Preview

Summarise the historic use of management of woodlands in own locality - Shotover (Oxford)

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1665 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summarise the historic use of management of woodlands in own locality - Shotover (Oxford)
Since I moved to Oxford in 2011, I seem to be related to the woodland area “Shotover Park” with “Brasenose Wood” as one of the more ancient parts. When I was living in Headington, I entered the woods from the North and the West, exploring large areas of the wood, learning about the different types of trees and the local Wildlife. Now that I live in Little Milton, I have the eastern part of “Shotover park” close by, only ten minutes drive away in Wheatley.
Here I want to focus on the part of Shotover which I fell in Love with first: Brasenose Wood.

“Brasenose Wood is 5km east of Oxford City, centred at Grid Reference SP560053. It is on the south-western lower slopes of Shotover Hill and is within Shotover Country Park. Shotover Hill is in the geographical area known as the Mid-vale Ridge or Upper Thames Basin and is in the Shotover Conservation Target Area (TVERC, 2006).(1)”

I know from my work as Chair of the “Friends of Magdalen Wood”, that the site is managed by the Oxford City Council. The “Parks-Team” is managing the park with a team of volunteers, who are trained in coppicing and pollarding and they support the various “Friends” groups all over Oxford.

In a document that classifies “Brasenose Wood” as a “Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) notified under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981” the management of the wood is described as followed:

“Brasenose Wood has a well defined coppice-with-standards structure and is one of the few English woods which is still actively managed by this traditional method. The greater part of the wood is an ancient remnant of Shotover Forest with a documented history dating back to the thirteenth century. The wood lies on poorly drained Kimmeridge clays but oolitic limestone occurs close to the south western boundary and the presence of lime-loving plants suggests that it outcrops elsewhere in the wood. The flora is exceptionally rich for a wood of this size with 221 recorded vascular plant

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The article, “Battling Blue Spruce Burnout” was written to inform readers about the variety of conifers that could be used as an alternate of the popular blue spruce. This article is needed due to a spike of chronic disease issues found with the blue spruce in the Midwest causing their numbers to quickly decline.…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    V. Habitat: Areas with scattered, scrubby vegetation and a dense herbaceous understory. Dry, open pine or oak woods…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This magnificent coastal park area offers visitors two different viewing areas as well as extraordinary ocean views and geological features. In the bays, imposing cliffs and rock stacks dominate while the heath lands demonstrate their vast array of colourful spring wildflowers. In addition, limestone stacks along the coastline near Peterborough reflect various qualities of light, and make this an ideal spot for picture-taking.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water's edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. Under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, there was a great amount of treasure buried by Kidd the pirate. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good look out to be kept that no one was at hand, while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found again.…

    • 4802 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Sipsey wilderness contains a varied and amazing number of different location and environments, unique forest…

    • 1499 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Geography Unit 2

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The geography field trip we are going to is called Loughton Brook which is located in Epping Forest. Epping Forest is the hugest public forest in London. It is almost 6000 acres and has an area of about 12 miles. Two thirds of Epping Forest is selected for scientific interest. The forest hosts various events and activities such as heritage events and seasonal events.…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There are many factors that account for the changes to the vegetation over time within ecosystems in the British Isles, such as human activity, climate, soil, light availability and intensity and natural disasters. The characteristics of the vegetation that are influenced by these factors are height, distribution, variety of species, adaptations and density of the vegetation. Some of these factors have relatively little influence on the succession development, whereas others have a dramatic influence over a long period of time, such as human activity. These factors, over time, result in the progression of a succession until the climatic climax vegetation is reached. However, sometimes these factors can mean that a plagioclimax is reached, as they prevent the succession from progressing any further and the climatic climax vegetation is never achieved, which in the UK are Oak, Hawthorne and Birch trees. This succession results in the development of an ecosystem. An ecosystem is a dynamic, stable environment which is composed of interacting and functioning biotic and abiotic components and can be of any size. There can be composed of variety of successions, such as lithoseres in grassland and woodland areas for example the Isle of Aaron, psamoseres along the coastline or small scale urban successions in urbanised areas.…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ashdown Forest

    • 1797 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Ashdown Forest's landscape is greatly influenced by its underlying geology, which is mostly the sandstone and siltstone of the Ashdown Sands. When these stones combined with a local climate that is generally wetter, cooler and windier than the surrounding area owing to the Forest's elevation, rising from 200 feet (61 m) to over 700 feet (210 m) above sea level, give rise to sandy, largely podzolic soils that are characteristically acid, clay, and nutrient-poor. These poor, infertile soils have favoured the development of heath land, valley mires and damp woodland. These conditions have never favoured cultivation and have been a barrier to agricultural improvement, but they have favoured hunting activities, woodland industries and extractive industries.…

    • 1797 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The British Isles, located in the northern hemisphere is home to a mild climate and varied soils, giving rise to a diverse pattern of vegetation and a climatic climax community of deciduous woodland. A deciduous woodland is an example of succession, which happens in temperate climates and is a naturally occurring organic community of plants and animals in the climatic…

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Muir's 'Calypso Borealis'

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages

    After earning a few dollars working on my brother-in law's farm near Portage [Wisconsin], I set off on the first of my long lonely excursions, botanizing in glorious freedom around the Great Lakes and wandering through innumerable Tamarac and arbor-vitae swamps, and forests of maple, basswood, ash, elm, balsam, fir, pine, spruce, hemlock, rejoicing in their bound wealth and strength and beauty, climbing the trees, reveling in their flowers and fruit like bees in beds of goldenrods, glorying in the fresh cool beauty and charm of the bog and meadow headwords, grasses, caprices, ferns, mosses, liverworts displayed in boundless profusion.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ethnographic Survey Report

    • 3985 Words
    • 16 Pages

    The fieldwork site is located on the Harthope Burn immediately upstream of Langlee cottage (grid reference NT963232). It is within the valley about 5km from the source. It is a site of Special Scientific Interest so must be treated with care.…

    • 3985 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    desert solitaire

    • 315 Words
    • 1 Page

    Abbey is clearly an educated outdoorsman, reciting the names of dozens of plants that comprise the fauna around his new home as well as the plants of other regions. He also lists off the names and classification of many of the geological resources of the area; he names rocks and minerals that the average, even fairly educated, person would not recognize. These rock and mineral descriptions drew me even deeper into his book due to my own interest in geology (although there were names that even I didn't recognize).…

    • 315 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Iroquois Tribe

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Eastern Woodland region has much of its land covered by thick forests or woodlands. There are “rugged snow-covered mountains in the north and hot, wet swamps in the south”…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plagioclimax Essay

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The uplands of Britain use to be covered by a climax vegetation of deciduous woodland and there was only a small amount of heather moorland. Though during the Anglo-Saxon periods 90% of the original woodland was cut down in England and Wales, this was to make room for housing and land for farming. Britain’s soil deteriated without the deciduous vegetation and only hardy plants such as heather moorland could survive and they came to dominate the British uplands. Heather moorland is maintained through farmers managed burning their land. In most places the uplands are burnt every 15 years. Sheep also prevent the regeneration of climax woodland by destroying young saplings. If the burning stopped and the heather moor is not grazed by cattle or sheep then the heather grows old and woody. It can be invaded by scrub and woodland, however if the land is over grazed the young heather can be destroyed leading to the invasion of bracken or by mat grass. This evidence shows that Britain is dominated by heather moorland which is a plagioclimax. This supports the statement however does not prove that the whole country is a plagioclimax.…

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jana strolled beside Alo beneath the shady canopy until they came to the edge of the trees, where the forest gave way to a clearing. Alo stopped and she almost ran into him. She stepped around him and gaped—there, in the middle, stood a huge tree branching far overhead. At first, Jana thought it might be a giant ash, its towering trunk certainly reminded her of one. But it also had gnarled branches that sprouted out much closer to its base than a giant ash should, deep green leaves speckled with red. She walked a little closer and discovered the speckles were scarlet berries clustered amidst its thick foliage.…

    • 1814 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics