Blog - tracks

Woodland tracks and paths

Woodland tracks and paths

by Angus, 14 August, 2016, 8 comments

Tracks and paths are an amazingly important element of any woodland - they are the arteries along which management tasks will be done and the viewing points from which you will see what's happening in your forest. Usually owners just live with the tracks that have been there for decades, perhaps even hundreds of years, but you can vary the routes or even build new tracks. Woodland tracks are also often called "rides", presumably because they would have been maintained in order to ride around the woodland on horseback. In creating and maintaining tracks, the key variables are - the soil type, the slope and the tree cover. Read more...

"The Old Ways" - a book about footpaths and ancient tracks

“The Old Ways” – a book about footpaths and ancient tracks

by Angus, 4 July, 2013, 1 comments

Robert MacFarlane has written a great book which should appeal to anyone engaged with woodlands. A hundred years ago Edward Thomas wrote, "Much has been written of travel, far less of the road", and MacFarlane has here combined travel writing with route-writing, meandering along woodland paths and taking tracks over fields to explore how and why paths are as they are. There is a powerful section about George Borrow; an extraordinary walker-writer, whose work in the 19th century led to a surge in path following and old way romance: "the breeze on the face, the stars for a ceiling, the fire by the wayside, hedgerow philosophising, open journeyings." Read more...

Greenridge Wood – Part Deux.

Greenridge Wood – Part Deux.

by Graham H, 5 July, 2012, 3 comments

The mighty plans of men and beasts continue unabated with hiccups and head aches aplenty. Initial development, towards my utopian woodland haven, has taken its first faltering steps. A sixty metre fish pond has been excavated by Edward the Volvo digger man (is that advertising?) and to my eyes closely resembles, in all its murky watered splendour, a part of the Grand Canal in Venice, however an ex sea going friend tells me it looks more like the Suez Canal between Al Kantara and the Bitter Lakes, with trees. Each to their own, say I. The recent rains have caused havoc with the continuing plans for this feat of civil engineering because it flooded up rapidly before I could install some piping Read more...

Is land the "new gold" for investors? What might this mean for woodland owners

Is land the "new gold" for investors? What might this mean for woodland owners

by Angus, 29 December, 2011, 2 comments

The ongoing financial crisis was expected by many to push down the price of land but it seems that it has in fact pushed up land values. What appears to have happened is threefold: people are getting such a low return on their cash that they feel land is a more attractive option investors don't trust the banks and think of land as a "safe haven" whilst many are suffering from the downturn there are many others with cash who are choosing to invest in land. Land has been described as the "new gold" - a safe haven for wealth even if actual returns are low. This also seems to explain the buoyant residential property market in central London. Read more...

Wild Flower Guide

Badger

Read our guide to wild flowers of woodland and hedgerow

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