A large ancient replanted woodland retaining many semi-natural habitats – diverse stands with small-leaved lime, heathy areas with western gorse and heather.

The trees that grow in Clowes Wood in a sense tell the story of woodlands in Britain. The small-leaved lime is a very uncommon tree in Kent, and here grows only as a few very old coppice stools and new saplings. However, this tree was once one of the commonest in southern Britain. Before large scale clearances by Neolithic people, most of Britain was shrouded in a primeval forest which we now call the ‘wildwood’. Analysis of fossilised pollen grains has shown that the small-leaved lime was one of a few dominant trees in the wildwood of southern England.

The coppice woodland here represents a much later chapter – that of traditional woodland management that reached its peak in the Middle Ages. The final episode – modern commercial forestry – now dominates the wood in the form of plantations of fast-growing, non-native conifers. Despite this there is still room for a lot of wildlife here, including woodland plants and a wide variety of birds such as crossbill, grasshopper warbler, nightjar and long-eared owl. In wet areas, look out for southern marsh orchid.  Invertebrates include southern wood ant and glow worm. Mammals include dormouse.