Knighton Spinney

Review from July 2022
🚶🏻‍♀Visiting
Entry to this nature reserve is through the park.
The Spinney is open every Sunday for 3 hours (10am-1pm). Different wardens volunteer on a rota to be present during open time. The spinney is closed in winter (from November to March) to allow for animal hibernation and such. Best time to visit is in April when the ground is covered with blue flowers. I visited on 3rd July, 2022.

The spinney has a walkway inside in a figure of 8 shape with a cut through the middle if you want to cut the walk short.

📰History
Oak trees were planted 180 years ago for ship building. With Ash trees around them to make the oak trees grow taller to compete for sunlight. That way, straight trunks of oak would be formed, thus useful for ship building. But these oaks were never used cuz ship building moved away from wood and onto metal.

🦚Conservation efforts
As a rule by government, nature reserves are self regenerating so there's no need of human plantation and cutting, etc. But it turns out Both Ash and Oak trees need help.

Ash dieback is a disease of Ash trees so they do need to be cut occasionally.
New oak trees try to grow but can't cuz lack of sunlight from overhead canopy, plus they get covered by shrubs, etc so now the "Friends of Knighton park" volunteer group have planted oak "baby standards" which are 6 feet tall oak to help them get a chance at growth. The oaks are grown initially at home to attain this height.

Saving saffron brook (aka Wash Brook) fund helped fund the spinney in 2022 as it is a catchment area for the brook.

Lovely walk round the spinney.
Open on Sundays.
Looks like new bird boxes have been put up and a few activity posts for children to look out for along the walk have also been added.

Lovely in autumn

More Oak trees being planted.