BLUEBELL TIME
Welcome to the Blog of Cutler´s Wood, an Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland in the Kent North Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

Cutler´s is 42 hectares (ca. 103 acres) of native broadleaf woodland managed primarily as wildlife and flora habitat but also to provide some timber from coppice rotation which is used for traditional fencing and woodfuel. Adjacent to Cutler´s Wood is Cutler´s Farm, made up of the farmyard with barns and 6 hectares (ca. 15 acres) of pasture land, which presently is used for sheep grazing.

Bordering onto the Forestry Commission´s Kings Wood to the south west, privately owned Stanner´s Wood to the north west, The Woodland Trust´s Park Wood to the north and the privately owned Ridge Wood and Felborough Wood to the east, this area makes up over 2000 acres of connected woodland and one of the largest woodlands in the South East of England. This whole area was once part of a royal hunting forest for deer and boar.








Edward Hasted´s map of Cutler´s area published 1798 but showing the area apparently around 1778. Cutler´s Farm seems not to have existed yet.

Tuesday, 1 March 2011

Felling in February

We have been felling trees in several areas of Cutler´s during the last few weeks. Two acres of mixed woodland have been felled for the firewood market, we have felled and brought back into rotation 1 acre of chestnut coppice with some good post and rail fencing material as a result and we have felled 15 stems of older chestnut which were stored on around 35 years ago. All the older stems were shake free with some premium quality resulting which we hope will go for veneer and the furniture industry. There has been some interest in this higher quality material for export to France and Italy, where historically chestnut has been used more than in the British market.
Despite the sometimes awful weather of the last few weeks, Spring is on its way, with the bluebells 8-9 cms out of the ground.

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