Woodland Workings

During café downtime, one of our first winter projects focuses on our beautiful ancient Cornish Woodland

In the quieter winter months we have all been working together to improve our 5-acre ancient woodland. It is a haven for wildlife, evoking the magic of childhood with its seven natural springs, a stream and a pond.

In 2020, Phoebe attained her BSc Horticulture and Plant Science degree from the Eden Project, Cornwall; Jacci and Ed work constantly alongside, whilst Hector uses his almighty strength to remove dangerous trees, prune hard landscape paths, and lumber around huge rounds of wood to keep the fires and BBQs burning!

In 2020 we worked with TEVI (Cornish for ‘grow’), an Exeter University project that works with Cornwall Council and Cornwall Wildlife Trust. TEVI assisted us in the building of our own wildlife watching deck with camera, woodland boardwalk, and purpose-built stretch tent to be used by visiting groups.

Jacci and Ed with one of the new wildlife camera traps

During a very wet October, Hector and Kenny got very muddy building the deck, digging holes by hand to sink posts into making the raised area. 

Keeping the workers fuelled!

The finished wildlife deck has since been used by groups and campers who enjoy the quietness of the woodland, roaming deer, and the canopy of trees above.

The finished deck

Alongside the new decking, we also completed a new boardwalk and path through the woodland, which involved Hector digging by hand about 20 tonnes of stoney soil to allow campers to walk through the woodland and access the road to Porthallow beach.

The new boardwalk

First rescued by Hector's girlfriend, who is a vet, Phoebe releases a hedgehog back into the wild.