Through Ashmore Wood

To anyone familiar with the monotonous, sterile conifer forests of northern Britain, the plantations of Dorset are a revelation and a delight. Best among these are the Forestry Commission’s woods around Ashmore. At the time of the Domesday Book around 15 per cent of the land area of England was covered by woodland. A survey undertaken in 2000 put that figure at 8.4 per cent, with oak accounting for a quarter of all broadleaved trees.

The Forestry Commission was set up as a government body in 1919, partly in response to the timber shortage created by the needs of booming industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Furthermore, timber shortage had been identified as a critical problem during World War I. Not only was timber required for making pit props for coal mines, but trench warfare also swallowed up vast quantities for shoring up and lining the trenches. The Commission’s early brief – to grow as much timber as possible in as short a time as possible – has changed over the years. Nowadays, sensitivity to local soil conditions, conservation and the needs of wildlife, and public access for leisure also play a part in the choice of how a woodland is managed.

As you walk down Ashmore Wood’s broad tracks you’ll notice an appealing variety of smaller tree species planted along the margins, and plenty of bird nesting boxes. Although obviously plantation woodland, it represents replanting on the site of much older woods. Ashmore is therefore rich in wild flowers, especially bluebells in late spring, but also celandines, primroses and the tall spears of great mullein and foxgloves. The forestry planting is a combination of broadleaved woodland and mixed conifers. The beech trees, magnificent in their autumn colour, stifle most things growing in the shade at the base of their trunks, but harbour the best sites for fungi. Beneath the conifers emerald moss grows in pillowy mounds.

Ashmore village is the highest in Dorset and stands on the border with Wiltshire. The village is on the road to nowhere in particular and has no pub, so has remained pleasantly uncommercial and feels like a discovery. Thatched houses cluster around a large circular duck pond. The greenish tinge that gives an old-fashioned air to its houses comes from the colour of the local sandstone. Spare a glance for the corbelled end wall of Manor Farm, which may have been lifted from Eastbury House.

With your back to the road, walk past the barrier and follow the firm forestry road as it curves past the beeches of Washers Pit Coppice on your left and Balfour’s Wood on your right. After 0.5 miles (800m) ignore a bridleway up to the right and keep going straight ahead on the track. You’re now in Stubhampton Bottom, following a quiet winding valley through the trees.

Where the main track swings up to the left, keep straight ahead, following the blue public bridleway marker, on a rutted track along the valley floor. A path from Stony Bottom feeds in from the left – keep straight on. Where there’s an area of smaller coppiced trees on the hillside on your left, ignore a path peeling off to the right and shortly afterwards follow the blue bridleway markers onto a narrow track to the right which runs down through coppiced woodland parallel and below the forestry road. At Hanging Coppice a marker post shows where the Wessex Ridgeway path feeds in from the right – again, keep straight ahead. The path soon rises to emerge in trees at the corner of a field.

Turn left at the fence (follow the blue marker) to walk uphill. Follow this path along the edge of the forest carpeted with bluebells in spring and with glimpses of lovely views to the southeast.

After 0.75 miles (1.2km) turn left at a junction of tracks (signposted ‘Ashmore’) and walk through the woods. Cross over a track and keep straight on, following the blue marker, to meet a track. Go straight on, following signs for Ashmore, and soon emerging from the forest; ignore two left turns. Continue straight up this track for about 1 mile (1.6km), through farmland and across the exposed open hilltop, with the houses of Ashmore village coming into view. At the end of the track turn right and walk into the village to the pond.

From the village retrace your route, remaining on the road beyond the point where the track joined it. Pass Manor Farm on the right and head gently downhill. Just before the road narrows to single-track width, bear left through a gate (blue marker). Walk along the top of the field, pass a gate on the left and bear slightly down to the right to go through the lower of two gates at the far side. Walk straight ahead on a broad green track. Go through a gate into the woods and immediately turn right, following a steep bridleway straight down the side of the hill to emerge by the car park.