Co-leaders: Charles Kessler and Mike LeRoy
Background
King’s Wood is an ancient woodland occupying about 100 hectares in the parish of Heath and Reach, Bedfordshire. It is a designated SSSI and forms part of the King’s Wood and Rushmere NNR. A large block in the south-east corner is owned by Tarmac and the rest is divided into small blocks, some in private hands and others owned by Central Beds Council, BCN Wildlife Trust and Greensand Trust.
Our Visit
On a sunny Saturday morning 14 of us left the Stockgrove car park, crossed the road and headed east into the Wood. We first passed through an attractive stand of mature Scots Pine; growing on sandy soil this was evidence of an early coniferous plantation within the ancient semi-natural, broad-leaved woodland. Later conifer plantations have largely been removed in order to regain original biodiversity.
We soon entered an area of old coppice Oak, with a floor covered in seedling Oaks. This was followed by recently coppiced Small-leaved Lime. This species was used for pole-making and firewood, wood turning and carving, and its bark yielded bast fibre for rope-making. It is an indicator of ancient woodland and may be a relic of the original ‘wildwood’ which covered much of Britain after the ice age.
Coppicing is a sustainable forestry technique comprising periodic cutting at the base of trees and shrubs whose regrowth gave a continual supply of small and medium sized timber and firewood for local needs. Some trees were left to grow to full size for larger timber requirements. During the visit we were able to observe all the stages of coppicing although some of the larger specimens would have been cut at an earlier stage in former times when hand labour was more available than now. Newly coppiced stools had brush piled on top of them to prevent grazing by deer and this appeared to be successful. Grazing in woodland prevents regeneration of trees from seedlings and from shoots emerging after coppicing and needs to be controlled if the wood is to remain sustainable. Some recently fenced plots in the wood have been installed as exclusion areas to demonstrate this.
1. Old coppiced oak; 2. Mature coppiced lime; 3. Regrowth of coppiced Small-leaved Lime; 4. Newly coppiced Small-leaved Lime with brush protection (Photos © Charles Kessler)
We passed two ponds, neither appearing to hold much interest, possibly because they were heavily shaded with overhanging branches and leaves falling in the water.
At the side of one of the rides we found Midland Hawthorn, an ancient woodland indicator plant. It is distinguished from the common Hawthorn by dark, glossy leaves, short indentations in the leaves and two styles in the flower; later in the season each fruit will contain two seeds – hybrids between the two species are frequent and display intermediate characteristics.
Midland Hawthorn (Photo © Charles Kessler)
It was noticeable that the lower parts of the wood, on sandy soils, had a very sparse ground flora, often of not much more than moss. However, towards the higher ground, where the soils were clayey, there was a much more luxuriant ground vegetation, with dense stands of Bluebell in parts, and grasses and sedges in the rides.
Descending towards the West edge of the wood we saw extensive stands of Lily-of-the-valley just coming into flower and the woodland boundary bank, an ancient historical feature dividing the wood from the grazed heathland adjoining.
1.Lily-of-the-valley; 2.Woodbank (Photos©Charles Kessler)
Amongst the invertebrates, we observed two species of dragonfly, a display of St Mark’s Fly, Green Longhorn moth and Common Scorpionfly.
Common Scorpionfly (Photo©Julian Lambley)
Our visit to this ancient managed woodland was rewarding; a visit later in the season when Purple Emperor butterfly is on the wing may also be worthwhile.
Thanks to Janice Robertson for the species list – linked here.
Charles Kessler
8 May 2026