Whet Mead, usually styled as Whetmead, is a 10.1 hectare
Local Nature Reserve in
Witham
Witham () is a town and civil parish in the Braintree district, in the county of Essex, England. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 25,353. It is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands on the Roman road between the ...
in
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
. It is owned by
Braintree District Council Braintree may refer to:
Places
* Braintree, Essex, a town in England
** Braintree District
** Braintree (UK Parliament constituency)
** Braintree Town F.C., a football club in the town
* Braintree, Massachusetts, U.S., a city
** Braintree High Sch ...
and managed by Witham Town Council.
This site was formerly a rubbish tip, and before that a sewage works. Most of it is grassland with many different flowering plants, and a range of butterflies, dragonflies and seed-eating birds. Mammals include
wood mice,
bank vole
The bank vole (''Clethrionomys glareolus'') is a small vole with red-brown fur and some grey patches, with a tail about half as long as its body. A rodent, it lives in woodland areas and is around in length. The bank vole is found in much of Eu ...
s and
pygmy shrews. There is also scrub and young woodland. The
River Brain
The River Brain is a tributary of the River Blackwater in Essex, England. It has been claimed it lent its name to the town of Braintree, although it seems that the name ‘Braintree’ is older, and that the river name is a back formation from ...
runs along the southern boundary, meeting the
River Blackwater in the south-east corner.
References
{{coord, 51.7929, 0.652189, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Local Nature Reserves in Essex