High Woods Country Park (“HWCP”) is the main inspiration for this project, and thats where my focus lies, but theres a lot of overlap, (or ecotones), with the surrounding area. So I’m using Nature’s approach to this, where living things thrive in the coming and going, in the scruffy edges and blurred boundaries. And that movement between places, or migration, is the lifeblood that helps nature thrive.

Nature has no idea where Highwoods finishes and Mile End starts, so, there are references to many neighbouring places..its a big world out there, its not just Highwoods, there is also Mile End, Chesterwell, Severalls, Horkesley, St Johns, Greenstead, Boxted etc...

These places are all linked, not just physically, but culturally. This collection of places, probably no more than 3 square miles in total, is a 3D metaphor for nature – if we were to look down on it from a plane at 30,000 feet it would look as one, just a few pixels in the great green patchwork of lives below. We could throw a coat over it, and it would all be the same.

But when we zoom in at ground level, these different areas each have their idiosyncrasies, their own personalities, and the whole North Colchester Republic is far stronger, and more resilient as a result.

In terms of names there are a couple to clarify.

There are at least three different places attached to the term High Woods;

High Woods Country Park or HWCP – is the park itself, 150 hectares/370 acres, of free, accessible green space, managed for nature and people.

Highwoods – is the housing estate, built around the Tesco supermarket.

High Woods – is also the specific name for the block of Ancient Woodland within HWCP. Its twin, East Wood, stood for 8,000 years before it was destroyed to build Highwoods.

Just to potentially confuse matters, there is another High Woods, or Highwood, in Essex near to Mill Green, nr Ingatestone. This is so-called because of its proximity to the Forest of Writtle, which like Colchester’s High Woods, was part of the great Forest of Essex.

Boadecia – At school I learnt about “Boadecia”, although I understand the spelling has now changed to Boudica (e.g. Queen Boudica Primary School, itself a spear’s throw from HWCP).

Bearing in mind there is Boadecia Way in Shrub End, the name Boadecia is inscribed on the plinth of the Boadecia statue on the Embankment in London, as well as the statue 20 metres up on the front face of Colchester Town Hall, I use Boadecia.