LAVENHAM WOODLAND PROJECT

The idea of a community woodland was that of the Green Light Trust.

Acquiring land, then planting and managing a community woodland is a good way to bring people together. 

So our mission statement was: To establish and secure the future of a woodland that will bring pleasure and benefit to all who share it.

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Starting in 2002, we set up a Limited Company so that we could enjoy charitable status and planted a boundary line of standard trees, to let Lavenham know that a new wood was coming.  The original steering group of enthusiasts still operates as the management of this community space, strengthened by the addition of keen recruits.

In addition to caring for the woodland itself, we now have formal responsibility for the oversight of the Lavenham Walk.  We have been given, bought and have even constructed seats to permit quiet enjoyment of the place. 

Two orienteering courses have been installed within the woodland and along adjacent field paths which give a novel view of the village.  These are aimed specifically at children, to get them out into the outdoors with their parents, and to kindle interest in woodlands themselves. 

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We have close links with our local primary school, the children of which enjoy the freedom and safety to be found Dyehousefield Wood.  A Forest School initiative is currently under way too, so the demographic of our users might be changing.

The woodland has been used as a place to celebrate birthdays and to study minibeasts: it’s a favourite with dog walkers as well as unaccompanied walkers, organised and random.  We have piled off-cuts as hibernacula to encourage lizards, including the slow-worm.  We know that we can find many English butterflies and moths here, including the rarely seen Brown Argus.  We’ve got excited by the appearance of the now rare corncockle (the more so when it was revealed to have been planted by an enthusiast) and there has been at least one sighting of a red kite hovering over our pillbox (which might be ripe for development as a haven for bats). 

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Some of the original 164 who came to plant trees still come just to enjoy ‘their’ tree and work parties have managed the footpaths and hedges which have emerged over the past years.  We planted 1,500 trees on 12th November 2005, and you can see the fruits of that work today as you pass in your car or on the bus, or better, if you push open the gate and come into the site.