Post-war
A gentle survey of the wild flowers of Leigh appeared in the Parish Magazine in August 1985, written by H V Wood, a resident of the parish, and later issued by the village's local history society. Looking back over half a century of change, it paints a picture of a countryside that has shifted considerably within living memory.
The meadows, once thick with buttercups, and the churchyard, which each May was covered in ox-eye daisies — flowers also known locally as horse-daisies — have altered with modern ways of managing the land. A hayfield by The Crane carried yellow rattle back in the 1930s, but that plant can no longer be found anywhere in Leigh.
Along the river the change has been even more striking. Willow herb once grew on the banks, alongside purple loosestrife and yellow toadflax, but in the 1940s Himalayan balsam arrived and took over the riverside, where it remains the dominant plant today. Mimulus, or monkey flower, can still be seen on the riverbank, and flowering rush grows at the shallows.
The railway banks were once mown every year, and in consequence wild strawberries abounded there, while sweet violets carpeted the ground in colours ranging from white through pink, lilac and purple to blue. White-fruited strawberries grew near the Knotley Hall footpath crossing. The ballast for the line had been brought from Dungeness, and viper's bugloss travelled with it — as did yellow horned poppy, though the spraying of the tracks with weed killer has since put an end to such displays.
Elsewhere, red campion still survives in the Straight Mile, while moschatel — known as the five-faced plant — blooms on the banks of the Bid Brook. Dyer's greenweed has all but disappeared. Yet there are encouragements: a genuine wild cowslip was found in the parish in 1985, and the previous year a spotted orchid appeared in a quite unexpected place.