Hay Wood
Hay Wood, the heavily coniferised remains of a Medieval wood. The woodland comprises woodbanks and evidence of ancient coppicing.
rF queried with BE 31/7/20
1 Although it is a large wood of 103ha, most of Hay Wood is now conifer plantation. Around much of the edge of the wood is a large woodbank with external ditch. The shape of the wood, with large re-entrants, is typical of many ancient woods (see Oliver Rackham, Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape, 1990). Within the wood and largely inaccessible because of the conifers are a number of banks and ditches of varying sizes, including a large double-banked deer park-type bank. These have not yet been recorded in detail. Patches of ancient small leaved lime Tilia cordata coppice survive in places throughout the wood.
The National Trust at Baddesley Clinton have a number of documents referring to what is probably Hay Wood as far back as 1200 AD (observed at a 1994 exhibition there).
- For the sources of these notes, see the
- Timetrail record
- produced by the Historic Environment Record.
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