Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, How can you get involved? Northamptonshire and Peterborough Wildlife Trust THE Collect and spread seed at a Special Event. Look out for We hope you enjoy your visit TRUSTS details on posters and in the local press.

Give practical help and learn More Information Welcome to new skills by joining a Your local Wildlife Trust protects wildlife and work party. countryside for people to enjoy in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Waresley and Spread the word, Peterborough. perhaps by arranging We are a charity dependent on voluntary a guided walk for your contributions. Gransden Woods group. Oxlip To contact us about this reserve or about how you Visitor Information can support us please write to: The Wildlife Trust, 3b Langford Arch, London We hope you will enjoy your visit to Waresley Road, Sawston, Cambridge CB2 4EE,or and Gransden Woods and visit regularly to telephone: 01223 712400. appreciate the changes through the seasons and E-mail: [email protected] Website: the years as Browne’s Piece becomes woodland.

Please help us look after the wildlife in the wood: Thanks to the generosity of local people and Stay on paths and do not enter restricted areas. others listed below, the Trust’s vision of a South Keep dogs on leads and clear up dog faeces. Cambridgeshire Forest can start to be translated Do not remove plants or animals from the wood. into reality. Take your litter home. Thank you. The Woodland Linkage Project is supported by: HLF How to find the reserve Innogy Waresley and Gransden Woods TL263548 English Nature From St Neots, take the B1046 towards Great WREN Gransden. At the edge of the village take the Forestry Commission minor road on the right signposted Waresley. RMC Environment Fund After about a mile look out for a small bridge Local donors over a stream and take the concrete track on the left and park near the sewage works. Follow the fence to the right up to the wood. The woods can also be reached on public footpaths from Waresley, Great Gransden and Little Gransden www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/bcnp Photograph by Peter Walker, illustrations by Mike Langman Photograph by Peter Walker,

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Protecting Wildlife close to home Northamptonshire and Peterborough. Registered charity no: 1000412 Waresley and Gransden Woods are two adjoining and visitors and coppicing has been reintroduced. at Special Events and on oak/ash woods which have been part of the local The Wildlife Trust has also begun thinning the School Visits, will landscape for thousands of years. The Wildlife trees in some of the planted areas to allow more gradually change the Trust owns all but one section of this Site of light to reach the ground dwelling plants, and is meadow into Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). carrying out smaller scale management to woodland. It is very safeguard a population of important that only Although the woods have rare moths. seed from Waresely year-round appeal they are and Gransden undoubtedly at their most Woods finds its spectacular in the spring way onto the when the bluebells are new area so that in flower. we preserve local character and interest. Primrose In spring the woodland floor becomes carpeted with wild flowers including primroses, oxlips, violets, and the bluebells that fill the air with the heady scent of their blooms. Coppice Cycle Privately owned

The woods are home to Great Gransden NO public access good numbers of breeding birds, and in summer the rides and glades RESERVE Tawny Owl Browne’s Piece are filled with wildflowers and ENTRANCE The land was cleared for agriculture but is N insects that feed on their nectar, including Access track now part of the Wildlife Trust’s vision for y le butterflies such as the comma. s a forest in South Cambridgeshire. re a P The Wildlife Trust has bought the W In the first half of the field and over the next 200 Brownes' Gransden 20th Century much of years it will be Wood Piece the timber from the encouraged to wood was harvested regenerate using Key and replanted with natural processes. oaks and sycamore, Deciduous woodland creating areas which are Initially it may Dry grassland very different from the appear that little has undisturbed broadleaf changed apart from a Coppice Dean woodland and hedge and fence to Reserve path brook traditional coppice protect young plants plots. from deer and rabbits. Reserve boundary Grass sown with a last crop Road The paths and rides of barley in 2003 will help are mown for the Brook establish a meadow. Nature, Waresley Wood benefit of wildflowers Oaks and acorn with a helping hand from visitors P Car park