Thurrock Walks

81 | Chafford Gorges Nature Park

The Glow-worms of Lakeside

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Chafford Gorges Nature Park

I am a glow-worm. I wander and roam about with my bottom lighting up!

Everything is big and I am tiny. People never see me if my light is off. But when it is on, I feel like the brightest star. I shine beautifully with my wonderful green light.

All the other animals look up to me and my glow. All the bats, newts, owls, midges, foxes and flies in the gorges are amazed. Even all the plants growing in the rock walls admire me.

I'm really rare, and not many humans get to see me. Yet in the gorges all around Lakeside, our tiny insect bums make beautiful constellations in the night.

From writing by students of Harris Primary Academy

About This Story

The nature reserve is set in the disused workings of a chalk quarry. This is one of many quarries in West Thurrock where chalk was excavated as part of the cement industry. In this example it was the Wouldham Cement Works, sited south of the main railway line and the Thames. Chalk is mixed with clay into slurry and then poured down a rotating kiln tube until it melts and forms clinker. The final process is to crush the clinker into cement powder and bag it. A number of cement works were set up in West Thurrock from the 1870s, making a new product called Portland Cement, so called because when it hardened it resembled Portland stone.

Jon Catton

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Overview of Chafford Gorges Nature Park

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