Edward Hunt's Forest of Dean Miscellany |

Boys Grave and Cannop Forest Trail

This trail tells us about the everyday plants and animals that are to be found in many British woodlands. It also shows the part that Man has played in the legend and history in making this place as we see it today.
The trail is unusual in that some of the most simple and fundamental aspects of plant and animal life are described.
Parts of the walk may well be muddy in wet weather, and good strong shoes are advisable.
The trail can be joined and cars can be parked at Canop Pond picnic place (Stop 7) or Boys Grave viewpoint.
The route is 2½ miles long. Follow the Red arrows which mark the trail.

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This text was written by B. V. Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean and M.J. Dunn, Forest Warden, for the Forestry Commission 'Boy's Grave and Forest Trail'. © 1974

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(N.B. This text describes a trail devised and laid out by the boys and staff of Double View School, Cinderford in the 1970s. Due to fellings and replantings and the re-routing of brooks, etc…, the trail has not survived intact. My aim is to document some of these changes. – Edward Hunt)

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Map by B. V. Cave

Boys Grave Oak

You are standing at the edge of the central highland of the Forest and, westwards, you are looking across the circular valley surrounding this central area. This valley exists because of the soft shales, which include a number of coal seams, come to the surface in the valley, and these are worn away more quickly by streams than the harder sandstones which lie beneath your feet. A series of rock faults have also helped in the formation of the valley.

In the view the activity of Man can be seen in many ways. Around you is evidence of the forester’s work. Rising on the skyline are the cranes of the Bixhead stone quarries, where blue Pennant sandstone is extracted. To the right and in front of the Fire Tower the plume of smoke that may often be seen is from the West Dean public refuse dump. Please do not leave your rubbish in any beautiful place such as this; take it home; keep the country clean.

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Boy’s Grave

The legend has it that a gypsy boy, camping nearby, went to the spring to drink and fell on his his knife, killing himself. He is said to be buried by an old oak that has long since disappeared. The oak may have marked the boundary of one of the areas, once called bailiwicks, of the Forest.

A more likely explanation of the name is that it comes from the Norman French 'Bois Greve' meaning a sloping wood.

Follow the path to the left and over the style

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Black Penny Wall Well

This was probably commonly used as a drinking place by travellers through the Forest. Its importance is indicated by the way it has been lined with stonework. The name is a corruption of Blackberry.
Around the well are rushes, foxgloves, and plants of hard-fern. Rushes grow only in wet places. Their leaves and stems, like onions, are hollow. Can you see how greenish flowers are set on the stems a few inches below the tip? Dried rushes were strewn on the floor as carpets in the Middle Ages, and bunched and soaked in grease, were also used as lamps.
In the water a green scum can usually be seen. This is the algae, a primitive form of plant life.
The spring is caused by water collecting between a layer of clay and a layer of sandstone above, and flows out here where the two layers surface.
Continue the trail downhill.

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A Mossy Bank

From Black Penny Wall Well follow the trail down the hill.

You are entering a plantation of Christmas Trees (Norway Spruce), planted in 1937.

In front is a mossy bank beneath a Sweet Chestnut tree. This tree arises as a number of stems from its base. Originally a tree was cut down and its re-growth has produced this effect. Frequently, the young long stems are cut to use for fencing, but here this stage is long past.

Have you ever wondered what makes a moss, a moss? You never see flowers on a moss. You may be fortunate enough to see a number of spore cases standing tall on the moss plants. These produce tiny structures – spores – which blow in the wind and may, if landing on the right soil, grow into new moss plants.

As you go down the ride between the dense woods, you may in muddy places, see the footprints or slots, of the fallow deer that are to be found here. You will also see how, beneath the Norway Spruce plantation, there is almost no vegetation. Only in the driveway are there any green plants growing.

Why do you think this is?

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An Evergreen Forest

There are few tall green plants like grasses and rushes growing here: it is far too dark. Only
mosses are able to manage on some of the stumps and stones.

There are stumps from old woodland that was here, and from the thinnings of present woodland.

Later, as the wood grows older, it will be ‘thinned’ again, pools of light will penetrate the canopy
and the vegetation will return.

How thick are the spruce needles on the ground? They decay slowly compared with the leaves of
an oak wood.

What causes the leaves and stumps to decay?

What would the world be like if nothing decayed?

Cross the forest ride

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A Deciduous Wood

‘Deciduous’ means the leaves fall off in Autumn, evergreen trees also shed their leaves, but they always have a new set on first.

Here is a little holly tree, common enough. Do you see that some of the leaves are marked as though an animal has eaten between the layers of the leaf? This is indeed what has happened. A fly maggot has done this damage. In the wild, such diseases are kept in balance, so that plants would not normally die. In cultivation, diseases often get the upper hand. In the wild, certain tiny wasps attack the fly maggots, and birds also winkle them out of the leaves.

The woodland floor is here carpeted with the plants characteristic of an English woodland. Bluebells, wood sorrel and celandines are here. Such plants produce leaves early in the year to make use of the sunlight before the trees shade them too deeply. They are well adapted to their life.

As you go along you will see that many trees have grey crusty lichens on them. This shows that the air is reasonably pure here. They will not grow in smoky towns. Lichens are curious plants, half fungus, half algae.

You now pass into an open area recently felled and replanted; there is a luxuriant growth of grasses. As you cross the man-made ditch you will see its bottom consists of heavy clay. The clay was formed by the action of ice in the ice age grinding the surface rocks into a heavily compacted clay mass.

Keep to the path by the edge of the Oak Wood and turn towards the stream.

Grasses have greenish flowers like rushes but have flat leaves. The flowers have pollen blown from plant to plant by the wind to fertilize the female parts to produce seed, quite unlike other flowers which use insects to transfer the pollen. The pollen blown in the wind causes hay fever in some people.

This text was written by B. V. Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean for the Forestry Commission 'Boy's Grave and Forest Trail'.

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This text was written by B. V. Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean and M.J. Dunn, Forest Warden, for the Forestry Commission 'Boy's Grave and Forest Trail'. © 1974

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A Small Pool

This pool, formed artificially by the diversion of the stream, will eventually fill up by silting and the growth of plants, but meanwhile gives the chance for water plants and animals to live. The tall alder trees by its edge usually grow close to the water. The roots of these trees have large reddish swellings on them which contain bacteria which help the roots get nutrients – a difficult process in water-logged soil. The stems lying around are in many cases attacked by fungus which will result in their decay into dust. Bacteria also help in this decay.

(Follow the path on the other side of the stream downhill and soon you should cross the brook and climb up the other side to the open ground.)

As you travel along you will see the cut stumps of trees. Trees stop growth each year and this leaves a ring. You may be able to count the rings and see how old these trees were at felling.

Squirrels jump from branch to branch hereabouts. Kestrels hover over open ground seeking for mice. A large winged buzzard may be seen circling, also seeking prey. A strong ‘musky’ odour will tell you if a fox has passed nearby.

A number of the trees have ivy climbing up them and wild honeysuckle clambers over others. Neither hurts trees, unless they circle and strangle them, which honeysuckle is more likely to do.

Through the trees dark spruces can be seen in the distance. So many greens can be seen: dark green spruce, yellow greens of the grass, and various greens of ivy, oak and other trees. Why are they all green? Why are plants green?

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This text was written by B. V. Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean and M.J. Dunn, Forest Warden, for the Forestry Commission 'Boy's Grave and Forest Trail'. © 1974

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Stop 6 – Coal

You are standing in front of an outcrop of shaley Pennant sandstone and thin bands of coal. Look at the diagram notice how numerous coal seams of the ’Crow Delf’ series, tilt and come to the surface (‘outcrop’) between here and Cannop Ponds.

This particular outcrop is thin and unworkable so has not earned itself a name, but it lies between two much thicker bands of coal called ‘Starkey’ and ‘Rockey’, both of which have been mined extensively.

When you move on you will see across the stream grey, clay coal waste tips which are now tree covered, evidence that ‘freeminers’ of the Forest once worked here, mining the ‘Starkey’ seam.

Other seams you will cross have romantic sounding names like ‘Breadless’, ‘No Coal’, ‘Bry’, ‘Twenty Inch’, and ‘Little’, names that almost tell a story in themselves. Can you imagine what heartbreaks ‘Breadless’ caused before it earned such a name?

All these coal seams were formed 300 million years ago by plants in shallow lakes dying and accumulating as peat; this is compressed, as sand is piled on top, and eventually fossilizes into coal. You can almost see the plants have been laid down in layers with the occasional washing over them of sand laden rivers.

Follow along by the Stream

The path goes through a mixed oak wood. The leaves decay quickly and give a rich humus to the soil which enables many small animals to live in it. You are approaching the main part of the circular valley round the Forest, where most of the important coal seams are found, and the stream crosses these every few yards. If you look carefully, you will see traces of some coal seams mentioned above in the banks.

Brambles are common. The thorns they carry are to help them clamber over the brushwood, not just to hurt people.

The stream you have been following is called the Mersiche Brook, and odd name, probably from the Anglo-Saxon meaning ‘boundary stream’.

It has many meanders here, which is typical of a stream flowing over a fairly flat floor to a valley.

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