Following the original trial in September 2023, and an attempted continuation in 2024, cancelled due to sustained rain, summer 2025 saw this activity pick up again. On a couple of Sunday mornings in June and July, volunteers gathered to continue the process of revealing the original stone path, forming the lower path as it heads towards the wooden footbridge. Sustained work with shovels, hoes, trowels, weed hooks and brushes, has exposed another 50 metres or so of the path laid in the early 1980s. Many thanks to all the volunteers who contributed to this.
Branches break, trees fall, and not always in gales and high winds. Given that there are well-used public paths through the woods, the woods management group needs to keep an eye on anything in the vicinity of the paths that looks a bit ‘suspect’. Accordingly, some of the woods management group did a circuit of the public paths, looking up and around to identify anything that might be regarded as potentially hazardous. Having recorded all these photographically, the aim is to secure some expert opinion on whether these represent a genuine risk and what action we should take.
The first major action to begin implementing the woodland management plan was carried out in and around the hazel area near the quarry. In one small area a number of hazels were part felled with pleaching cuts and laid horizontally, in the expectation that new growth would occur all along the length. Some were felled completely, and the brash used to create dead hedges around the area. A main objective is to let more light onto the floor of the woods to encourage new growth. A secondary action below the path in that area was to carry out some ‘halo thinning’ of young beech saplings around selected oaks, again giving them more space and light. This is all part of the long term process of shifting the makeup of the woods from beech plantation to more mixed woodland typical of the Helford river environment.
It has been know for some time that there are otters ‘about’ – there have been sightings of otters and their tracks down at Polwheveral creek, and otter spraint identified in the valley above Trewardreva. In late February a member of the woods management group was contacted by a local resident, reporting that she had seen a family of four otters in the woods. Approaching (from the Well Lane path) the stone footbridge by the wheelpit, she saw three otters on the far bank of the stream and a kit getting out of the water. In the moments she was securing her dog, they vanished, so no photographic evidence, sadly!
An action proposed in the Ancient Woodland Assessment was to survey the lichen present in the hazel area near the quarry, aiming to ensure that nothing especially rare would be affected by any selective felling and thinning in that region. In early February some of the woods management group gathered in that area, armed with documents to help them identify anything rare or particularly interesting. In the event, nothing especially exotic was identified so the way seemed clear to proceed with the proposed selective clearing.
The Woodland Trust is leading a programme across the UK to restore ancient woodlands. There are very few areas where original ancient woodland remains undisturbed, but many where remnants of ancient woodland remain, or where plantations have been developed to replace original woodland. The Bosahan Woods, being formerly planted out as a beech plantation in Victorian times, would fall into this later category. In such areas the Woodland Trust recommends that an assessment is made regarding the survival of ancient woodland characteristics. On behalf of the Woodland Trust, Nick Jarvis of Working Woodlands Cornwall CIC made an assessment of the Bosahan Woods and issued a report in August 2024. This identifies the important features of the woods and the range of threats they face, coupled with some proposed prescriptive actions. One of these modifies the actions proposed in the woodland management plan for the hazel area near the quarry. Rather than introduce a regular coppicing programme, it proposes thinning by small group selection, with hazel stems felled with pleaching cuts (as in hedge laying) to promote new growth as ‘phoenix trees’.
Having worked its way slowly through the official processes, the woods management group was notified in June that the plan had been approved by the Forestry Commission. This opened the way for claiming the grant available for developing the plan, and paying, at last, Working Woodlands Cornwall for all their valuable support and the work put in to develop the plan on our behalf. Approval also opens the door to explore possible further grants and payments available to woodland owners via the Rural Payment Agency.
One of the proposed activities in the Woodland Management Plan is to introduce a coppicing programme to the area near the quarry where there was a concentration of hazels, and where there seemed to be evidence of earlier coppicing. In that area there is also a significant number of clumps of wood anemone, which is slow to establish itself, and which is an indicator of old woodland. One of the recommendations was to locate and map the areas where wood anemones were growing, so that damage could be avoided when coppicing work was being carried out and the wood anemones were not visible. Accordingly, in late spring a party of the woods management group set out to identify and record the locations of as many of these plants as possible
On Sunday November 5th last year (2023) the Bosahan Woods Management Group held another public meeting at the Tolmen Centre. The aim was to let everyone know about the proposals contained in the draft Woodland Management Plan for Bosahan Woods. The group has been supported by Working Woodlands Cornwall (WWC) in developing the plan, and Nick Jarvis of WWC was there on the day to present the plan and answer questions about it. Nick also led a guided walk through the woods to explain aspects of the plan ‘in situ’. The group has done its best to record all the feedback from the day, i.e. the questions arising, and the answers given, and the result can be viewed here:
For those unable to attend the public event in the Tolmen Centre, featured in the previous post, the draft plan can be accessed below, along with the various maps and diagrams that accompany it:
The draft plan : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/WMP-Bosahan-Wood-v2.pdf
Map 1 – Location : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_1_-_Location.pdf
Map 2 – Site Map : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_2_-_Site_Map.pdf
Map 3a – Designations : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_3a-Designations.pdf
Map 3b – Designations : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_3b-Designations.pdf
Map 4 – Priority Habitats : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_4_-_Priority_Habitats.pdf
Map 5 – Compartments : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_5_-_Compartments.pdf
Map 6 – Operations : http://woods.constantinecornwall.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/Bosahan_Wood_Map_6_-_Operations.png
