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Leafy Water
Lane is so named because the area regularly floods in winter. The sediment
deposited enriches the vegetation of the grazing meadows, making good
summer grazing and a nesting place for Redshank. Tufted vetch, wild hop
and blackberry bushes line the hedges.
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Cauldron
in Colchester Castle Museum
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Carefully
cross Cymbeline Way (Avenue of Remembrance) into Sheepen Road using the
traffic island. This area was the site of Roman Temples, although nothing
now remains on the surface.
About
3,000 years ago, in the Middle Bronze Age, one of the first cauldrons
made in northern Europe was taken up this hill and buried half way up
in a religious ceremony. It was excavated in 1933 and is of great significance
as one of the earliest pieces of sheet metal work in Europe. It can now
be seen in Colchester Castle Museum.
A few metres along the road take a footpath/cycleway marked Lexden to
the right off Sheepen Road, note dense scrub on the left and more open
ground on the right. In Roman times (AD 125-200) this was a thriving industrial
area with kilns making tableware for export to the north of England.
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Cinnebar
moth caterpillar
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Where this
track turns south follow an unmade path to the left along the hedge. Here
the scrub has been thinned and acid grassland dominates, with red Sheep's
Sorrel and Ragwort. Rabbits have exposed the very sandy soil, the reason
that this grassland originally developed.
In summer
look out for the distinctive Cinnabar caterpillar with its yellow and
black stripes. They feed on Ragwort and absorb poison making them toxic
(yellow and black spells danger) so they have little fear of being out
in the open and eaten.
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