Oberon, the Færie King :

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine :
 

Your Puck, a naughty imp :

I'll put a girdle round about the wood,
And make it thine, sweet womanhood.
 

GREAT
KNELLE
WOOD

Titania's Bower is in the custody of Win [aka Titania] and Mike. It was obtained in mid-summer [when else?] 2011.

It is 5.45 acres [2.1 ha] of wood in the central eastern part of Great Knelle Wood, bordering part of the eastern stream which runs from the ridge through the wood to the river beyond. Clicking on the area of Titania's Bower on this map will take you to more detail : a separate tab will open in your browser.

The character of Titania's Bower is typical of the wood as a whole : mixed coppice and standards. The coppice trees are predominantly hornbeam although there are some sweet chestnuts, alder, grey poplar, birch and hazel. The standards are essentially oak although there are one or two sweet chestnuts which have escaped from the coppicing regime. At this stage of its life [2011] there has been no coppicing for perhaps 20 years so there is no under-story worth talking about.

The stream creates a micro-environment on the eastern border. It runs in a miniature valley - perhaps three metres deep - of its own making. The stream dried up in the rather dry 2011 but so far has flowed throughout 2012. In spring the banks were 'ablaze with wood anemones, bluebells, dog's mercury and early purple orchids' as Pat, our neighbour across the stream, put it. In places it is possible to spot ironstone at the bottom of the stream bed.

Just above the stream in the middle of its length through the wood there is a badger sett. Judging by the extent of their mining, badgers must have been here for a very long time. You can see some of the residents in a short video captured by 'wildcam' if you go to the animals page of the Fauna and Flora section of this domain.

On the central northern boundary there is a pair of almost connected ponds, more shallow scrapes than anything. They are probably the remains of 'borrow pits' from where somebody has mined out ironstone or, more prosaically, clay for building. There is a rich bed of leaf mould in the ponds so, although they dried out in the summer of 2011, they did remain moist and should provide another micro-environment.

In 2012 we invited our friends down for a Midsummer's Eve party. You can read all about that on its own page.