I decided to take a walk today in a place I’ve not been to for a year at least. In fact, I can’t remember for certain when I was last there. It’s quite a chunky piece of woodland, managed, I discovered, by the nearby Fawsley Estate.
It's certainly big enough for you to feel at times as if you might be miles from civilisation, even though you are not.
Previously, most of my visits have started in Badby village, where you can park your car then take a dirt path into the woods. But today I started out at the tiny car park just to the north of the woodland’s centre and followed another dirt path towards the old formal gated entrance, now superseded by a wooden gate.
There’s quite a bit of graffiti on the old gateway, most of it quite recent, but here and there older scratchings are still visible, including some from the 1930s.
The weather has continued pretty wet for weeks now, so no surprise the maze of paths through the wood were muddy; very much so in places. In fact, the handful of dog walkers I encountered were all wearing wellies, leaving me the only one in walking boots.
As you find everywhere round these parts now, there’s a lot of Ash in the wood, most of which is under attack from Ash Die Back. It’s a terrible sight and I doubt it will be long now until almost all the Ash is gone.
I followed a path that runs north to south, straight through the wood, to begin with and eventually found myself looking out over the Fawsley Estate on the far side. There is an interesting derelict building a bit further on, with a tower that is leaning away a little from the rest of the building.
There’s a fair bit of evergreen coverage in the wood and some of these I am certain are Leylandi, very sizeable specimens in places and a good sprinkling of seedlings. This surprised me and it would be interesting to know if I am right and, if so, how the Estate view these. Pest, profit or nature, I wonder?
Some lovely gnarled natural beauties were found, such as the remains of this old uprooted tree.
And there were several children's dens to be explored.
Finally, on the way back I could see a white building on the northern horizon that once used to be a nunnery. These days it's some sort of medical establishment.
A very pleasant walk and one I ought to repeat it in about a month when the vast swathes of bluebells in the wood will be out in all their glory.
