Great Ridge Wood, formerly also known as Chicklade Wood, is one of the largest woodlands in southern

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. Mostly within the parishes of Boyton and

Sherrington Sherrington is a small village and civil parish on the River Wylye in Wiltshire, England. The part of the Great Ridge Wood known as Snailcreep Hanging lies entirely within Sherrington. Location Sherrington is near the larger village of Codfor ...

, and entirely within the

Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) covering of Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. It is the sixth largest AONB in England. The area was designated as an AONB in 1981 and confirmed i ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

, it lies on a

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

downland Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is deriv ...

ridge above the

River Wylye The River Wylye ( ) is a chalk stream in the south of England, with clear water flowing over gravel. It is popular with anglers for fly fishing. A half-mile stretch of the river and three lakes in Warminster are a local nature reserve. Cour ...

. To the south are the villages of

Chicklade Chicklade is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, South West England. The village is on the A303 road, about south of Warminster. The parish includes the hamlet of Upper Pertwood. The Great Ridge Wood, formerly also known as Chickla ...

and

Fonthill Bishop Fonthill Bishop is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, to the north of the Nadder valley and south of Warminster. The Fonthill Park estate extends into the south of the parish. Landscaping which included the creation of Fo ...

, while to the north are Boyton, Corton, Sherrington and Stockton. To the east of the wood, on the same ridge, lies another large block of woodland,

Grovely Wood Grovely Wood is one of the largest woodlands in southern Wiltshire, England. It stands on a chalk ridge above the River Wylye in Barford St Martin parish, to the south-west of the village of Great Wishford, within the Cranborne Chase and West W ...

Wood, Great Ridge near Chicklade 1 - geograph

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

runs from east to west through the centre of the wood, and it has two ancient monuments within it. In recognition of its nature conservation importance, the wood is designated by

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...

as a County Wildlife Site.

Names and ownership

Both names for the wood, Great Ridge and Chicklade, are old. The ''Penny Cyclopaedia'' of 1843 says: The 'Great Ridge Wood' is referred to in

W. H. Hudson William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922) – known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson – was an English Argentines, Anglo-Argentine author, natural history, naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist. Life Hudson was the ...

's ''A Shepherd's Life'' (1910), in which he reports that in the 19th century the old people of

and other villages were allowed to take from it as much dead wood as they could find. As with most land in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, the Great Ridge is owned by people or organisations. Much of the area is owned by the Fonthill Estate and they operate timber gathering, shoots and hunts in the area.

Highwaymen

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were notorious

highwaymen A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to fo ...

(armed criminals) who preyed upon stagecoaches on the way to London or

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

, Devonshire. Legend has it that one highwayman, Jack Hag, lived in the Great Ridge and attacked these coaches. One day, local people pursued him into the wood, caught him and executed him by hanging him from an

oak tree An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably '' ...

. The oak became known as 'Hag's Oak' and when the tree was blown down in a storm in 2005, an old ''"rusty cast iron plaque was revealed deep within the tree"'' after being cut up for timber. The only still clear letter was the letter 'H'.

References

Forests and woodlands of Wiltshire {{Wiltshire-geo-stub

Names and ownership

Highwaymen

See also

References