Friends of Coombe Wood

Annual General Meeting
The next Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday January 16th at 7.30pm in St Peter’s Parish Church Small Hall, Church Road, Thundersley. All are welcome to attend.

Encroachments into the wood resolved.
Two encroachments of fencing off parts of the wood have been resolved. See the Recent link to the left for details.

Subscribing to the Friends of Coombe Wood
We encourage new and existing members to subscribe by bank transfer (BACS). See the Subscribe link (left) for information about joining and renewal.

The Friends of Coombe Wood

The Friends of Coombe Wood was founded in 2002 to help defend the wood against perceived attrition and threats to its value to the local community.

For much of its existence, the Friends’ main efforts have been to establish the Wood as a Village Green. This would confer and confirm a number of rights to people living in the neighbourhood. Essentially this means that they would be able to continue any lawful pursuits and pastimes that they have been exercising over the past twenty years or so. This would include walking, exercising the dog, horse-riding (subject to some limitations) and activities organised by local youth organisations such as Scouts, Brownies and the Boys’ Brigade. The Village Green status would not alter any existing landowners’ rights, the land would remain the property of the current landowners. Users would not be able to make any changes to the wood without the landowner’s permission.

The neighbourhood needed to be specified when applying for Village Green status. This is shown in the maps under Access in the navigation panel to the left. The Neighbourhood page provides information of the wider neighbourhood of the wood, including links to pages on other woods and open spaces.

The first Village Green application was made in 2003, and in 2007, this was granted to about 60% of the wood, the part south and west of the main stream. The details of this first application are given in the Village Green One page.

The second Village Green application was made in 2008, and the final confirmation of this was made in 2013. The details of this second application are given in the Village Green Two page.

If there is any breaking news requiring more detail, then there will be an extra item at the top of the navigation panel labelled ‘News’.

With the confirmation of full Village Green status almost there, the Friends’ committee decided to broaden their scope and look to the future of the wood. One important aspect of this is to study the wildlife. There are three entries in the navigation panel on Animals, Plants and Fungi which summarise what we know about these to date.

For general information about these web pages and how they can be used, click on the About box in the navigation panel on the left. This page also gives information on accessibility.

Where is Coombe Wood?

Coombe Wood lies to the north of the A13 London Road, between Rhoda Road North (to the west) and Thundersley Grove (to the east). The wood is very much on a slope, with its highest point a cap of a sandy outcrop (known as Coombe Kop) close to the Bread and Cheese Hill on the London Road.There is more about the physical form of the wood under the Physical box in the navigation panel.

The photo below was taken by Edward Clack in May 1987. It shows the wood from the north-east. The London Road runs left-to-right, and the central part is masked by the sandy outcrop. Rhoda Road North runs from just right of the centre to the centre-right. Thundersley Grove runs across the bottom-left corner.

Coombe Wood from the air