College Wood - Nash, Bletchley
Site Description
College Wood is an ancient coppice woodland now divided into compartments by a grid like network of rides of varying ages from 50 up to at least 200 years old
Set on the lip of a plateau covered with glacial till. It descends irregulalry to the north east where the glacial till disappears into the Oxford clay.
Significantly there are deposits of glacial sands and gravels mixed up within the glacial till, these are exposed to the north east of the wood but are evident in other areas through the diggings of badgers and rabbits. This lighter drift deposit significantly effects the character of the vegetation.
The northen and eastern parts of the wood are divided by shallow periglacial valley heads that have streams flowing down them. This variation in slope and aspect contribute to the ecological variety on the site.
The age of the wood is indicated by the sinuous outline and the occurance of many woodland plants associated with ancient semi natural woodland. There are also features such as earthworks,ditches and old trees within the wood.
Historically part of the Whaddon Chase hunting forest the wood bordered Whaddon Park to the north east- this major earthwork which is also the parish boundary is still intact. Pre enclosure it was surrounded by open common to the west and enclosed pasture to the north. College Woods extended further south against the present SE wood edge right down to the Buckingham road and beyond. Present Day College Wood was divided by ditch and bank ( still evident ) into three coppices with part of the wood ( Adjacent to the intake on the SE boundary) kept open as common pasture.
The whole wood was subject to a 1950-60's felling and planting regime whose success differs from compartment to compartment.Much of the planting -which includes spruce, larch, cyprus, oak, beech and scots pine, has been successful but regardless of this there are elements of the semi natural community still surviving wiithin the planted areas, in some cases these have outcompeted the introduced species. There is little diversity of structure within the wood away from the wood and ride edges . The natural cover of ash - oak - field maple ( W8NVC type ) with remnants of a the original understorey of hawthorn, hazel, sallow and bramble and a ground flora dominated by bluebell with early purple orchid and wood anemone still survive through out the wood, in the more sandy areas a W10 ( Oak bracken bramble) and W16 ( Oak, birch, Wavy hair grass) type of woodland is supported .
Badgers are present in at least two compartments, there was a large deer population (Muntjac) at the time of acquisition but presently (05) the numbers have been successfully managed to prevent excessive grazing of flora.
The wood once an SSSI for its invertebrate records was denotified many years ago after extensive felling and replanting.
Recent survey has however shown that Wood white and White Admiral butterflies are still present in the site. Both of these species require the woodland rides as habitat. The central ride is up to 10m wide in places and has been continuosly manged by the previous owners fo shoting and hunt access. This ride and three of the cross rides date back to at least before 1831.
A small area of arable land adjacent to the wood was replanted in 1999 as part of the WOYD scheme using locally native species.
