Whittlewood Forest is a former medieval hunting forest east of Silverstone in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

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 b ...

. It is managed by the Forestry England. There are tracts of

ancient woodland In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...

within it and old ditches can be found at the edges of several individual woods. The area has been the subject of extensive academic historical research. An area of in seven different patches has been designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which is about half the size of an average English parish. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2.

Extent

The

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

is mainly between the villages of Silverstone, Syresham,

Abthorpe Abthorpe is a village and civil parish in the valley of the River Tove in West Northamptonshire, England, about west of Towcester, northwest of Silverstone and approximately midway between London and Birmingham. The 2001 census recorded 28 ...

, Wicken, Potterspury and to the high Buckinghamshire

boundary Boundary or Boundaries may refer to: * Border, in political geography Entertainment * ''Boundaries'' (2016 film), a 2016 Canadian film * ''Boundaries'' (2018 film), a 2018 American-Canadian road trip film *Boundary (cricket), the edge of the pla ...

. Interconnecting

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

s, made up in part by Hazelborough Wood, make up the main section. Isolated woods such as Bucknell Wood and a scattered set east of the village of Whittlebury, as far as Potterspury make up most of the rest. Remnants exist all around the villages and over the county boundary into Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes; such outliers include Whistley Wood, west of Syresham.

Management

It is managed by the Forestry Commission, who also manage neighbouring woods such as

Salcey Forest Salcey Forest is a fragment of a former medieval hunting forest east of the village of Hartwell, between Northampton and Newport Pagnell in Northamptonshire. It is managed by Forestry England and to promote biodiversity, and is also commercially ...

and

Yardley Chase Yardley Chase is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, mostly in Northamptonshire, with a small area in the south of the site in Buckinghamshire. It is in two areas of woodland, pasture and parkland, south-west of Yardley Hastings ...

. Parts of the wood are protected as an SSSI, especially a number of separate copses which represent the remnants of the old semi-

Royal Forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...

in the Honour of Grafton.

Ecology

It is notable for bluebells in mid-Spring in many parts of the forest together with other ancient woodland indicator species such as

Yellow rattle ''Rhinanthus minor'', known as yellow rattle, is a herbaceous wildflower in the genus '' Rhinanthus'' in the family Orobanchaceae (the broomrapes). It has circumpolar distribution in Europe, Russia, western Asia, and northern North America. An a ...

and the

Lesser celandine ''Ficaria verna'' (formerly ''Ranunculus ficaria'' ), commonly known as lesser celandine or pilewort, is a low-growing, hairless perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae native to Europe and Western Asia. It has fleshy dar ...

. There are stands of beech and oak interspersed with hazel

coppice Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeate ...

as well as conifer

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

s within the forest. The conifer plantations are slowly being removed as a part of a national policy to restore

. They will be replaced with native

hardwoods Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

such as oak and beech. As with most ancient woods, coppicing is no longer practised, and many former coppice stools can be seen in the woods. Three types of

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

are in the forest:

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

roe Roe ( ) or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooked in ...

and muntjac. Foxes and

badger Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by ...

s are common. Birds include

buzzard Buzzard is the common name of several species of birds of prey. ''Buteo'' species * Archer's buzzard (''Buteo archeri'') * Augur buzzard (''Buteo augur'') * Broad-winged hawk (''Buteo platypterus'') * Common buzzard (''Buteo buteo'') * Eastern ...

s and there are occasional sightings of the

red kite The red kite (''Milvus milvus'') is a medium-large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. The species currently breeds in the Western Palearctic region o ...

, possibly from the expanding population in the Chilterns. The SSSI is ancient semi-natural woodlands with many trees which are mature or over-mature, especially

pedunculate oak ''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus. It is widel ...

s. There are also many

ash trees ''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of subtropical species are e ...

and a scattering of silver birches and aspens. The oaks have nationally rare and nationally uncommon beetles, and there are locally rare lichens.

Access

Some areas are open to the public, and footpaths go through others such as Say's Copse, but some are private land.

References

{{SSSIs Northamptonshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Northamptonshire Forests and woodlands of Northamptonshire English royal forests Nature Conservation Review sites

Extent

Management

Ecology

Access

See also

References