Launde Woods is a nature reserve north of

Launde Launde is a civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, bordering Rutland. The parish is the site of Launde Abbey. It gives its name to an electoral division of Leicestershire that stretches all the way from Scraptoft, Thurnby and ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

. It is owned by the Leicester

Diocesan Board of Finance A Diocesan Board of Finance, often abbreviated to DBF, is an institution of the Church of England which owns land and controls a number of financial matters in each of the Church's dioceses. Such Boards have existed in every diocese of the Church s ...

and leased to the

Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust The Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT) is one of 46 wildlife trusts across the United Kingdom. It manages nature reserves in Leicestershire and Rutland, and was founded in 1956 as the Leicestershire and Rutland Trust for Nature Con ...

. The site is in two areas, Launde Big Wood, which is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

, and Launde Park Wood. Launde Big Wood is ancient semi-natural woodland with a rich ground flora, including

wood anemone The phrase wood anemone is used in common names for several closely related species of flowering plants in genus ''Anemonoides'', including: * ''Anemonoides nemorosa ''Anemonoides nemorosa'' (syn. ''Anemone nemorosa''), the wood anemone, is an e ...

, wood forget-me-not and

sweet woodruff ''Galium odoratum'', the sweet woodruff or sweetscented bedstraw, is a flowering perennial plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to much of Europe from Spain and Ireland to Russia, as well as Western Siberia, Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, China an ...

. Most of Launde Park Wood has been planted with conifers, but the northern third has the same range of plants as the Big Wood. There is public access to the woods, which are located on either side of the road south of

Launde Abbey Launde Abbey is located in Leicestershire, England, 14 miles east of the city of Leicester and six miles south west of Oakham, Rutland. The building is used as a Conference centre, conference and Retreat (spiritual), retreat centre by the Church o ...

References

{{Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust