Cheddar Wood
Notification 1967 | | |
| Natural England website | ||
Cheddar Wood (
notified
in 1967.
Cheddar Wood and the smaller Macall's Wood near
King Edmund the Magnificent's wood in the tenth. It lies on carboniferous limestone with rock showing through the thin topsoils. In 1801 the wood was larger than it is today. During the nineteenth century its lower fringes were grubbed out to make strawberry fields, most of which have reverted to woodland. It was coppiced until 1917.[1]
This site comprises a range of habitats which includes ancient and secondary semi-natural broadleaved woodland, unimproved neutral grassland and a mosaic of
starved wood-sedge (Carex depauperata), which grows in the lane along the east side of the wood.[2] The nationally rare purple gromwell (Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum) grows in the lane along the west side of the wood.[2]
brown argus (Aricia agestis). The slug Arion fasciatus, which has a restricted distribution in the south of England, and the soldier beetle Cantharis fusca also occur.[3]
The site is managed as two nature reserves by Somerset Wildlife Trust Cheddar Wood Edge which covers 7.1 hectares (18 acres) of old strawberry fields, is now reverting to semi species-rich limestone grassland and scrub with ancient woodland hedges, and Cheddar Wood itself which has restricted access allowed by permit.
References
- ISBN 0-86183-129-2.
- ^ a b Twist, Colin, Rare Plants in Great Britain - a site guide
- ^ "Cheddar Wood" (PDF). English Nature. Retrieved 17 July 2006.