In 1855 a large snake was apparently discovered in High Woods, near to what is now the road into the Visitor Centre (Clay Lane is now Turner Road). Whether it was in fact a native, as the article suggests, or an escapee from a collection is not known, but I have seen several Grass Snakes at HWCP over the years. One, on the Lake Field path in the hot summer of 2023 was around 5 feet long and very fast. The snake in the article was large enough to swallow a ‘good sized young rabbit’ so bear this in mind next time you visit – a “king in exile” may appear from “out the dark door of the secret earth”.

The Chelmsford Chronicle on Friday 27th July 1855 reported it as follows:

transcript:

MONSTER SNAKE

The most extraordinary example of the snake species ever discovered in this country was found dead on a farm in the suburbs of Colchester, by a labourer named Willis, in the employ of Mr. Folkard, a farmer on Tuesday morning last.

It appears that Willis, was going to work across the fields about 5 o’clock on Tuesday morning, when coming to a gate at the end of Clay lane, adjoining the high road, leading to the ” High-woods,” his attention was arrested by an enormous snake. lying quite motionless, with its head and neck crushed, and firmly fixed underneath the gate. Willis carried the reptile to his master, and on its being measured it was found to be nine feet five inches long, eleven inches in girth at the thickest part, and was thought to weigh 14lb. or l5lb. 

Its back was of a kind of dark brown colour, with large black spots, its belly of a yellowish cast and beautifully speckled. The head of the reptile is fat, its formidable jaws, armed with two rows of very sharp teeth, when fully dis-tended, would certainly be capable of swallowing a good-sized young rabbit. Willis sold the snake to Mr. Henry Ambrose, naturalist, of Angel Lane (now West Stockwell Street), Colchester, who has since flayed it, preserving its skin and head entire for the purpose of stuffing. Very little food was found in the body.

Mr. Ambrose says he has previously stuffed English snakes but never knew them to run longer than between three and four feet, but from their general appearance, they were undoubtedly of the same species, but how or where this animal could have lived to attain its extraordinary size is a mystery. 

Several parties have stated that two or three years ago, whilst walking near the Highwoods, they have been startled by the sight of something like a great snake rustling in the brushwood, and plunging in a pond of water, where it disappeared. It is conjectured that the snake must have lived in the swamps and brushwood of Highwoods, from whence it glided up Clay-lane to the old gate at the end, and was forcing itself under the last bar, which it displaced from a stump on which it was resting, when it was killed by the gate falling upon its head.