Checkendon, Reading, Oxfordshire

Pocket's Piece Wood is a wood renowned for its bluebells that carpet the forest floor in spring. Combined with the nature of the trees and the wider landscape setting this makes the wood very photogenic.

The woodland is in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is also an Ancient and Semi Natural Woodland, indicating that there has been woodland cover at this location since pre-1600.

This beech dominated broadleaved woodland rises gently northwards on a gentlest of slopes away from Emmens Lane. It comprises mature beech, wild cherry (including a number of unusually large specimens), ash, occasional oak, field maple and silver birch. There are few gaps in the canopy. Underneath these gaps there are patches of knee-high natural regeneration of beech. Stewardship of these saplings would assist in the development of a younger age group of trees. The understory is otherwise composed by managed holly.

Included in the sale is a wheeled Shepherds Hut. This is set facing the west in a quiet and undisturbed location at the northern end of the wood, and has been used as a focus for family gatherings, shelter and occasional overnight stays when managing the wood.

The wider context is that this compact woodland forms part of a wider mosaic of other interlinking woodlands resulting in a forest of scale and presence. This includes the mixed conifer: broadleaved Ipsden Wood to the north and the broadleaved dominated Checkendon Common and Pittmans Common woods to the south. It is a quiet location part surrounded by woodland with occasional fields bounded by mature hedges. Views are intimate, being of the nearby woods and glimpses to the fields and occasional houses to the west. Emmers Lane is designated and signposted as a “Quiet Lane”.