Bagley Wood

This week I spent a couple of hours in the early morning at Bagley Wood near Oxford. The wood has been owned by St. John’s College since the aftermath of the dissolution of the monasteries, and before that it was owned by Abingdon Abbey since 955 AD. It is managed as a nature reserve, for research, and with some areas as plantations. I took a lot of phone camera pictures, as I didn’t have my DSLR with me. I saw a few deer, Bluebells, log stacks, standing dead trees, Leyland Cypress, Oak, Hazel, Larch, and Scots Pine. There were quite a few areas of planting with tree shelters, including one with Oak that I photographed as shown below.

Up until recently they had a system of permits to control access, but now they allow access through the various gates as long as you follow the rides and roadways. The signs do still talk about the permits, but their website says “The wood is open to permissive public access on maintained (‘Stone’ or ‘mown’) routes, via gated entrances only.” The wood is big enough that the rides, tracks, and gates are shown on the relevant Ordnance Survey Explorer map.

I entered via the footbridge over the A34 which runs through the wood, from Kennington Playing Fields (which has a car park.) I walked southwards and then westwards along roadways until I got to the saw mill on Oxford Road. Then back via more northerly rides to the footbridge.