A woodland in waiting. A piece of history. A community's pride and joy. You've helped us double the size of one of our most treasured woods.
To the west of Birmingham, near Bromsgrove, a piece of history is waiting to be re-awakened.
It's a piece of land bordering Pepper Wood - an ancient and hugely valuable community woodland and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which we were lucky enough to buy in the early 1980s.
Thanks to your support and a successful fundraising campaign, we're now in the process of taking formal ownership of the land, and in the near future we'll be able to begin work to transform it into a new haven for wildlife.
Through a combination of natural regeneration and carefully thought out tree planting, we'll use this land to establish a new wooded landscape, linking to Pepper Wood directly along its northern boundary and creating 250 acres of continuous, resilient native woodland.
Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
The incredible views from the top of the Pepper Wood extension across to the Malvern Hills will be retained, with the open glades we are keeping serving as valuable hunting grounds for barn owls and kestrels. The new woodland will also provide more space for Pepper's special population of the rare land caddisfly.
Credit: Mark Zytynski / WTML
The new woodland we'll create will become a great place for local people to enjoy and will link to existing access at Pepper Wood. Pepper already has a close relationship with its local community and is still coppiced, worked and carefully managed today by the Pepper Wood Community Woodland Group.
Credit: Mark Zytynski / WTML
Although the land we're taking on is currently farmland fringed by fingers of priceless ancient woodland, maps show it was partly wooded in the past. While we'll do some tree planting, we'll also allow woodland to return naturally, with saplings seeding themselves.
Credit: Mark Zytynski / WTML
A large swathe of the Pepper Wood extension is famed locally as the location of a Second World War ‘starfish’. Starfish sites were large-scale night-time decoys created during the Blitz to simulate burning British cities. The aim was to divert German night bombers from their intended targets – in this case Birmingham - so they would hit the countryside instead. The structure was watched over by a lone volunteer who would watch the skies and set light to the fake ‘city’ at the appropriate moment.
Pepper Wood is just one of many woodland sites we own and manage in central England. Your ongoing support helps us care for and protect trees, woods and wildlife across the region.
Whatever you choose to give, donating online is secure, quick and cost effective, so more money goes directly towards supporting our work where the need is greatest.
