Alvecote Wood

29/08/2026

We were just discussing previous owners of the Woods, and the person immediately before us was Mr Bill Parker. He passed away and then Sarah & I bought it from his estate/family, in 2007. In fact, I was just sorting some e-mails yesterday and found some from Bill Parker's family, who kindly came to visit in 2008, shortly after we got started.

I showed them around as part of one of our normal guided walks that we've often done on Open Days. They did not introduce themselves to start with so I had no idea who was in the tour that day. I noticed as we came to the end of the tour that one chap seemed to be getting very emotional. His wife then introduced herself and said he was Dirk Parker, Bill Parker's son, and he fondly remembered playing in the Woods as a child. He was delighted that his father's vision, to improve the Woods as wildlife habitat, was finally coming true with us.

This is an e-mail sent afterwards from Dirk Parker, in 2009:

> Firstly I want to congratulate you all on the tremendous work that you
> have done in the last 12 months, you have progressed so well dispite
> the setbacks of the inevitable vandals, thieves and the other enemy,
> the weather itself.
> I will definitely be coming to one of your open days or alternatively
> I will arrange a time when it is suitable to meet up with you on site
> to have an update. What pleases me most about what you are doing is
> the obvious pleasure you are both getting from your hard work. My dad
> had exactly the same ideas, even if he never realised many of them, as
> you and I still find it incredible that you found the land and the
> land found you, it is a shame you didnt meet up before as he would
> have loved to have had someone so interested in 'His little piece of
> England' as he called it. Well now its your Little piece of England
> and I am delighted it is.

Isn't that lovely?

28/08/2026

Everyone is welcome to our Open Day at the Woods this Sunday, 30th August.

We've been doing more work on our grassland and meadow area with some mowing this week. We wouldn't normally want to mow just yet, but this summer has been anything but normal! It is important to remove the cuttings to reduce the fertility that would otherwise build up, and this year there has been the additional impetus to reduce the fire risk. It has been a scary summer, and who knows what the weather will do before the year is out!

Perhaps another symptom of the 'new normal' was that our mowing work revealed no voles or toads at all in Sarah's Meadow. This is a complete contrast to previous years where we have always encountered a lot of scurrying and ambling things (I think voles scurry, and toads amble?). The wild flowers have flowered early, as we all know, and perhaps the animals/amphibians have also bred early and moved on to cooler/damper areas? We were deliberately doing a high cut (between 100-150mm above ground) to avoid hitting any wildlife, but it may be that we don't need to be so cautious as we continue on the other meadows. Doing a high cut, like we have so far, means we will need to go back over the area again to take it down low to the ground as otherwise we would leave too much fertility and that would be worse for the wild flowers next year. We'll see if it seems OK to do the remaining meadows in a single pass.

The grassland area at the top of the Main Woods did have some wildlife activity - Rosie was going over the area in advance of me on the tractor and she saw what might have been some small toads but they went out of sight too quickly to be sure. That area has always been damper than the meadows in Betty's Wood and that is one of the reasons why we are reviving it as managed grassland.

If you come to the Open Day and arrive in a car, please park on the concrete area uphill of our main building, if there is space. Parking diagonally helps to preserve that space and, if everyone can park on that concrete area, we can keep the overflow area on the grass clear. Root compaction is a genuine issue for trees so parking on the concrete is much better for them wherever possible, please.

It's free entry to the Open Day but donations are always very welcome! 🙂

We're open 10am-3:30pm (last entries at 2:30). Thank you

18/08/2026

Apologies for the silence over the last couple of weeks. Things have been happening at the Woods.

Some not-good news is that we took some more bacterial swab samples from trees that we suspected as having the Acute Oak Decline (AOD) disease and we've just had the analysis report back from the Forest Research lab at Alice Holt:

alvecotewood.co.uk/AA-FR-Report_on_Laboratory_Results_for_AOD-SwabsTaken2026-06-18.pdf

This shows that all but one of the trees we sampled are AOD positive (or AOD probable).

This is a great shame, especially for the tree we've numbered T19 as it is right beside our gateway and therefore very visible to all visitors :-( We have been watching that one closely and we've seen some small bleeds but, so far, none of the AOD-characteristic D-shaped exit holes (although the lab think one of our photos might show a hole - we've asked them to highlight that on a photo and we will check closely on the tree itself).

If you look at the detail of the PDF document I've linked above, you can get a feeling of the rigour with which the FR scientists look at our 'TreeHealth Advisory Service' reports. They are truly brilliant to be doing this for us and we are very grateful. Having that scientific expertise available to cross-check our suspicions helps us to work out a management strategy for our trees and thus for the Woods as a whole.

I added a note to my response back to the lab to say that we have often seen small insects active near the bleeds on trees that the lab are now confirming as AOD positive. This summer, we have also seen certain trees that don’t have any obvious bleeds that have been almost covered in butterflies, wasps and green bottle flies (like bluebottles, but iridescent green and slightly smaller). Maybe they are sensing decay within the tree, or perhaps there is a sugar source within the bleeds? This is where we can’t even see a bleed but we have seen the flies disappear into cavities in the bark, so they may be finding something underneath that is not visible on the surface. It’s interesting that butterflies are too big to do that but they have still been attracted, enthusiastically.
…Perhaps it could be that this insect behaviour is a useful diagnostic hint that there may be disease, perhaps AOD, that is not yet visible to us?
You can see the behaviour in the following video, with some red admiral butterflies, wasps and green bottles.
It's quite fascinating that there is something happening that is very obvious to the butterflies etc etc. It will be interesting to see what the lab say!

26/07/2026

Thank you to everyone that came to our Open Day today. Everyone was very complimentary about what we do there and of the beauty of the Woods. We feel privileged to be able to share it with others. And thanks again to all those that gave donations or made purchases - it all helps us to take care of the place :-)

After we had packed up, we took a quick look at the farm field directly over the road where they are now doing archaeological trench digging to see if there are any important artefacts that need to be recorded/preserved. The trenches are around 300-400mm deep, I'd guess. It's interesting that even at that depth the soil is still badly cracked due to the dry conditions we've had.

I asked one of the farmers involved in that land and he said that he thinks it is now the end of farming on that field. I'm sure they have mixed feelings. The end of an era, I'd guess of perhaps hundreds of years.

You might notice there are some little coloured flags in the trench in one of the photos. These are used to mark areas of interest that perhaps need to be dug by hand (different archaeology companies have different colour schemes etc.).

The house builders, Persimmon Homes, are working their way through the planning Conditions and preparing their 'reserved matters' submission. I've asked them when that is likely to go in to the council and got no reply. We are eager to see any measures/protections concerning the Woods that might be in their plans. We live in hope...

As we have said before, there will be a lot of new green space within the new housing design so, from an environmental point of view, it will hopefully be much better than the landscape we have now. They will hopefully consult with us on the planting design for the tree planting 'buffer strips' to go adjacent to the Woods. Again, no contact so far, but we live in hope... We do have some cause for optimism in that the planting design should be overseen by Ecologists so it should be sensible and ideally harmonious with what we've done in the Woods. Fingers crossed.

25/07/2026

It's another Open Day this Sunday, 26th July. We were there today and delighted to feel several spots of rain! It goes to show that it can still do it, but we'd all be glad if it gets in a bit more practice!

The meadows are looking drier as the summer progresses, not surprisingly, and we're not at the end of July, yet!

There is a lot of knapweed covering the meadows but it was nice to see some Wild Carrot, aka Queen Anne's Lace, rising above many other plants in Sarah's Meadow - see the photo.

We changed our mowing regime for the meadows and they have been a lot more diverse in terms of wildflowers this year as a result, but we were discussing it with Gary, our Ecologist, recently. We all agreed that a second cut in the spring would likely be a good idea so we will plan that for next year. Trying to get a good balance across many wildflower species is not a precise science and also doesn't happen overnight so it may take some years to get the plant variety we want. A work in progress, but important to try for sure!

The Butterfly Conservation charity runs an annual butterfly population survey called the Big Butterfly Count. It's not just counting big butterflies, by the way :-)

How to take part:
• Download the free Big Butterfly Count app or visit www.bigbutterflycount.org
• Between Friday 17 July - Sunday 9 August spend 15 minutes in any sunny outdoor space and count the number and types of butterflies and day-flying moths you see
• You don’t need to be an expert - use the free ID guide on the app and website to help you identify what you’ve seen
• Log your sightings on the website or free app and help protect UK butterflies for future generations

We will have a small supply of paper butterfly id sheets but using a smart phone with the app may be easiest and most efficient, as it allows you to submit the counts directly.

Please come along and enjoy, counting butterflies or just having a nice walk around :-)

If you arrive in a car, please park on the concrete area uphill of our main building, if there is space. Parking diagonally helps to preserve that space and, if everyone can park on that concrete area, we can keep the overflow area on the grass clear. Root compaction is a genuine issue for trees so parking on the concrete is much better for them wherever possible, please.

It's free entry to the Open Day but donations are always very welcome! :-)

We're open 10am-3:30pm (last entries at 2:30). Thank you

27/06/2026

All are welcome to tomorrow's Open Day at the Woods (Sunday 27th June). The weather should be a bit cooler, which is very welcome compared to many days we've all had recently :-)

The trees have put on a new growth spurt and the meadows are looking great. I think if we keep on with our new mowing & clearing regime, the next few years will probably all see further improvement in the variety of wildflowers, and that boosts the variety of everything else. Biodiversity is brill! :-)

A beautiful example of that variety of other wildlife, today, was the attached dragonfly. Maybe an expert can confirm if this is a Common Darter, or a female Ruddy Darter, please? They can be difficult to tell apart, and I'm not much good at the small 'dragons' :-) I tried to get a better photo (this photo really doesn't do it justice), but I only had my phone and the wind was blowing everything around too much to get a decent shot! It was a spectacular little 'dragon' with so much intricate detail on its face and along its body. We were lucky it was really enjoying its perch on a bit of Knapweed for so long :-)

If you arrive in a car, please park on the concrete area uphill of our main building, if there is space. Parking diagonally helps to preserve that space and, if everyone can park on that concrete area, we can keep the overflow area on the grass clear. Root compaction is a genuine issue for trees so parking on the concrete is much better for them wherever possible, please.

It's free entry to the Open Day but donations are always very welcome!

We're open 10am-3:30pm (last entries at 2:30). Thank you :-)

25/06/2026

It has been a bit warm so we've been doing hot work at the Woods early in the day to avoid the worst of the heat.

More tree guarding to protect more baby 'Oakers', and strimming and brush cutting of the brambles that have grown up in between.

Getting guards on the trees protects them from Muntjac deer that love to eat the young shoots ...And it also makes the little trees visible such that we can go back in with the machines to do the clearance without accidentally cutting off lots of little trees! We've actually been deliberately cutting high with the strimmer etc as there are often little trees hiding underneath. Taking off the bramble over-cover reveals them, hopefully without cutting any, so we can go back in with another phase of guarding.

There is little point in overdoing the guards as you just create more competition between the young trees, making life harder for all of them. Better to pick the best ones in terms of health & vigour & location relative to daylight above, especially. We've got about 100 trees guarded already so that's a good number in the areas where we were hoping to get good 'natural regeneration' for the next generation of trees. Great stuff! :-)

08/06/2026

For a change, I wonder if people might be interested in some hard science? Specifically world-leading scientific research on Climate Change, and what might really happen in a future forest ecosystem:

Rosie and I went to the Birmingham University BIFoR FACE research facility up at Norbury Park (near Stafford) today and were shown around by one of the professors.

Wow! What an incredible place!

One of only 3 similar facilities across the world and doing unique and strategic research into the impacts of Climate Change esp. wrt the responses of living trees (oaks, in this case; the Ozzies do eucalypts, surprisingly enough) to elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. They're trying to investigate whether planting trees really is a good idea to mitigate Climate Change (it's not as simple as we all might think!) and also to understand how the whole ecological community responds: soil, microbes, mycorrhizal fungi, etc etc etc. They are measuring loads of things, both within the elevated-CO2 'rings', and in non-elevated rings acting as controls.
They get through a colossal amount of liquid CO2, approx 120 tonnes per week! That adds up to about £3million per year and it's planned to run for 30 years! They're about 10 years in now.

Our tour group of 11 were the only people in the world in a free air CO2 atmosphere that is presently predicted for 2050 (550ppm of CO2) - It didn't seem any different to us, but the trees are noticing the difference. Some trees grow faster to absorb more CO2, and some don't. The latter usually happens when there is some other limiting factor so extra CO2 doesn't help the trees, such as insufficient nitrate or water in the soil.

It's an amazing place that is trying to find out how trees might really respond as our future unfolds and what the other constraints and hurdles might be. It is a part of the research that is helping to set worldwide policy on ways to address Climate Change.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/birmingham-institute-of-forest-research/bifor-face
https://www.ecologicalcontinuitytrust.org/bifor-face

Definitely recommended! They don't do tours very often. I've wanted to visit for years! Our tour today was organised through 'Woodland Heritage', a very worthy charity and kindred spirit to Grown in Britain. Both are promoting sustainable forestry and an associated timber supply chain in the UK. All music to our ears 🙂

About the BIFoR-FACE long-term experiment (LTE) in Staffordshire, England that is managed by the University of Birmingham, and is registered with the Ecological Continuity Trust (ECT).

03/06/2026

Housing Update:

This relates to the major housing development on the other side of Robey's Lane, a project that has given us major cause for concern ever since we first heard of it back around 2016.

The land agents that progressed the project as far as gaining outline planning approval sold the entire project last year to Persimmon Homes, who will be doing the remainder of the 'Reserved Matters' detailed planning applications and the construction of the housing.

We were delighted to welcome two people from Persimmon to the Woods in April 2026 and we showed them around and explained our fears. They took everything on board but were unable to make any offer of support pending further discussions back at their offices.

Very sadly, since then we have not been offered anything definite at all beyond applying to their 'Community Champions' fund. However, they also said we would not be eligible for this as the Woods is not a charity. They said there may be a chance we could do something in conjunction with our work with the Royal Forestry Society Teaching Trees programme, as that is a charity. That fund might be able to allocate up to £6,000 but that is a small fraction of the cost burden we are having to take on in an effort to make the Woods more secure and more sustainable when we fear possibly significant increases in antisocial problems as the housing comes so much closer.

To say that we are disappointed would be a massive understatement :-(

This is after about 10 years of lobbying and explaining, with various vague assurances given to us along the way, all of which seem to have come to nothing. To be fair, those comments were made by the land agents and not by Persimmon so they are, perhaps, approaching this as a clean slate (although Hallam did tell us they had explained our situation to them).

E.g. I was told in 2019 that they "should" be able to provide us with mains services and broadband on the back of what they were planning. The Persimmon ladies explained that would be a really big deal for them as it would involve closing the public road and digging a trench to link to the Woods. As a result, they said it was really unlikely to be possible. Hence, we approached an independent utilities company and, to cut a long story short, we ended up with a quote of £375,000 to provide mains electricity (only)!!! Broadband, from another provider, would be around an additional £50,000. No provision for mains water. Sadly, we don't have that kind of money to spend so we have had no alternative but to look into off-grid options at our own cost. Boundary fencing, as another thing where we hoped for help, is also going to be at our own cost with a quote of about £4,600 just for the top priority sections along Robey's Lane.

This has all been very upsetting with lots of tears cried over the last 10 years. I promised my late wife, Sarah, before she died that I would do my best to take care of the Woods and that has not changed. It's a whole lot harder than it might have been but I'm delighted to have my Lovely Lady partner, Rosie, at my side and supporting me all along the way. It does feel good to be moving on under our own control, now, rather than spending more time waiting for help from others that didn't materialise. We are looking forward to some new fencing and other improvements over coming months. That will be great (and we'll just have to put the historical discussions out of our minds).

30/05/2026

As usual, everyone is welcome to tomorrow's Open Day at the Woods (Sunday 31st May). The weather is looking good and, I'm pleased to say, a bit cooler than it has been. The trees etc have really struggled in the hot weather we've had in several of the years recently so a bit of respite for them will be welcome, I'm sure :-)

The early-Spring mowing that we did on our meadows has really helped the wild flowers, which is just what we were trying to do :-) We did a high cut primarily to take off the top of the Knapweed plants as they are so vigorous that they will dominate and overshadow everything else, given half a chance. The new mower that we bought last year allowed us to do that mowing pass as another 'cut and collect' so we were able to cut high _and_ remove the cuttings at the same time - something we've never been able to do before! It has produced a significant improvement already and many more species of wild flowers are growing well. That's also great for the insects - Biodiversity boosts biodiversity! We love it when a plan comes together :-)

If you arrive in a car, please park on the concrete area uphill of our main building, if there is space. Parking diagonally helps to preserve that space and, if everyone can park on that concrete area, we can keep the overflow area on the grass clear. Root compaction is a genuine issue for trees so parking on the concrete is much better for them wherever possible, please.

It's free entry to the Open Day but donations are always very welcome!

We're open 10am-3:30pm (last entries at 2:30). Thank you :-)