Charnwood Forest is a
hilly tract in north-western
Leicestershire,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, bounded by
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city l ...
,
Loughborough and
Coalville. The area is undulating, rocky and picturesque, with barren areas. It also has some extensive tracts of
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
; its elevation is generally and upwards, the area exceeding this height being about . The highest point,
Bardon Hill, is . On its western flank lies an abandoned
coalfield, with
Coalville and other former mining villages, now being regenerated and replanted as part of the
National Forest. The
M1 motorway, between junctions 22 and 23, cuts through Charnwood Forest.
The hard stone of Charnwood Forest has been quarried for centuries, and was a source of
whetstones and
quern-stones. The
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...
quarries at
Bardon Hill, Buddon Hill and
Whitwick
Whitwick is a large village in Leicestershire, England, close to the town of Coalville in the northwest of the county. It lies in an ancient parish which formerly included the equally historic villages of Thringstone and Swannington. It was an ...
supply crushed aggregate to a wide area of southern Britain.
The forest is an important recreational area with woodland walks, noted for their displays of
bluebells in the early spring,
rock climbing and
hillwalking. Popular places with public access include
Bardon Hill,
Beacon Hill Beacon Hill may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beacon Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, a neighbourhood
* Beacon Hill Park, a park in Victoria, British Columbia
* Beacon Hill, Saskatchewan
* Beacon Hill, Montreal, a neighbourhood in Beaconsfield, Quebec
United ...
,
Bradgate Park,
Swithland Wood and the
Outwoods and Stoneywell Cottage (National Trust).
Extent
The area of hills and open land known as Charnwood Forest has no jurisdictional boundary (the
Borough of Charnwood covers roughly two thirds of Charnwood Forest, and the eastern half of the borough is not part of the forest). Furthermore, despite its name, Charnwood was never a
royal forest, and was never subject to
forest law. So although it is an ancient and well-established locality, it has only recently been officially defined, by the
Natural England National Character Area (NCA) process, which takes a somewhat wider definition than many previous attempts to define the area.
Geology
Many of the craggy rocks of Charnwood Forest are of volcanic origin and are very old, dating back through 600 million years to
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...
times. It was the site of the first-ever recorded discovery of ''
Charnia
''Charnia'' is a genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry). T ...
masoni'', the earliest-known large, complex fossilised species on record. It was discovered in 1957 by a local schoolboy named
Roger Mason (thus ''masoni'') who, with friends, was exploring a quarry near the Charnwood village of
Woodhouse Eaves
Woodhouse Eaves is a village in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire, England.
Nearby are the villages of Quorn, Swithland, and Newtown Linford. Breakback Road leads from the village to Nanpantan and Loughborough.
The church of St Paul is a gra ...
. The rocks of Charnwood Forest remain the only place in
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
where these Precambrian
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s have been found.
Along the western edge of Charnwood Forest the rocks are mainly Precambrian igneous
diorite
Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-sil ...
s. These formed from molten lava deep within the sedimentary rocks, cooling slowly to produce hard, blocky rock with large crystals. This is extensively quarried for roadstone around
Groby,
Markfield
Markfield is a large village in both the National Forest and Charnwood Forest and in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England. The settlement dates back to at least the time of the Norman conquest and is mentioned in the ...
and
Whitwick
Whitwick is a large village in Leicestershire, England, close to the town of Coalville in the northwest of the county. It lies in an ancient parish which formerly included the equally historic villages of Thringstone and Swannington. It was an ...
, and is known as granite (formerly also called Markfieldite).
The central area of the forest has older rocks still. These are sedimentary and are very variable in character, They were formed by material from volcanoes, settling in deep water, and it is in these beds that the fossils are found. Uplifting, tilting and erosion have produced the distinctive jagged exposures found across the highest parts of Charnwood. On the eastern side, a much more recent series of rocks are found. Again igneous diorites, that formed deep underground, but these are
Ordovician, from a mere 450 million years ago. These are extensively quarried in the areas near
Mountsorrel.
History
The earliest form of the name Charnwood is probably derived from ''cerne woda'', from the Celtic ''carn'', meaning
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...
, and the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
''wudu'', meaning wood. Some sources give ''cwern'' as the derivation, meaning a tool used to grind grain and other materials by hand. The area was a source of stone for these tools, called
quern-stones.
Archeological evidence has shown that the area was inhabited as far back as the Neolithic period, approximately 4,000–2,000 BC. Beacon Hill is the site of a Bronze Age hill fort, dating from between 600 BC and 43 AD. This forms one of the last surviving visible features in the landscape known to the
Coritani, the tribe who occupied most of the
East Midlands area at the time of the Roman Conquest.
According to
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
, there was only one settlement in Charnwood Forest in 1086, at
Charley whose name would appear to come from the same root, with the suffix ''-ley'' denoting open land, rather than forest.
In the 200 years after the
Norman conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...
, newly created settlements took major areas of land out of the forest for use in agriculture.
Quorn was established between 1086 and 1153, and all the land up to
Woodhouse had been deforested by 1228.
There were comparatively few major changes in land use in the post Medieval period, until the demand for timber and charcoal for the early
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
contributed to a further loss of woodland. By the end of the 18th century, most of the woodland had disappeared leaving large areas of moorland and pasture.
In 1957 Charnwood Forest was considered for designation as an
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), but the designation was not made due to the construction of the
M1 motorway through the area.
In literature
The area was the inspiration for "Charnwood Poems", a collection of poems by the author, playwright and poet
Albert Francis Cross (1863–1940). It is also the setting for the speculative fiction novel ''
Some Kind of Fairy Tale'' by
Graham Joyce (2012), in which it is depicted as a possible portal to the realm of
fairies.
Wildlife and geological sites
Charnwood Forest covers approx of
Leicestershire, split over three local government districts:
Charnwood Borough,
North West Leicestershire
North West Leicestershire is a local government district in Leicestershire, England. The population of the Local Authority at the 2011 census was 93,348. Its main towns are Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Castle Donington, Coalville and Ibstock.
The d ...
District and
Hinckley and Bosworth District. It includes a
national nature reserve (NNR), 19
SSSIs (Some subdivided in the list of sites below), 4
Geological Conservation Review (GCR) sites of international geological importance plus a further 6 GCR sites, 13
regionally important geological sites (RIGS), five
local nature reserves (LNRs), seven
Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT) nature reserves, and one
Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland heritage. It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972.
The Woodland Tr ...
woodland. Seventeen sites have open access to the public. Footpaths and bridleways give views and limited access to the other sites listed, and to the rest of the Charnwood Forest landscape. Over half of Charnwood Forest is included within the English
National Forest. It is also crossed by two waymarked long distance walking routes—the Leicestershire Round and the Ivanhoe Way.
The 45 sites listed here include sites with statutory wildlife or geological designations, plus other sites included in published lists of notable sites. On both the map and table, green denotes a site open to the public, amber denotes a site with limited access or restricted by permit or membership. Red denotes a site with no public access except by special arrangement with the owners.
Plants found within the woods include ''
Digitalis purpurea'', ''
Dactylorhiza fuchsii'', ''
Sorbus torminalis'' and ''
Vaccinium myrtilus''.
Abbreviations used in the table:
National nature reserve (NNR).
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) (B=Biological, G=Geological).
Geological Conservation Review (GCR)(I=of International importance). Regionally Important Geological Site (RIGS).
Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT). National Trust (NT).
Local nature reserve (LNR).
See also
*
Henry Walter Bates
*
Thomas George Bonney
*
Borough of Charnwood
*
Quorn Hunt
*
Charnia
''Charnia'' is a genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry). T ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
* (This report includes two high-quality geological maps)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Charnwood forest geology.
{{Coord, 52.70, -1.25, type:forest_region:GB, display=title
Forests and woodlands of Leicestershire
Hills of Leicestershire
Borough of Charnwood