Varying Woodland

The feel and composition of the woodland varies massively in Normandy Common - in some areas, the holly below a canopy of oak and silver bird is so dense it feels dark even on a sunny day. There are areas of open oak and Scots Pine canopy, interspersed with downy birch, sweet chestnut, and silver birch and young rowan, holly, and saplings beneath. An area of marshy wetland beside a ditch-like stream has been planted in the past with Western Hemlock, but silver birch has come in naturally where-ever the light has let it. Another area is very dark and barren beneath mature hemlock, though looking up you see oak, birch and sweet chestnut struggling to find light against the spreading, shading hemlock. Many of the canopy trees seem a similar age - another day we will age them, but we guess at around 100 to 150 years old - which is about the time when this land was given to the army/crown by a local estate.