Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire border: Stockgrove Country Park & King's Wood (Flora of the Greensands)

27 May 2011                   SP9229 Map OS Landranger 165

Length: Half a day

We parked at Stockgrove Country Park Visitor Centre, which has all basic facilities including a café.  Most of this walk is in Bedfordshire.  All of it is on the infertile acid sandy soil of the Greensands Ridge, a rare habitat in the context of Bucks as a whole, providing heathland plants with limited distributions in the county.  The area can be explored in more or less time as desired, but it is possible to visit most parts in half a day.  Paths are easy on soft sand, with scattered lumps of sandstone, the local building material: for a useful leaflet "Sand & Sandpits", pick one up at the Visitor Centre or go to http://www.sandpitproject.co.uk/.  Stockgrove Park is owned by Bucks County Council and efficiently run by the Greensand Trust http://www.greensandtrust.org/, whose rangers are very helpful.

          We initially took the “easy access” route west through oak and fir woodland to the lake, passing bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta, wood-sorrel Oxalis acetosella, remote sedge Carex remota, wood speedwell Veronica montana and planted rhododendron Rhododendron ponticum, the latter, like the lake, reflecting the fact that this was once a country house estate.  

Yellow iris by Stockgrove Lake

There are pedunculate and sessile oaks Quercus robur and petraea, plus hybrids between the two. 

Sessile oak leaves

Sessile oak predominates in Baker’s Wood SSSI on the left, many of them in the form of old coppiced trees.  By the stream and the lake there were alder Alnus glutinosa (with galls of mite Eriophyes laevis), dogwood Cornus sanguinea, gypsywort Lycopus europaeus, wild angelica Angelica sylvestris, grey sedge Carex divulsa divulsa, greater pond sedge Carex riparia, water figwort Scrophularia auriculata, and bugle Ajuga reptans.  On the other side of the path at the bottom of Baker’s Wood we found a patch of lily-of-the-valley Convallaria majalis leaves, but no flowering specimens, heather Calluna vulgaris and a single (fenced) patch of bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus, rare in this part of the country.

Bilberry in fruit

            Although the lake is noted for its mandarin ducks, we only saw mallard, coot and heron.  We rounded the end of the lake and walked back 60-70 metres.  Nettles by the lake here had unusual leaf-galls of reddish-orange spots caused by the fungus Puccinia urticata.  There were also clumps of the introduced red-osier dogwood Cornus sericea.  We turned left along a path up the hill through a developing heathland habitat where firs had been cleared, with heather, sheep’s sorrel Rumex acetosella, early hair-grass Aira praecox and wood-sage Teucrium scorodonia.

Sheep’s sorrel

This led to the corner of Oak Wood, predominantly now conifer plantations with other introductions such as sweet chestnut Castanea sativa.  We bore left and kept near the southern edge.  This path led directly through a number of well-established yellow azaleas Rhododendron luteum.  Most were just going over. 

Yellow azalea

"Here we go round the azalea bush ..."

Around them were many plants of climbing corydalis Corydalis claviculata, pill sedge Carex pilulifera and lady-fern Athyrium felix-femina.  There was also rhododendron, including a pale pink cultivar. 

Climbing corydalis

Oak Wood

Rhododendron ponticum

At the far end of a large pond there is an interesting wooden seat carved from oak wood on the theme of that tree, with oak leaves and acorns (in memory of Julia Bisknell who died in March 2001).  On the seat is carved this inscription:

"This life is good. Live it gently with fire, and always with hope" (Ben Okri, “African Elegy”)

Julia’s Bench

Pond by the bench

The bench was attracting quite a lot of life, with woodland insects such as the soldier beetle Cantharis rustica, the orange and black oak capsid bug Rhabdomiris striatellus, the weevil Phyllobius pyri, and a caterpillar of the yellow tail moth looking for a pupation site.  Marshy ground here had clumps of soft shield-fern Polystichum setiferum.

Cantharis rustica Soldier beetle

Yellowtail caterpillar

A path to the right took us uphill at the end of the pond, past a wet hollow with much ivy-leaved crowfoot Ranunculus hederaceus and wavy bittercress Cardamine flexuosa.  Here was also the common long-horned moth Nemophora degeerella.  We eventually came to the Greensand Ridge Walk and turned right again, across the centre of Oak Wood, consisting purely of conifers which were enjoyed by goldcrests. 

Pines, Oak Wood

There was a bare understorey apart from bracken Pteridium aquilinum.  We turned right again at the next footpath which descended along the east side of the wood to where we had entered it.  There were some old silver birch trees Betula pendula along here with a lot of climbing corydalis beneath them and the brackets of birch polypore Piptoporus betulinus on their trunks.

Birch polypore

          At the junction with Stockgrove Park we carried straight down the hill (taking care not to take the new track on the right into Rushmere Park, which has just been purchased to greatly extend Stockgrove).  This descends to the stream and marsh a couple of hundred metres above the lake.  We crossed the bridge and turned left beside the stream until we came to a path leading up into Baker’s Wood.  This is mainly sessile oak, with wavy hair-grass Deschampsia flexuosa beneath.

Bakers Wood: sessile oaks

Old sessile oak coppice

The path led north-east to the far end of the wood where a track descends to the Visitor Centre.  We spotted some wood anemone Anemone nemorosa leaves as we came down here.

          After a snack and a wicked cup of freshly-ground coffee at the café we crossed the road to the path to Rammamere Heath, a good place to see adders.  On sunny days the wooden fence here is also a good place to see common lizards.  The path goes through a pleasant meadow with yellow rattle Rhinanthus minor, pignut Conopodium majus, square-stalked St.John’s-wort Hypericum tetrapterum, lesser and bog stitchworts Stellaria graminea & S. alsine and meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria.  Common blues were flying here with various small moths such as Chimney Sweeper. 

Yellow rattle

Chimney sweeper

At the end of the fence we turned right along the wide path beside Rammamere Heath on the left and Kings Wood on our right.  There is more good heath vegetation along here with heather, heath bedstraw Galium saxatile, birdsfoot Ornithopus perpusillus, tormentil Potentilla erecta, heath speedwell Veronica officinalis, pill sedge, and oval sedge Carex ovalis.

Birdsfoot, flowers & fruit

Heath speedwell

Oval sedge

          When we reached the Rammamere Heath information board we turned right into Kings Wood, with Bragenham Wood on the left, and here we saw huge colonies of lily-of-the-valley in full flower, both along a track to the right and along the track ahead. 

Lily of the valley

By taking three right-angled right turns along wide tracks we found we could traverse a great deal of King’s Wood and eventually come out on the heathy ride by Rammamere Heath where we started.  A left turn here took us back to Stockgrove.  Through the wood we encountered slender St.John’s-wort Hypericum pulchrum, pendulous sedge Carex pendula, small-leaved lime Tilia cordata, downy birch Betula pubescens, aspen Populus tremula, and foxglove Digitalis purpurea. 

Kings Wood: coppiced oak

Aspen

Foxglove

The leaves of the small-leaved lime had galls of two different mites Eriophyes leiosoma & Aceria lateannulatus and mines of the micro-moth Incurvaria pectinea.  The aspen had the galls of the mite Phyllocoptes populi.

Galls of Aceria lateannulatus

Mines of Incurvaria pectinea