Home News Project info The River Wye Links Walk, Bolstone Woods, Gannah Farm and Trilloes Court Wood 6th November, 2005 Bolstone Wood This wood known for its diversity of wildlife has been designated A County Wildlife Site and is managed by rotational coppicing. Oak, ash, chestnut, conifers and other species are identifiable and deer are to be found. In the 1800s Upper and Lower Bolstone Woods formed one large wood of 266 acres belonging to the Duchess of Norfolk of Holme Lacy. The timber grown was ‘Oak and Ash and Coppice of Alder, Hazel etc’, and between 1801 and 1804 the wood was cut. The wood continued as part of the Holme Lacy estate which passed from the Duchess of Norfolk to Sir Edwin Francis Scudamore Stanhope and onto the Earl of Chesterfield before being sold to Sir Robert Lucas-Tooth after a three day auction sale in 1911. Under his ownership the wood of 192 acres was worked by John Harris, William Raymond and Henry Williams, and in 1920 Lower Bolstone Wood contained a fine growth of Excellent Timber’, and the Lower Wood had ‘a good growth of straight timber’. Before 1926 Upper Bolstone Wood had been felled leaving ‘numerous healthy saplings and Underwood’, and did not sell at auction, whereas Lower Bolstone Wood with its thriving mixed Timber Trees of good dimensions, principally Oak and Ash with Underwood’ worth £2,900 was sold. The LOWV group walked through Bolstone Woods, Sunday 6th November. The walk started at Trilloes Court Wood, Bolstone and proceeded through Upper Bolstone Wood to Gannah Farm. It then passed through Lower Bolstone Wood to Bolstone Church and then to the site of Trill Mill. Before returning to the starting point it passed through Trilloes Court Wood where there the group viewed a little-known medieval moated site. Part of this last stretch was through private property and was by kind permission of the owner. The walk was led by Heather Hurley and David Lovelace.   Gannah Farm on a Scudamore estate map of 1780. Bolstone Wood covers the whole centre of the map.   Map of the area in about 1840 as shown on the Bolstone tithe map. Bolstone Wood is essentially the same as in 1780.   The area in the 1880s on the 1st edition OS map. The centre of Bolstone Wood has been converted to farmland. The western part of the wood has become Upper Bolstone Wood and the eastern part Lower Bolstone Wood. Kelly's Directory of 1879 describes the soils of Bolstone (then Boulstone) as being clay and the principle crops as wheat, oats and beans.   Back to TOP

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