Greg Hitchcock
Westfield Wood
Location
Boxley
Know before you go
Parking information
Park on the Old Chatham Road below the garage.Walking trails
A path circumnavigates the wood. This is steep and uneven in places with some diversions around fallen root plates etc.
Access
Not Wheelchair accessible. There are steps, a kissing gate, ruts and narrow paths. The paths are unsurfaced, uneven, irregular, muddy and slippery when wet.
Dogs
When to visit
Opening times
Open at all timesBest time to visit
April to July, September to NovemberAbout the reserve
Many of the really mature beech trees were affected by the 1987 storm. Either felled in their entirety or large limbs snapped off. This has created a mosaic of enormous standing dead wood or areas of young ash and sycamore growth with lots of exposed roots and tangles of lying limbs.
The darkness of the Yew create very still, quiet pools of coolness and shelter. The mature beech by contrast, with their dappled shade are often warm and teeming with life. Small mammals and fungi at their base, insects scurrying up and down their bark, birds hopping and twittering in the branches.