NEW YEAR, NEW PLANS

Friday 12th January 2007

The Forestry Commission visited today to give advice on how we can manage the woodland for the benefit of wildlife. We walked the wood and I was disappointed that the Forestry Commission advisor could not tell me what the fern species were (I guess that’s not his job), but he seemed to have good knowledge on general woodland management. In general he agreed with our plans, and provided clarification on a few points, in particular:
· The glade we are clearing is well positioned, at the south edge of the wood with a field adjacent; this will allow easy colonisation of the glade by butterflies etc. He suggested that the trees cut to create the glade could be maintained on short rotation coppice (2 yrs).
· Much of the chestnut coppice hasn’t been felled for over 20 years, the stools themselves maybe over 150 years old.
· 2 main options for the coppicing are either
bringing in a contractor to coppice 2 acres or so at a time, or
coppice it ourselves and do about 0.5 acre per year.
The 1st option may bring in about £100-200, while the second option could be better for wildlife as this will provide a more varied range of habitats (and so our management plan will include option 2).
· The hazel in the gulleys is well overdue for coppicing. He suggested the gulleys be managed either fully coppiced, or as standards with a coppice hazel understorey.
· We should maintain a variety of deadwood; standing, wind blown, felled and stacked.
· Regular cutting should be enough to control the rhododendron, as it is quite young.
· The local Forestry Commission policy on ‘permitted developments’ such as tool sheds is that they will advise the council against granting authorisation if we apply.
· The north east corner which is a SSSI should simply be maintained as coppice. We just need to write to Natural England for approval before we coppice it.

Following the visit, I spend some time just wandering and wondering. I stop in the south east corner and take some time to connect with the spirits of place. This corner has a lovely feel to it; a sheltered gulley with a stream winding through it, slender hazels, lumpy alders and a trunk clad in fungi (trametes versicolor?) bridging the stream. Am pondering with whether to give this part of the wood a name, maybe “Cunnits’ Corner” or “Sulis’ Gill”?

From 1872 to 2006

1872 map of Ewarwoowar (www.old-maps.co.uk)

130+ years later; the Post Boy Inn is now a Little Chef, a small area of woodland opposite has been removed, there are a few new buildings and a wayleave cuts through Cats Wood.

A little work

Saturday 2nd December

1st day doing ‘real work’; clearing space for camping. The site is pretty central (east-west) in the wood and to the south. Char marks show that it was used by (presumably) the previous owners for fires. We clear some small trees and move some previously felled wood, but there’s still plenty more to do. The felled wood is cut and stacked for firewood and smaller trimmings stacked to one side. We also walk a tour of the wood; the stream is now more full with recent rain. Just to the east of the bridge is a pile of feathers (pigeon?) showing the work of what we assume is a fox. Tom and I cut hazel for staffs. We note that there are quite a few sweet chestnut trees blown over (not very recently and mostly still growing), maybe they should have been coppiced earlier. We finish the day picking up a few more bottles.

The Story Begins

Saturday 18th November

The day after we completed purchase on Chick Wood (aka Ewarwoowar). A general visit to look around and familiarise ourselves with what we’ve got. The main trees present are coppice sweet chestnut with oak standards. On the south side (and scattered within the wood) are silver birches; while along the stream gulley at the south are hazel and alder. There is a reasonably sized holly in the south east. In the south west there are some young rhododendrons. Fungi include puffballs, candle snuffs, various bracket fungi and jelly-like orangish ‘blobs’. While we are walking along the south of the wood a red admiral flutters by in the dappled sunshine. We spend some time planning where we could camp, etc. On a map of the wood we mark on the larger oaks along with their circumferences; there are about 35 trees over 50” girth, some up to about 100” (making them 100 years old or possibly more). We collect some litter (mainly plastic milk bottles) which looks pretty old, there’s no sign of people recently using the wood.