Fingle Woods
An illustrated historical outline
Prehistory
The main archaeological remains in the area are the Iron Age sites at what
are known as Cranbrook and Wooston hill forts. There is some debate over
their original functions with more evidence of a prehistoric settlement and
farming at Cranbrook than at Wooston. There are also some fragmentary
remains of ancient field systems nearby at Willingstone Rock.
Prehistoric sites in the Teign Gorge.
W: Wooston P: Prestonbury C: Cranbrook D: Castle Drogo?
Prehistoric sites south of the Teign Gorge (MHS drawing).
These sites may have been part of a group of prehistoric
settlements and ritual sites in the area, mainly on the
south side of the River Teign, notably on Mardon Down,
that has the largest stone circle on Dartmoor, and
Butterdon Down. Further west, on the north side of the
River, Prestonbury Castle above Fingle Bridge and the
location of the present Castle Drogo may have also been
part of a chain of neighbouring settlements, friendly or
otherwise.
The word Fingle is
possibly derived from
the old English “fang”,
meaning to catch, a
reference perhaps to the
suitability of the stretch
of river for fishing.
Approximate boundary of the Doccombe Estate marked in blue.
Manorial management
The earliest written reference found so far is in the entry
for the Manor of Moreton [later called Moretonhampstead]
in the Domesday Book (1086) - ‘the woodland is one
league (3 miles) long and one furlingate wide’. That would
cover an area of about 720 acres which compares to
the area of about 830 acres today within the parish of
Moretonhampstead. The manor was a royal possession in
1066 and after the conquest it changed hands several times
until the 600 year period of control by the Courtenays of
Powderham Castle that ended in 1890.
The most notable recorded event of the early middle ages
was the grant of the area around the hamlet of Doccombe
as a manor to the monks of Canterbury by William de
Tracey in atonement for his part in the murder of Archbishop
Thomas Becket in 1170. This grant included the woodlands
that became known as St Thomas Cleve (in memory of St
Thomas Becket) and Coleridge Wood on the south-east side
of the Fingle woods area. The Doccombe Estate remained
in the hands of the church until the 1860s and was finally
broken up in a sale in 1921, although Mardon Common was
not purchased by the Commoners until 1991. The woods
passed into the ownership of the National Trust.
The two manors jointly owned the woods for about a
thousand years; the share being acknowledged as about
two-thirds to the ‘lord of Moreton’ and one third to the ‘lord
of Dockham’. Small sections were owned by others from time
to time such as Dean and Chapter of Salisbury’s 33 acres
at Halls Cleave. The manorial records show that timber and
wood were recognised as a highly valuable resource to be
carefully managed. Timber was used in the construction
and repair of essential things like buildings [‘housebote’],
sledges (still used in the woods until fairly recently), farm
implements, fences [‘foldbote’] and bridges. Oak bark was
vital to the tanners while wood and frith provided a source
of fuel [‘firebote’]for homes and local industries such as
wool, tin and brewing both directly and indirectly (see below
on 2charcoal). Wooden staves were also used in the woods
themselves to shore up the banks of the River Teign to
prevent flooding. Animals could be both foraged and hunted
there and, as most recently, pheasants shot.
As part of the manorial system the tenants were allowed
some access and use of the woods but this was carefully
monitored by the Woodwardens who were to report offences
such as trespass or unauthorised felling to the local manorial
courts. Traditionally they were elected from among the
tenants in the manorial courts but this was open to abuse as
they sometimes used the position to help themselves to the
timber or sell it from the section of the woods for which they
were ‘sworn’. By the eighteenth-century a paid ‘Warden’ or
‘Ranger’ in the case of Moreton and a ‘Farmer’at Doccombe
were appointed ‘at the lord’s pleasure’ to prevent such
abuses. Coppicing was widely practised to ensure continual
replenishment of wood for ‘staves and poles’ etc.
Here are some extracts from the local manorial
records about the woods…
Customs of The Manor of Doccombe
‘Every Tenant within the mannour to have in the Lords woods of Doccombe
in St Thomas Clift or in Colridge Wood sufficient tymber by the deliverye
of the woodwardens for reparacions of their houses. Also sufficient tymber
for stakes for necessary firebote, foldbote & hedgebote – paying ijd a peece
yearly att Michaelmas.’
Every tenant in a mast yeere to have all their swyne, hoggs & piggs to goe
in the Lords woodes of Doccombe & Moreton from the Feast of St Michaell
{September 29th} & All Soules {October 31st}. Every Tenant to pay for a
swyne iiijd, to pay for a hogg ijd & to pay for a pigg jd.
Our Lord to have the thirde part & Sir William Courtenay the two
parts of the mastage money.’
Moretonhampstead Manorial Court May 1757
Thomas Laskey, tenant of Western Uppacott, accused of ‘trespass
for his entering into Hannacombe Wood & there felling cutting down
& carrying away one acre of Coppice Wood containing 100 seams or
Horseloads of oak, 50 Horseloads of Birch & 20 Horseloads of Alder
of the value of £10.’ Mathias Noseworthy, tanner, accused of ‘cutting
too much bark and too many strips to bind the bark’.
Stripping bark in Fingle Woods in 1939
(Dartington Archives).
Maps were drawn from about the mid 1700s to help the new salaried
Woodwardens in their ‘diligent inspections’. They are very useful
sources for us now.
The one above from c. 1780 has lots of
detail in graphic and written form such as:
1 It shows ‘bound stones’ and ‘bound
stumps’ between the woods and
their neighbours.
2 The ‘publick road from
Moretonhampstead to Drewsteignton’
is marked from Fingle Bridge to
Cranbrook (still a BOAT today).
3 An area designated for coppice at the
south of ‘Charles’s Wood’ called
‘Green Hill’.
4 The weir, sluices, leat and site of
Fingle Mills (see below on mills).
Charcoal
Charcoal burning was a traditional practice in the woods
with a 25 year rotation of oak coppice cut very low. In
the final year April to June the bark was stripped off
overgrown stems and sold to tanneries. The stripped
stems were converted to charcoal at charcoal hearths on
level ground. According to a local archaeologist, Dr Tom
Greeves, the charcoal was used in this area for smelting
tin, heating wool combs and heating pans of clotted cream
– all traditional local activities. The local smiths, brewers
(Moretonhampstead once had over a dozen taverns)
and tanners would have also been relatively
accessible markets.
Lease of Moretonhampstead Woods
in 1674
Between
Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle
and Mathias Nosworthy the elder of
Moretonhampstead, Tanner.
Terms
Lease of coppice woods and underwoods for
£373.6s8d in the woods containing in all 770 acres.
Sir William Courtenay and his employees ‘to have
free access to the woods to fell for making coal pits
and reeck places, & paths to carry away copce wood,
turfs, mosse and leaves for the better making of
cher-coal.’
This shows how valuable the ‘coppice woods and underwoods’
were to tanners. But the Courtenays kept the even more valuable
‘chercoal’ trade for themselves.
One of the last charcoal in burners in Hore Wood in 1905.
For transport, as with other activities in the woods, the
charcoal burners used pannier ponies and sledges until
relatively recently. According to a local woodsman, Eric
Snell, he was told when he began in 1939 to ‘keep the
stumps of fellings below 8 inches so that sledges could
ride over them’. In 1841 the census recorded 7 ‘colliers’ or
charcoal burners living in Moretonhampstead Parish but by
1900 the market had dwindled with the decline of the local
tin and woollen industries, the influx of wattle bark from
South Africa and the greater availability of coal and coke.
The overgrown coppice was cut for firewood and the bark
had a limited and declining market for high-quality leather.
In World War II there was renewed demand for coppice
shoots for pit props and charcoal for cordite. Dr Siegfried
Marian, an Austrian refugee, set up a charcoal-burning
enterprise and Dartington Woodlands Ltd. contracted to
supply 5,000 tons of cordwood landed to level space near
the river. They lost about £1,100 on the supply but the
charcoal firm helped by distributing kilns through the wood
(some are still evident) and this helped to convert the most
suitable coppice stems to pit props. Incidentally, there is
also some evidence of the military presence in the war
at Fingle Bridge, especially by the Americans. John Price,
formerly of the Fingle Bridge Inn, has supplied us with a
sketch map of this.
Much of the labour during the war was carried out by
women and boys (such Eric Snell and Ken Underhill who
still live in Moreton) under skilled supervision. In 1942-3 at
its peak the labour force was described as ‘72 elderly men
and boys and 30 women, mainly from the Women’s
Labour Camps’.
This plaque near the Fingle Bridge Inn commemorates the work of Dr Marian.
Bert Stevens (front) and
Ken Underhill (centre back)
and other charcoal workers
during the war.
Jack Cleave and George Gay at the Fingle
charcoal works in World War II.
Bridges
Transport to and from the woods was helped by
improvements in transport and the ability to cross
the River Teign. The three bridges in the Teign Gorge
encouraged not only greater activity in the wood industries
but also other industries, tourism and sporting use.
Named from Fingle Brook, a minor tributary which flows
into the Teign adjacent to it, Fingle Bridge was listed Grade
II in 1957 & Grade II* by English Heritage in 1967 (ID no.
85020) as a ‘road bridge over the River Teign. C16th or C17th.
Coursed blocks of massive granite ashlar tending to granite
stone rubble higher up, granite ashlar voussoirs and coping...
The carriageway is narrow and ramps towards the middle. …
Fingle Bridge appeared on Donn’s 1765 map and then carried
a main road from Drewsteignton to Moretonhampstead. The
One of the last photo-postcards of Fingle Mills
from about 1890.
Romanticised painting
of Fingle Mills by the Rev.
Swete in 1794.
north arch was damaged and completely rebuilt in 1809.’
The improvement of alternative routes by turnpike trusts
lessened its commercial use that was replaced by an
increase in visitors, perhaps attracted by its portrayal by
painters like Widgery. In 1897 Jesse Ashplant began the
Fingle Bridge Tea shelter on the north side of the bridge,
serving refreshments to anglers, tourists & grain carriers. It
developed into Anglers’ Rest pub, now the Fingle Bridge Inn.
The manorial records record two mills there from at least
the seventeenth-century; one for fulling and the other for
grain. The water power came via the head weir to the west
and a leat that is now partly covered over by the car park
on the south side of the bridge. The grain mill was still in
use in the late 1800s but was burned down in July 1894.
Completion was delayed and money was withheld until
1816, since the contractors had deviated from the contract
by building it 2 feet too low and on shallow foundations.
The present Steps Bridge was the result and the road to
Moreton was turnpiked in the next few years.
© COPYRIGHT ROGER CORNFOOT
Clifford Bridge has been listed by English Heritage (ID no.
85011) as Grade II since 1955 as ‘Road bridge over River
Teign which forms boundary between Moretonhampstead and
Dunsford parishes. C17th widened in circa mid C19th. Granite
ashlar except for the arches of the original bridge which are
roughly-dressed granite. 3-span bridge originally quite narrow
has been widened on both sides. The original bridge has round
arches springing from piers with chamfered impost moulds.
The bridge has been widened on both sides in granite ashlar
with wide segmental arches springing from enlarged cutwaters
of the original bridge and slightly advanced abutments which
are swept out at each end... Mentioned by Leland but present
bridge dates from post-1809 at which time it was only half
the width.’ It was widened in 1821
A mill is also recorded here in the manorial survey of 1639.
It was called ‘Tokyn Mill’ i.e. a Tucking Mill that was used for
fulling in the preparation of wool for the local serge making
industry. The last record of it was in 1790 by which time
the woollen industry was in terminal decline in the area.
Still a ford when Leland visited the area in the 1530s, the
first Steps Bridge was constructed in 1710, replacing the
old stepping stones which are still visible in the weir dam
above Steps Bridge. Many accidents had occurred, and it
was built as a result of “the loss of a man and a woman
who were taken downstream and drowned together with
their horses”. Financed partly by private subscription, “the
miller at Dunsford donating £10”, it needed more repairs
almost annually. In 1801 and 1803 the parapet was raised
and the foundations repaired. By 1814 a new bridge was
needed and at the Quarter Sessions magistrates allocated
£2000 for “a new bridge with three arches”.
Clifford Bridge.
As we see from the above reference there was a mill
on the Dunsford side in the 1700s and the mill was
still in use - latterly for making and reparing farm and
gardening equipment - until late last century. On the
Moretonhampstead side there developed a hotel, cafe
and petrol station that thrived until the 1980s.
One of the original plans for the bridge completed in 1819 (Devon Heritage Services Archives).
Tourism
During the 1900s the Teign Gorge became an increasing destination for tourists.
Day excursions by train to Moretonhampstead and on by foot, carriage and
later omnibus became so popular that there was even a project for some years
to route a branch of the Teign Valley through the gorge. The cost compared to
the projected seasonal demand proved ultimately to be too much.
Here is an extract from the 1864 diary of one ecstatic visitor to Fingle Bridge
that has been edited by Simon Butler and is reproduced here by his kind
permission.
Fishing and hunting also became
popular pastimes in the Gorge. The
fishing rights were shared between
the estates either side of the river
but poaching became a serious
concern. In 1869 the Upper Teign
Fishing Association was established
to control the fishing and has
flourished ever since.
Hunting of foxes and otters was the
subject of very frequent newspaper
reports. One from the Western
Times of 1836 seemed most taken
with the scenery at Fingle Bridge
and gave some very helpful advice
to potential visitors.
The Smith/Hambleden years 1890-1928
In 1890 the Courtenay estates in Moreton, Manaton
and North Bovey parishes of c.5.500 acres were sold
to the Smith family who had made their money selling
newspapers and stationery through their W H Smith
shops. They acquired the title of Viscount Hambleden and
were acknowledged locally as benevolent landowners and
employers. By the time they sold up all the estate, including
the woods to the Elmhirsts in1929 (to pay for death duties
of £1 million), they do not seem to have had a lot of impact
on the woods apart from the Willingstone Plantations
planted between 1897-1904, mainly with European larch.
They were in a single row of fields between oak coppice
& Willingstone road but the larch was reported as not
growing well when the Elmhirsts acquired it .
Perhaps more of note in this period was the destruction of
about 400 acres of Fingle woodlands by a fire reported in
the Western Times in May 1917 but no other details have so
far been found
Of more general significance, the Forestry Commission was
set up in 1919 to address the issue of the chronic shortage
of home-grown timber at the end of the First World War.
The Dartington ‘forestry venture’ 1929-89
In 1925 Leonard Elmhirst married Mrs Whitney Straight,
one of the wealthiest women in the USA. They were
keen philanthropists and soon bought the 900 acres
(including 200 acres of woodland) remaining of the ancient
Champernowne Estate at Dartington Hall near Totnes to
put their ideals into practice. They renovated the Hall and
developed a breath-taking range of enterprises run from
it, initially financed by the wealth of Mrs Elmhirst, ranging
from Plumbing services to a String Quartet as can be
seen below.
Leonard Elmhirst had a particular passion for trees and,
consulted W E Hiley, Oxford lecturer in Forestry Economics.
Hiley recommended the acquisition of a 2000 acre estate
that would be cleared of its natural stock of trees and
replaced by more commercially viable conifers. Moreover,
he advocated methods thought revolutionary at the time.
Wide spacing and heavy early thinnings were proposed in
contrast to the traditional Germanic-based principles of
close spacing, thinning ‘little and often’ and long rotations.
‘Forestry … was for Dartington itself more of a success than
agriculture. This is mainly because Leonard picked the right
man and put him in undisputed charge.’ (M. Young)
By the time that Hiley began to work full-time for the
Elmhirsts as head of the newly formed Woodlands
Department in 1931 a further 1,500 acres of woodland had
been purchased, mainly from the Hambleden Estate, on the
north-east borders of Dartmoor and included a sawmill at
Moretonhampstead and a farm at Clifford Bridge. About
850 acres were in the Teign Valley from Steps Bridge
to Fingle Bridge where they bordered the lands of the
Hambledens’ Manor House that had been purchased and
turned into a hotel with a new golf course by GWR. The
Manor House had the salmon and trout fishing rights on
the south bank of the Teign while the Drewe family, who
owned the recently built Drogo Castle, had the rights on
the north side.
The initial plan was to plant or replant about 50 acres
a year with careful screening of the new conifers with
maintained natural woodland for aesthetic reasons as
Hiley was concerned about the reaction of tourists. This
was all recorded in the Dartington Woodlands Statistical
Inventory Ledger and was overseen on the ground by the
head forester, Tom Brown. The Ledger shows that in the
difficult economic times of the 1930s most of the work
was concentrated at Kingswood, about 5 miles from
Dartington, where 300 acres was ‘coniferised’ in 10 years.
In the Teign valley only 76 acres of coppice and scrub had
been cleared by the outbreak of war in 1939. The European
larch at Willingstone was found to be not growing well and
had ‘sabre’ butts. It was felled gradually and sold to the
Newton Abbot clay mines. It was replanted with Japanese
larch from 1935 into the war years. Contracted work in the
surrounding area for planting, felling and fencing etc. was a
useful source of income.
The Dartington estates in Devon.
Christmas trees at Hill farm in the 1960s
During the war and immediately after much more progress
was made with high demand for home-produced timber;
398 acres of mainly middle-aged plantations were felled
and 337 acres replanted. Nurseries, including at Steward
Wood near Moretonhampstead, provided the stock. Clifford
Farm was assessed as too infertile and stony for productive
farming and its riverside meadows were prone to flooding.
106 acres of abandoned fields were afforested and some
oak coppice cleared and replanted. The rest of the farm was
mainly run as a B&B and tea-room until it was sold off.
The clearances from the war-time activity provided
opportunities for replanting to begin apace. This can be seen
from the Dartington records and is also neatly summarised
in a copy of the 1989 Sale brochure (though it has a gap for
planting years 1971-75!) which we have been given. These
figures can be supplied in detail if required but in outline they
show that between the 1890s and 1930 there was replanting
of about 140 acres (15% of the total), most of which was
still oak and only 17 acres of non broadleaves, mainly the
European larch at Willingstone. In the 1930s about 50 acres
were replanted (5% of the total) with the emphasis now
on Douglas Fir and pines with no oak but some beech for
aesthetic purposes. During the war, probably in the later
phase, this was stepped up to 162 acres (17% of the total)
with a predominance of Douglas Fir, followed by Norwegian
Spruce, pines and European and Japanese larches but also
16 acres of oak.
Dartington woodland felling team (Dartington Archives).
Archives)
Overall, the figures show that between 1946 and 1989 the
plantings covered between 5 to 10% of the total area in each
5 year planting period. By 1989 Douglas Fir covered about
a third of the area, Japanese Larch accounted for 17% and
Norway Spruce another 10%. Meanwhile the broadleaves
had declined to very few new plantings and only about 20%
of the area. One particular development was the planting
of Christmas trees at Clifford and at Hill farm (115.4 acres)
that was bought in 1958. There was some reduction, notably
in Cod Wood where according to Hiley ‘considerable areas
of coppice was sold standing at the eastern end of Clifford XI.
Two small sections of adjoining scrub were purchased to build
contour roads’.
Indeed all this activity led to a general increase in road
building that was quite an expense as mechanised haulage
was introduced. The sawmill at Moreton was also updated
in the early 1960s and a tanalization plant installed.
Much of this work was overseen by Jimmy Jackson of
Moretonhampstead who also has a plaque dedicated to
him in the woods and in 1958 Wilfred Hiley retired and was
replaced by Michael Harley.
The end of the ‘forestry venture’ how?
This activity was influenced undoubtedly and probably on
balance helped by some national and regional developments:
●
1880s-1988: Schedule D Tax tax relief for forestry
investment.
●
1928: Planting Grants from the Forestry Commission set
up after WW1.
●
In 1947 the Forestry Commission set a Dedication of
Woodlands Scheme to which Leonard • Elmhirst had a
great input as President of the Royal English Forestry
Society from 1946-8. The scheme provided an advice
service for private estates and arrange of grants for
good practice.
●
The Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 required
application to planning authorities • for new or changed
use of land. Following this the walk from Clifford Bridge
to Fingle Bridge by arrangement between the Trustees
and DCC was recognised as a right-of-way for walkers.
Jimmy Jackson took it upon himself to reinstate the 2
meadows at Fingle Bridge to make it a pleasant picnic
spot but unfortunately the old mill leat area across the
bridge was filled in to make a large car park.
●
From 1952 the woods came within the area of the
newly established Dartmoor National • Park Authority.
They encouraged tourism and the general econo0mic
revival of the area while ensuring the preservation of
its landscape beauty. This meshed with the ideals of
Dartington andd Leonard Elmhirst developed a very good
working relationship with Ian Mercer, Chief Executive of
DNPA for many years.
The end of the ‘forestry venture’ how?
General factors: A changing world
●
Annual Profits of Dartington Woodlands Ltd. declined
to a loss of £2000 by the mid • 1970s
●
Bank overdrafts and other debts rose to £40,000 p.a.•
●
The Moreton sawmill was taken over by Fountains
Forestry who sold it on to Gales of Teigngrace.
●
●
The management of the bulk of the woodlands was
taken over by Fountains Forestry in • 1966 and they
bought the land in 1981-2 but ‘DWL retained ownership
of and management rights to the timber thereupon’.
(DWL Accounts 31/03/1982).
In 1989 the Fingle woods (987.1 acres) were sold by
private treaty in whole under the • agency of John
Clegg & Co.
●
Global competition in the forest industry lowered
returns led to shortening investment • horizons as risk
and uncertainty increased.
●
Increased fuel costs after 1973 for timber transport.•
●
Growing environmental pressures on the industry,
which led to:•
●
Forestry grant schemes with higher levels of support
for broadleaves.•
●
Higher operating costs for health and safety and
environmental protection.•
●
‘• The Terry Wogan Impact’ of the 1988 budget which
removed the schedule D tax relief for forestry and led
to withdrawals of large investors.
Dartington factors: A flawed business model?
1. It was built up by and perhaps depended too much on
three dynamic personalites. Their passing left it lacking in
effective and united leadership:
●
●
The replacement of Wilfrid Hiley in 1958 by Michael
Harley who found it difficult to • follow in his footsteps.
The death of Dorothy Elmhirst (1968) greatly affected
Leonard who soon married a former • pupil of the
school and went to live in California. His enormous
presence was greatly missed. After he died there in
(1974) their son, and heir, William, wanted to use the
Estate finances to fund his new-age project called ‘Solar
Quest’. This led to an acrimonious dispute with the other
trustees at a crucial time for the business.
2. The financing, markets and scale of the business left it
vulnerable to the general factors mentioned above:
●
The woodland business and all the other myriad
activities of the Dartington Trust had been • too reliant
on the support of Dorothy Elmhirst’s wealth and had not
been set up rigorously enough to be commercially viable.
‘We had always relied too much’, Leonard Elmhirst once
regretted, ‘on dipping into Dorothy’s pocket’. The trading
profit of Dartington Woodlands was never very high at
the best of times.
●
Local markets declined in the face
of growing competition. e.g. Xmas
trees had been an • early leader in
e
the market and buyers initially came
from all the major cities. As other
suppliers and artificial tress came
onto the market the ‘early start’
advantage’ was soon eroded.
●
The decline of local markets such as pit props for the
Bovey Tracey mines and agriculture • as post-war
subsidies were removed. There was a lack of very active
or effective marketing to compensate for this.
●
2000 acres scattered over a number of sites did not
give a sufficient scale or coherence • for success and so
the Hiley plan did not work out. By 1980 some of the
woods first planted under the scheme should have been
reaching the forestry ideal of ‘normality’ i.e. the basis
of a profitable return on their investment in time and
money. But by then the optimum economic size had
increased. As Leonard Elmhirst explained:
‘The economic unit for forest management tends to be
more than ten times as big as our original 2000-acre unit
at Dartington and big capital sums are involved. Our 2,000
acres of woods could not any longer today support the
costly overhead of good mangement as well as the demand
for capital with which to operate a whole battery of large
and expensive machines essential now for the extracting,
hauling, processing and transporting to the factory, that a
modern forestry industry requires.’ (Forestry Vol. XLIV No. 2,
1971, p.312)
Extracting Douglas Fir trimmings from
Clifford Woods. Les Dodd and one of his
two horses that worked in the woods
until the 1970s by which time ‘expensive
machines’ had come into use.
Moretonhampstead saw mills - an
important source of local employment.
Post Dartington
In 1989 the Fingle woods (987.1 acres) were sold by private treaty in
whole under the agency of John Clegg & Co. – a copy of the brochure is
in our archives. For the last few years they have been used extensively
for breeding pheasants for the benefit of shooting parties between
October and February each year. This led to concern about reconciling
these activities with other visitors – a count for the DNPA recorded about
10,000 walkers or cyclists between the bridges at Clifford and Fingle in
2009 and Devon Wildlife Trust people counters on the bridle path from
Steps to Clifford bridges from July 2009 to June 2010 recorded 33,198
visitors used this path (DNPA report 7/10/2011).
In the mid 1990s Steward Woodland Community bought about 35 acres
at Steward Wood near Moretonhampstead.
In 2013 the woods were sold to the National Trust, the Woodland Trust,
Running Deer CIC (Lot 4) and a fourth party (Lot 2) and the pheasant
shooting ceased after February 2014. The woods are now fully open to
visitors and a plan is underway to replace conifers (about 79% of the area
listed in the 2013 sale brochure) with the natural broadleaf woodland.
Memorial plaque in Wooston Castle Woods to Jim Jackson - a much respected Fingle woodsman.
The Woodland Trust, Kempton Way, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 6LL.
The Woodland Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales no. 294344 and in Scotland no. SC038885. A non-profit making company
limited by guarantee. Registered in England no. 1982873. The Woodland Trust logo is a registered trademark. 6848 06/15