Distance: 3 miles, with options to make this longer or shorter
Parking: 1 small car park
Family Friendly: Yes
Pushchair/ wheelchair access: No
Facilities: None
Martinshaw woods is a lovely place to visit, it is owned and managed by the woodland trust. There are lots of different paths through the woodland, with most lead back to a central large path so you can do as many figure of 8s as you wish until you do not want to walk anymore!
There are lots of things here to see, with a wide variety of tree species, plants and fungi. There are a great many birds too, although spotting them in the summer is challenging, as the woods has a thick canopy and lots of shrub growth allowing the small birds hide well. This is where being able to identify bird via their calls is very helpful. Not something I am very good at at the moment, but practice makes perfect.
I personally do not feel this woodland walk is suitable for those with accessibility issues, the gated access is too small for any pushchair or wheelchair and the paths are dirt and leaf litter, which I think people might struggle with trying to get through, especially when it is wet. The large central path is small stone, which would not be too much of a problem.
However; the woodland trust mention there is another path that is accessibility friendly. I personally have not seen this path, but if I find it in the future I will absolutely let you know.
There are no toilets here and no café or anything like that, so best to pack your sandwiches.
Identified Species
Nuthatch – Sita canadensis
This is a wonderful little bird who is certainly easier to hear than to see! They have blue/ grey plumage on their heads, necks, backs and wings. With a distinctive black eye stripe from the top of their black beaks, across their eyes and down their necks. Their cheeks are white. Their chest and bellies are a reddish/ brown colour. Their small tail is also blue/ grey and short with a square edge.
This little bird is resident in the UK and can be found in woodlands. They are not seen outside of wooded areas.
Lords and Ladies – Arum alpinum
This is a very unusual looking plant, especially at this stage of its life cycle. This plants can be seen with a green or white/ green curled pointed leaf that looks like a petal surrounding a central spike. This spike has small yellow flowers. Once the flowering stage is completed the leaf and flowers fall away leaving behind these unusual looking berries. The berries are red and green and waxy in appearance. They look unusual standing up from the ground on a waxy green stem that has not leaves are other distinguishing parts.
Birch Polypore – Piptoporus betulinus
This is a beautiful looking fungus and you can see from these images that these ones are newly emerging. Looking for mushrooms is one of my favourite things to do and certainly something my kids love too!
A birch polypore is found on birch trees. They have a soft appearance. The tops are a light brown to white and the underside is white. They have pores and not gills on the underside too. They are firm to touch, almost leathery and soft. Sometimes they will have a bell like shape and not a bracket shape like this one. Apparently these were once used to sharpen tools!
Enchanters Nightshade – Circaea lutetiana
This is a very small flower and easy to miss in amongst a busy woodland floor. It looks a little similar to the shepherd’s purse. It has a very thin, delicate stem, with round ball like flowers heads. The calyx behind the flower head has fine white hairs. The flower head itself is white, with 4 petals and visible stamen sticking out beyond the flower head. The stem itself also has some small white hairs. The leaves are large in comparison to the delicate flower stem. The leaves are dark green with clearly visible ridges. They are lanceolate in shape, terminating in a point.
Common Earthball – Scleroderma citrinum
This mushroom is found in woodlands, heathlands and grasslands. It forms a small to medium sized beige round ball protruding from the ground. They have a very earthy smell. The tops appear crusted or spotted, with a white colouration under the light brown to beige colour on top. Inside it black, these are the spores. The spore colour is blackish purple. This is a poisonous mushroom and should not be eaten. Once they have fully grown and ready to release the spores, an irregular shaped hole will appear in the top and the spore will be released from this hole, carried on the wind.
Oak Gall
This deformation of the acorn is due to a gall wasp, such as Quercus robur and Quercus petraea. There are 70 species of gall wasp, and they use the acorns to protect their larvae. The gall produced is different all depending on the gall wasp.
Gall wasps are not all sexually reproductive, so only those female who are sexually active will affect the oak tree in this way. Therefore control is not something that is necessary, as their impact on the tree is negligible.
The reproductive gall wasp will inject her egg in to the soft, newly developing fruiting bud on the tree. Due to the chemical process from her insertion, the acorn will not form in the normal way, it will instead be transformed in to a gall. This provides a safe space for the developing larvae, which erupts as a gall wasp. This helps to increase the chance of survival for the offspring. Galls normally only contain 1 egg, but a gall apple can contain a few larvae.
Brambles – Rubus fruticosus
This is a fruit producing member of the rose family. There are name different varieties of bramble, some have even been produced through horticulture to no longer produce spines. This is a voracious plant that grows a metre or two in height, and will use other plant as support to grow higher.
The stems are thick and green in colour, with spines all the way along the length. The flowers in spring and summer are white to pink/ white, with 5 petals and many visible stamen, each with a deep purple to red tip at the end. These are food for a variety of bees.
Once the flowers die away, this then produced the fruits, knowns as blackberries. The berries are green and turn black through the summer in to the early autumn. Berries are food for many species of wildlife including foxes, badgers, birds, and deer. This help with seed dispersal. They are very important to wildlife, so pick responsibly!
Oak – Quercus robur
The English Oak is probably one of the most easily recognised trees. They are wonderfully large, with many branches. The trunk tends to be thick and quite gnarled, the branches are twisted and stand proud of the trunk. The leaves are lobed, usually with 5 loves on each simple leaf. Oak trees produce acorns as their fruits. The acorns are produced on the ends of long twigs that grow out from the branch where the leaves are found.
Silver Birch – Betula pendula
This is another lovely tree that many people will recognise. The trunk of the tree has a lovely grey/ white bark, interspersed with black/ brown cracks or breaks in the bark. The trunks of these trees are very tall, with the branches growing at the top of the tree to provide a thick canopy of leaves. Silver birch are often used in planted woodlands. You can tell it is a planted woodland if the trees are in neat rows. The leaves are simple, arrow shaped with a toothed edge. Silver birch also produce a small rounded, thick catkin as its fruit.
Birch trees as also knows as pioneer trees, meaning they are usually the first to appear in a succession landscape.
Bracken – Pteridium aquilinum
This is a type of fern, and one of my personal favourites! For me this plant makes me think of how the world would have looked back when the dinosaurs were around! I imagine walking through huge bracken that is a big a trees.
Bracken has a pinnate leaf which is extremely long, with many fronds coming off the main stem on the leaf. Bracken grown in lines and covers large areas. It also dies back in winter, unlike other ferns. So in the winter you will see seas of brown broken bracken.
On the underside of mature leaflets you will find small circles in a blue/ grey colour and brown once mature and old. These are called sori and this is where the spores come from to reproduce. Ferns do not produce flowers and seeds like other plants.
Holly – Ilex aquifolium
Is there anything that says Christmas more than the gorgeous holly bush?! I think not!
There are many different sizes to the holly tree, some are dwarf and will grow to 15cm in height which is just adorable! Others will grow to 21 meters in height or above! They are impressive trees when you see them full size. They are very thick, with many short branches producing lots of leaves. The leaves are simple and alternate. They are a dark green colour, that curl at the edges, with each tip terminating in a very sharp spine. This spine can be very painful. In the autumn and winter months, the holly tree produces the signature red berries we have all seen around Christmas time. These are not edible to humans, but many mammals and birds will take advantage of this late fruit.
Herb Robert – Geranium robertianum
A lovely little pink flower, with 5 petals which is smaller than the herb Robert and has visible yellow antlers. The stem and leaves have hairs, the ones of the leaves can be felt more than seen. The leaves are palmate to the base with 5 leaflets all lobed and rounded tips.
Rosebay Willowherb – Chamerion angustifolium
A tall and striking member of the willowherb family. This flower can be identified by the tall arrow shape to the flower head, with pink flowers sprouting from slender stems in a conical shape to the top, where there are flowers yet for form. This plant grows is large clusters and has distinctive flower heads. Each flower head has 4 light pink to purple petal, 2 at the top and 2 at the bottom, with the deep pink sepals visible like another 4 petals. The stigma and stamen hang down from the flower head. The leaves are arrow shaped and grow in a spiral up the stem, terminating when the flowering head starts.
Elder – Sambucus nigra
These are probably trees you have seen, but maybe never knew what they were. They are classed as a small tree to large shrub. They are distinguished by the leaves. Their leave are pinnate and have 5 to 7 leaflets that are in opposite pairs, with 1 leaflet at the centre. The leaflets are slightly toothed on the edge. In May the start to flower and produce a lovely head of white flowers in the umbrella type shape. The individual flowers are small and white with 5 white petals.
Burdock – Arctium
The burdock looks like a cross between creeping thistle and curly dock, in my opinion. It has globular flower heads that look spiky, with the bottom part of the flower head being green and the flower top producing a purple flowering head. There are multiple flowering heads to each stem. The stem is tall and thick and can reach 3 to 5 feet in height. Below the flowering head the leaves are elongated hearts in shape, very similar to the dock leaf. With a wider head near the stem, going down to a point at the tip of the leaf. The leaves at the base of the flower can be very large, with small leaves of the same shape found nearer the flowers.
Burdock has been used as a medicine and can be found in drinks. It is said to help kill germs, reduce a fever, help with gastric issues and bladder infections.
Hoof Fungus – Fomes fomentarius
This is a large fungus that looks like a half bell, or hoof – hence the name! It is a bracket fungus. Normally it has an off white/ grey on the top cover, which is banded slightly. It looks like the growth of the fungus adds rings and ridges along the length of the fungus. The underside is an off white colour and has pores not gills. The spores are a light yellow colour.