History

The woodland is mainly a Larch plantation that was planted 68 years ago. I have actually met the man who planted them, when he was a teenager.

The woodland had been completely neglected since planting and was impossible to walk through. There were no paths and over 100 fallen trees that had to be scrambled over. As well as Larch there are many mature Ash, Beech, Hazel, Oak, Silver Birch and Sycamore. There are also a few Douglas Fir and Hemlock.

Now, there are about three quarters of a mile of paths where you can take a stroll for 30–40 minutes. Alongside many of the paths there are now ‘dead hedges’: these were built using the fallen trees and branches off trees that have been recently felled. The hedges provide shelter and also a barrier to help stop anything rolling down the slope to the road below.

The overall plan is to thin the Larch to leave only the best specimens, and create a woodland with more broad leaved trees.

At first there was just a gate with a small space behind it: if you opened the gate and parked a car, there was no room to close the gate. Now there is a car park for 3 or 4 cars. There is also a decking area where you can sit and enjoy the views, while having a picnic or a barbecue. There is also a nice ‘Loo’.

Two ponds have been created and provide drinking water for the birds and other wildlife. Frogs have already found the ponds and they fill with frogspawn and tadpoles in the Spring.

A very kind neighbour provides broadband via a ‘Nano Beam’ system which picks it up from his Farm about one kilometre away, across the valley. A solar panel and wind turbine provide power for 8 PT & PTZ cameras, which can be remotely viewed by anyone with the access codes to log-in. The plan is to have many more cameras, bird box cameras and even Bat monitoring. There
are bats in the area, two dead long eared bats have been found.