HABITATS: Woodland

‘Lowland mixed deciduous woodland’ is a priority habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), spanning a variety of distinctive vegetation types, reflecting differences in soil and topographical conditions. It is broadly characterised by the predominance of native broadleaf tree and shrub species.  The Trust manages a number of important woodland sites including:

Aldwick Wood SSSI is 27 acres (11 ha) of ancient deciduous woodland (dating from pre-1600), located on Bredon Hill.  It has been designated a SSSI and SAC, and is a nationally important site for fauna associated with decaying timber on ancient trees, in particular the violet click beetle.  The woodland flora is dominated by ash, sycamore and oak, with a shrub layer of hazel, hawthorn and elder.  The ground flora is composed mainly of nettle, dog’s mercury, wild garlic and violet.  An abundance of resident woodland birds including tits, finches and woodpecker species are joined here in spring and summer by blackcap, willow warbler and chiffchaff, and in winter by roosting thrush species.  Redstart and pied flycatcher occasionally pass through the wood on migration, while black kite has also been recorded here.  The wood is extremely rich in fungi and invertebrate species.  Management includes the staged removal of sycamore, the planting of common oak grown from local acorns, and the construction of deer exclosures to promote natural regeneration.  Dead trees are left standing, if safe, to provide habitat for dead-wood beetles.

Richards Wood is a small, secluded strip of 30 year-old woodland, originally planted as game cover by its then owner.  The Trust leases the site along with neighbouring Beggarboys.  The wood contains a remarkable variety of habitats – light, shade, damp, dry, dense, open – and attracts a great deal of wildlife, making it one of the richest for wildlife in the area.  Dense stands of Scots pine and blackthorn provide an important winter roosting site for starlings and thrush species – several thousand birds have been counted here on occasion.  The Trust has expanded the woodland and replaced many of the original coniferous trees, which had failed or were inappropriate to the site.  Two woodland glades are mown annually and have developed a rich woodland-grassland flora, including more than a thousand flowering spikes of cowslip.


Aldwick Wood



Shrubs grown from Kemerton seed


The Ash Bed is a small but historically important area of ash coppice on the mid slopes of Bredon Hill.  It pre-dates the 1750 maps and as there is a long history of quarrying nearby, it is likely it provided tool handles for the quarrymen.  The presence of bluebell is an indicator of an earlier coppice flora – now degraded – whilst remnant layered hawthorn hedges are evidence of the importance that was once attached to the site.  Management includes reinstating the coppice rotation, restoring the boundary hedgerows, and encouraging bluebell regeneration.

The Spinney is located on the mid slopes of Bredon Hill at the intersection of four hedgerows, and may have evolved from an older coppice.  Within living memory this small piece of enclosed land has been used variously as an orchard, an allotment, and chicken run.  Interesting flora, including tway blade, has been recorded here.  The Trust has planted trees and shrubs and carried out pollarding. 

The Railway Embankment is a small area of semi-natural coppice woodland in Bredon’s Norton.  Although it only dates from the mid-C19th when the railway line was built, it has developed through consistent management a ground flora fairly typical of ancient woodland, including early purple orchid, bluebell, goldilocks buttercup and midland hawthorn. 

John Moore Nature Reserve is 1.3 acres (0.5 ha) of native woodland planted in 1980 in commemoration of the local writer John Moore, and acquired by the Trust in 2000.  Species growing here include common oak, ash, silver birch, alder, willow species, hazel, sorbus species, spindle, crab apple and blackthorn.  The guiding principle has been to allow the site to revert naturally into a tangled wilderness, of a kind eulogized by Moore.  There has been no human intervention here apart from the initial planting and thinning of trees and shrubs.  The ground flora is dominated by nettles and brambles and is a haven for breeding warblers and butterflies.
Young plantations.  The Trust overseas a number of small woodland plantations, dating from 1968 onwards, which together extend over around 110 acres (45 ha).  The species composition varies between plantations, although most are dominated by native broadleaf species such as oak, ash, beech, cherry, alder, lime, birch, field maple and hazel.  Unlike the more recent plantations, older plantations did not originally include a ‘shrub layer’, and so the Trust has under-planted with species native to the locality, such as guelder rose, hawthorn, yew, holly, spindle, privet and elder.  It has also conducted experiments into the creation of a ‘field layer’, by introducing leaf litter – containing seeds, fungi, invertebrates and microbes – from nearby ancient woodland.  For more information please the ‘leaf litter trials’ section on our Surveys & research page.

Kemerton Arboretum.  The Trust overseas a collection of ‘exotic’ trees, many of which are scarce or threatened in their native environments.  They are grown from seeds collected in the wild, and planted out along paths and rides in young woodland at Kemerton and Bredon.



A ride in Cherry Orchard plantation with primrose in the foreground
 

This stoat raised a family in a pile of logs left for wildlife

Roe deer have moved into many young plantations

Tree nursery project.  As part of the forestry and conservation enterprises, KCT manages a greenhouse and a small tree nursery.  Trees for Kemerton Arboretum are grown from seed or seedlings before being planted out.  Native trees and shrubs are also grown from seed collected locally for use in the Trust’s woodland.  A careful record is kept of seed collection sites, collection dates, sowing dates, and potting or lining out dates, as well as of final planting dates and locations. At its peak (1999 – 2000) the nursery project produced between 400-500 trees and shrubs per year. 

The Trust's Greenhouse

Nest box project.  In 1989 the Trust began providing artificial nesting sites, primarily in young woodland which lacked natural sites for hole nesting birds.  The project is ongoing, and with the help of local volunteers the Trust now maintains around 100 nest boxes.  The boxes are checked two or more times during the year.  The first visit is for maintenance and replacement of boxes, while second and any subsequent visits are to monitor usage.  Great spotted woodpeckers sometimes predate nest boxes, causing them serious damage.  The Trust has been conducting experiments using mirrors as an inexpensive method of deterring woodpeckers – for more information please see our Surveys & research section.  Apart from tit species, the Trust’s artificial nest sites are used by kestrel, tawny owl, mandarin duck, stock dove, nuthatch, robin, wren, jackdaw, and the BAP priority species, spotted flycatcher.

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This Page Revised: March 10, 2009.

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