Graeme Hendry Woods is a Surrey Wildlife Trust owned woodland site found in the east of the county in Godstone. Named to commemorate its late owner, Graeme Hendry Wood was worked as a sand and gravel quarry until the 1920s, providing construction material for local roads. Now it has grown into a thriving deciduous woodland mainly comprising of ash and sycamore, along with oak, sweet chestnut, silver birch and hazel. The woodland is also scattered with ancient woodland indicators such as wych elm, hearts tongue fern and a showcase of bluebells in the spring.
Last winter our reserves team in the east reintroduced a coppice regime within a sweet chestnut coupe. The coppicing was carried out by a mixture of volunteers using hand tools and staff using chainsaws.
By reintroducing the coppice regime, we will create a mosaic of light levels and vegetation levels to promote the growth of ground plants (such as bluebells) and provide habitats for more specialised species (such as dormice who are arboreal and love the mid-level vegetation that coppice coupes provide).
Within this woodland we have high levels of deer browsing, so we had to put in measures to protect the sweet chestnut as it regrows. To do this we used a range of techniques. First, we created a dead hedge – a barrier around some of the freshly cut stools using the material that we cut down. This provides a physical barrier to stop deer being able to reach the stools. When we ran out of material, we installed deer netting around the rest to protect the stools as they regrow.
