WREKIN FOREST

The woods are alive to the sound of loppers and hand saws around the Wrekin as the Wildlife Trust's Wrekin Forest project begins bringing people together to look after the hill and its surroundings and to plan for its future.

As the winter drew to a close it was time to bring out the felled timber from the Wrekin Hill Woodlands. At a unique event Jeff the Clydesdale working horse with his handler Phil Wilson of the Heavy Horse Experience impressed visitors with a powerful display of raw hardworking graft. The cleared patch on the western flanks of the Wrekin Hill has been surrounded by deer fencing and new trees planted to rejuvenate the woodlands. Jeff also provided an exciting training day for the Wrekin Forest volunteers in horse logging skills, we do hope he can come back again to help us elsewhere in the Forest bounds.

We are also working with the power generation company E-on on a landscape restoration scheme for the Devil's Dingle, an ash disposal site for Ironbridge Power Station since the 1960s. Now the ash dumping is coming to an end and the land is being turned into a wildlife friendly haven of unimproved grassland, new woodland and three lakes. Already tawny and barn owls are using the open rough grasslands as hunting grounds and waders are probing for food on the muddy edges of the new lakes. The Wrekin Forest volunteers have joined E-on staff and the Severn Gorge Countryside Trust volunteer group for joint days of conservation action and wildlife surveying.

We've also helped get a group of people

together to help conserve the 2000 year old Wrekin hill fort. Historians, archaeologists and conservationists met with the owners the Uppington Estate. New interpretation is planned and we will be looking for volunteers to help look after this ancient, cherished place.

Lastly, the hot topic of a recent Friends around the Wrekin meeting was the toilets (or rather the lack of them) at the foot of the hill. With 20,000 visitors to the Wrekin every year, the need is getting a bit desperate. We are now working with the landowners and the local authority to create a new visitor facility to celebrate the unique of the Wrekin Hill.

More information about events and volunteering opportunities in the Wrekin Forest can be found on the Getting Involved pages.

The Wrekin Forest Landscape Conservation plan can be found here.