Groby, Cowpen Spinney
Selected Wild Place / Other Wild Places / Public Rights of Way / VC55 boundary
Site species count:
This 1.5 hectare wood lies adjacent to the disused Groby Granite Railway line at the southern edge of the village. Up to the middle of the 20th century, local villagers would have been employed in either quarrying or farming. The 1980s estate surrounding the spinney was built on farmland and the name of this woodland tells of the previous use of the area.
Edith Hesselgreaves in her 1973 paper 'Flora of Groby Parish' records the following species found in the wood :-
'Trees include ash, pedunculate oak, English elm and hawthorn - all frequent, with occasional trees of holly, cherry, rowan, spruce, larch, silver birch and field maple.
Shrubs are elder (abundant) with wild rose, raspberry, bramble, blackthorn, hazel, gooseberry and guelder rose.
Broad buckler fern is abundant, male fern less so.
Herbs are rosebay (abundant), ground ivy, red campion (both frequent) whilst occasional herbs are hedge woundwort, angelica, hogweed, remote sedge, wood millet.
Heath false brome (a grass) is abundant.'
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