The wood belonging to the house is separated from the garden by a path across a field. The whole area was once woodland, but cleared many years ago to create farmland. Some areas in the wood were also partially cleared for keeping pigs. A large part of the wood was originally coppice, but this had not been maintained and the hazel had become very tall, with thick branches keeping light from lower space. This in turn caused young self-seeded silver birch saplings to grow unhealthily tall and weak. The only plants that survived on the ground were brambles, with bracken growing in the open areas.  Our plan was to manage the coppice slowly back to how a coppice should be maintained, to clear the brambles allowing grass and hopefully wild flowers to develop, and where there were significant empty areas, to plant appropriate conifers to give cover in the winter. 

The galleries below show the stages of development.