I am a volunteer director of Beenham Investment Group, a company that was formed some 20 or so years ago simply to purchase the leasehold on Greyfield Wood, a mix of broadleaf and commercial trees covering some 40 acres just north of the village and on the eastern edge of the North Wessex AONB. There are several public footpaths through the woods and we encourage our community to enjoy the woods as much as we are able, indeed some of the footpaths are featured in published walks through West Berks, generally taking on refreshments in the village pub .
Over the last few years we have been making excellent progress in getting parts of the wood back into a proper management cycle, most of the work has been done by six volunteer directors, we have of course brought in contractors for some of the larger thinning operations (mainly the softwood commercial crop). We are also starting to encourage volunteers to undertake 'non machinery’ tasks in the woods.
None of the directors have any professional woodland management qualifications but we do make a point of undertaking all tasks in a safe and thoughtful way, we do for example have a management plan and it is our hope that we may in time return the softwood plantations to native hardwoods in the longer term. The hardwoods currently growing in our wood includes Chestnut, Cherry, Ash, Oak, Hazel, Alder and Birch.
We had a small replanting program last winter of some 400 saplings donated by The Woodland Trust, we also had a smaller planting program this winter of about 100 saplings including the transplanting of some self seeded Roble Beech, of which a few trees were introduced in our woods some 30 or more years ago.
I'm sure we will many questions that hopefully SWOG members may be able to help us with?
Best wishes - Knot
p.s. my user name is simply a reflection of my interest in working with wood!
