of the River Colne, opposite Earls Colne, and on the Colchester road, East South East of Halstead.''White's Directory of Essex'' (1848) It traces its history back to the ...

, which crosses the site.

References

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