Anyone ever bought their own private woodland???

[BlogOnTheTyne]

We've been fantasising about buying our own private woodland and browsed some sites on the web. We'd love to have our own private wild space to camp and watch wildlife and get close to the earth.

This is a long shot but just wondered if anyone on MN had ever bought a woodland and what are the pitfalls, pros and cons etc eg, might you think you'd got a really private place only to find there was a public right of way across it? Is the upkeep really expensive?

You can't build a house but you can camp etc and it just sound great, in principle (obviously, you need the money too but some of them don't seem v expensive compared to buying a house!)

My parents had a bit of wood. Totally inacessable sp? For all but the most determined trespassers, not really suitable for camping (steep/ boggy/bramble) but a nice place to be. Note if it has good access for you it has good access for every other bugger :)

Yes, we did!

We had to buy a big chunk of land that came with it too, but at agricultural prices it seemed cheap (at the time). We now let the land. I think so called 'amenity woodland' (where they carve up big chucks of woods into lots) is pricey for what it is though.

We investigated lots of the Forestry Commission schemes for grants etc, but TBH I'd advise steering clear as for the effort (Management Plans etc) they don't attract that much money. I wouldn't go for anything that has a public footpath, but you will need Public Liability insurance in any case - and that has been going up-and-up in recent years. We pay almost £200 a year to cover all our land. If anyone, even uninvited, comes on your land and injures themselves (e.g. gets hit by a falling branch) then you could be liable.

We spend time there most weekends, DP is in a boys wonderland of chainsaws and brushcutters . We have to maintain rabbit fences and a ditch which needs clearing every year. However we have lots of fun there too - camping, fires, den making, rope swings, watching wildlife (deer, foxes, stoats and weasels, rabbits, red kites, buzzards, owls to name a few). The kids are getting immense value out of it as they have to amuse themselves without technology and get lots of wild adventure type play. When they were smaller (baby/toddler) it wasn't so much fun as they got cold quickly and fell over a lot!

I would recommend it, but you have to be an outdoorsy type to really enjoy it (digging poo holes is my least favourite activity - one the kids seem to take as a personal challenge to make me do at every opportunity )