Common Wood

Become a Friend of Common Wood

There’s no better way to support us than by becoming a member. Together we can protect and enhance this precious woodland haven, keeping it safe for threatened wildlife, to tackle the effects of climate change and to enjoy for generations to come.

More details can be downloaded in our leaflet on how we have now set up Friends of Common Wood as a special class of membership of P&TGRS committed to the long term conservation of our ancient woodlands.

Common Wood is over 260 acre wood located in Penn, Buckinghamshire. It is a large fragment of ancient and semi-natural woodland and is part of a chain of woods at the southern edge of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) including Penn Wood and Kingswood. It contains a range of rare and valuable habitats and uncommon species found in ancient woods. The wood is open to the public for quiet recreation such as walking, running, cycling and horse-riding.

Common Wood was purchased by the Penn & Tylers Green Residents Society in 2003 following an extensive public campaign. With support from the Woodland Trust, the Chiltern Society and the Lottery Heritage Fund, the Society has been able to safeguard the wood for the benefit of the local community. It is committed to providing open access to all, and has set about an extensive management programme of both the natural habitat and the paths and access points throughout the wood. Whilst we encourage visitors, it is important that everyone stays on the marked paths to protect the biodiversity of this ancient woodland.

Common Wood is a semi-natural ancient woodland. This means that it has been woodland for over 400 years, but has been managed by man for most, if not all of this time. The mainly beech woodland (with some Douglas fir avenues) we see today was mostly planted by the Penn estate after the 1855 Inclosure Act. Over the years, the beech has been felled either clear felling whole areas, or by selective felling to preserve a continuous canopy. This, combined with a rich variety of soil types, has resulted in an interesting mix of flora within the wood.

Common Wood contains more than 330 species of flora and fauna, their diversity governed by the acidity or lime content of the soil in the zones in which they are found. Though it is largely beechwood, there are strands of mature oak, an aspen grove, an avenue of Douglas firs, and Scots pine. Certain areas are more akin to open heath, with gorse and bracken, while others contain large tracts if cherry, laurel and holly; yet others are colonised by larch or silver birch.

Bramblings and siskins may be detected in winter, feeding with resident finches among the conifers; in spring the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker, calling nuthatches or the song of the robin may be heard; in summer, migrant willow-warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap sing from the surrounding scrub.

Carpets of bluebells fill the air with fragrance in spring, while fungi such as Fly Agaric are some of the delights of the woodland floor in autumn. Other flora is more modest: heath bedstraw being an example.

Numerous species of butterfly and moth have been recorded in Common Wood, such as the Brimstone and Red Admiral butterfly, and the impressive Elephant hawk-moth. Animals include foxes, badgers, grey squirrels and muntjac.

There are no less than 14 of the nationally recognised “vegetation classifications” within the wood – from beech and bramble, to gorse and bramble scrub, to oak with silver birch, to yew.