Frith Wood

Frith Wood is a 75 hectare wood, owned and managed by the Forestry Commission. It lies just to the north of Ledbury, occupying a roughly north-east/south-west aligned limestone ridge on the western edge of the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The wood is almost 2km long and 300m wide. The highest point of Frith Wood, called Bradlow Knoll, is 260m above Ordnance Datum (OD).

The wood can probably be identified with the wood 'half a league by a half' mentioned in the Domesday survey (1086). Long before that time, and up to the present day, the woodland has provided a variety of resources for the inhabtants of Ledbury. Now managed by the Forestry Commission, it is still a productive woodland. It also a great recreational area, its many paths allowing the exploration of the flora, fauna and history of the area.

During the early months of 2008 Frith Wood was the subject of  a project which brought together many local groups interested in the geological, natural and human history of the woodland. We are grateful to the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership for funding provided by their Sustainable Development Fund, and to the Forestry Commission for access to the woods. Archaeologists from Herefordshire Council's Archaeology Unit led EPE volunteers in an excercise to record a number of features in the wood. These included a medieval wood-bank and a charcoal-birning platform. The Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust and The Ledbury Naturalists' Club provided material on the geology and widlife of the area. Drawing on the knowledge of the tracks  of local resident Steve Clegg a guided walk through the wood has been devised, which takes in some of the most important features. The accompanying booklet was distributed freely in Ledbury and is now available as a pdf file here.