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You couldn’t make it up. As early autumn darkness deepened around Whistlewood Common – tealights a-flicker, guitars twanging around the campfire – I found myself sitting between Peter Wood and Gill Forrester. It was a pincer movement of nominative determinism: Wood, a woodworker and teacher of heritage crafts; Forrester, community and wellbeing manager at the National Forest. Both – along with members of the Whistlewood community – were singing the praises of planting trees.
The National Forest is the Midlands’ great rewilding. In 1991 this ambitious environmental project launched to green-up an area of 200 square miles and connect the remnants of two ancient forests: Needwood in Staffordshire and Charnwood in Leicestershire. Back then, scarred by years of coal mining and clay extraction, this was one of the least-wooded parts of Britain – only 6% forest-covered. But in summer 2024, having planted 9.5m trees, the National Forest hit 25%.
Whistlewood, 4 hectares (10 acres) of formerly fallow farmland near the town of Melbourne, was bought by a local social enterprise in 2013, with the support of the National Forest, Whistlewood’s director Graham Truscott tells me. Now, it’s been planted with 3,500 trees, and offers a mix of spaces for different activities, from food cultivation to yoga to forest school.
I joined one of Whistlewood’s regular community feasts, a tasty spread of curries and foraged mushrooms and allotment salads, while on a short break exploring the area with National Forest E-bike Holidays. Truscott had contacted owner Sue Jerham to say if she had any clients riding through he would love to host them. It’s this level of on-the-ground knowledge that makes Jerham’s bespoke itineraries special, and it was also, I soon discovered, typical of the National Forest, which aims to build relationships and bring people together, as well as plant saplings.
I had started ebiking that morning at Hicks Lodge, one of the National Forest’s flagship sites, near the villages of Moira and Donisthorpe. The most heavily mined area, left disfigured by coal production, has been transformed with well-established native broadleafs on the edges of bird-skimmed lagoons. A section of the Ashby Canal has been dredged and refilled; footpaths and cycle tracks weave around meadows, along reclaimed railways and through flourishing thickets flush, in season, with wildflowers and fungi. There are info boards dotted about too, which speak of the mining past, recognising the impact of the loss of industry.
Vicki James, the National Forest’s marketing manager, who grew up here when the project was in its infancy, rode with me for a while. She remembers planting trees as a schoolgirl – within the forest area, 90% of primary schools participate in outdoor education. “It made me so much more passionate about the environment,” she said. “I worked in London for a while but the forest called me back.”
Hicks Lodge is the National Forest’s cycling centre, so good trails were to be expected here. More of a surprise was the rest of the route Sue had designed, stringing together permissive paths, bridleways, farm tracks and back lanes. I rode through various woods, each with its own mood: mature, youthful, aspiring; pungent, playful, squirrelly. I also visited a fairly unexplored patch of the country at Staunton Harold, a picturesque hamlet with lovely lake, rolling parkland, a blush-pink manor and an old stable block now filled with artisans. Then I rode on to the Tollgate Brewery, on the National Trust’s Calke Abbey estate. Breathing new life into long-disused farm buildings, Tollgate also makes special ales – including Charnwood Copse bitter and Needwood Nobbler stout – that raise money for the National Forest. The taproom was heaving, the beer was good, but I eventually left, pedalling on through Calke, via inky tunnels and big old trees just crisping for the season, to pretty Ticknall village.
After the community dinner at Whistlewood, and a night at the cosy Staff of Life inn, I set off the next day for Charnwood. There was plenty of interest on the way. In the market town of Melbourne, I nosed into the huge Norman church just as the bellringers began their practice. Then I rode up to Breedon’s church, lonely atop one of Leicestershire’s highest hills. And I pedalled an old railway line, past sculptures of vultures, before some fun forest off-roading around the ruined priory of Grace Dieu.
I eventually reached St Joseph’s tearoom and, over one of its specialty scone-wiches, I met Dr Jack Matthews, geoheritage conservation and interpretation officer at Charnwood Forest. Charnwood isn’t just the ancient woodland marking the National Forest’s eastern edge. It’s an internationally significant landscape and aspiring Unesco global geopark, home to some of the oldest animal fossils known to have evolved. Dr Jack took me to several sites, including Morley Quarry, an impressive yet hidden-feeling amphitheatre of some of England’s oldest rocks, dating back 600m years. We finished at Bradgate Park, recently made a national nature reserve, and the jewel in Charnwood’s crown.
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He showed me the grazing deer, the ancient oaks and the Swiss roll – a swirly formation that provides a perfect lesson in diagenesis (how sediment becomes rock, to you and me). He didn’t show me the fossils – “we can’t risk losing them, so don’t tell people where they are” – but he has grand plans for smart new interpretation, to help everyone understand their significance. “They reveal where we came from,” he said.
These were big ideas to contemplate, which I did, over wine, at Wigwam Holidays Charnwood Forest. Ten years ago, this plot near Bradgate was bare paddock. But, with a grant from the National Forest, Steve and Clare Small planted 700 trees, creating alcoves for sustainable-wood cabins. Now there’s an orchard, a pond, owls and badgers; they’re planning to add accessible cabins, plus a sensory garden for people with autism.
The wine was a local one: Rothley’s elderflowery King Richard, made in Leicestershire. Along with Sue’s holiday company, and Clare and Steve’s wigwams, Rothley is one of Charnwood’s geopartners, businesses committed to working together and supporting the geopark – just like the ethos of the wider National Forest. Because while the trees are great – and they are really, really great – none of this works without strong roots.
The trip was supported by nationalforest.org. National Forest E-bike Holidays offers bespoke ebiking and walking trips, with three-night breaks from £522pp (5% discount if arriving by public transport, £10 a booking donated to the National Forest). Cabins at Wigwam Holidays Charnwood Forest cost from £80 a night. The Staff of Life in Ticknall has B&B doubles from £110 a night