morgans wood history

The larger woodland area in which Morgans Wood is part of, is called Roman Woods because Stane Street runs through part of it and there is other Roman archaeology in the area.

The woods themselves have been used for many purposes over the years including as a furnace for making cannon balls, as a place for hiding army tanks in World War II, and there is clear evidence that past inhabitants have used the woods and built ditches for coppicing and charcoaling. Some of the oldest trees have clearly been coppiced in the past but then left to grow and not maintained.

Even fossils have been found in the local stream where the earth has been worn down to the limestone bedrock showing that the area, at some distant point in the past, was under the sea – quite a thought when you imagine the nearest beach is some 30km away!