Hayley Wood
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Many species that make England’s oak-ash woods special can be found in abundance in this historic wood |
This ancient woodland is a treasure trove of spring flowers, traditional management practices and archaeological clues to times past. As well as the usual flora, such as bluebell, wood anemone and dog’s mercury, Hayley Wood is host to hundreds of species of fungi, and thousands of insects and birds. Its chequered history is laid out for all to see, if you know how to look.
As you walk up Hayley Lane, the hedge on your left is at least 800 years old and in the winter groans with berries that sustain fieldfares and redwings. As you pass the cottage, you cross the bed of the old Cambridge to Bedfordshire railway line. The tracks are long gone but the telegraph poles give a clue to the industrial past and many of the plants which thrive here today were carried here as seed in the wake of speeding trains.
In the wood itself you cannot fail to notice the fence, erected by the Wildlife Trust to protect most of the wood from the ravages of deer browsing. Although not in keeping with the landscape, it has reversed twenty years of decline in the oxlip population for which the wood is so famous. The area you first enter is young oak woodland, grown up since 1920 on a ridged arable field, then as you pass over the bank and ditch which mark the original wood boundary, you enter the ancient wood.
The main ride is a flower-filled corridor between 14 coppice plots, it shows the gradual progress from freshly harvested crop, through lush spring flowers to shady grove. At the end of the plots is the roundabout, the historical turning point for teams of heavy horses when extracting timber, now the site of an information hut where you can explore more of the history of the site. From here you can see some of the wilder parts of the wood, where coppicing is long abandoned and the undergrowth is thicker.
Birds: Rredwing, fieldfare, marsh tit, woodcock |
Plants: Bluebell, early-purple orchid, wood anemone, lesser celandine, oxlip Birds: Nuthatch, treecreeper, lesser spotted woodpecker, lesser redpoll |
Plants: Purple-loosestrife, meadow sweet, bird’s-nest orchid, clustered bellflower Birds: Spotted flycatcher |
Fungi: Woodland fungi including bonnet mycena Mammals: Fallow and muntjac deer |