• 1.       The Woodland Education Centre is a Forestry Commission site, created and managed by the Offwell Woodland & Wildlife Trust. It covers an area of 50 acres.
  
  Since 1986, the Centre has been restored from a virtually worthless rhododendron jungle to an area of great ecological significance. A wide variety of different native habitats have been restored.

Rhododendron on the project site.

• 2.      The site selected for heathland regeneration covers an area of just over 2 hectares on the western boundary of the Centre. It is bounded by woodland to the north, south and west. On the eastern boundary is a cutting and path through the Education Centre, with coniferous woodland beyond (map). It lies at an altitude of approximately 200 metres.

• 3.      The Heathland Restoration Project site comprises a hillside sloping down from west to east. It has been divided into nine approximately rectangular sections, with their long axes stretching from west to east (diagram). The sections are not physically separated from each other in any way, but are marked out with wooden boundary markers at appropriate points.     

• 4.      The soil substrate is composed of a thin top-soil, overlying greensand, which in some areas is completely exposed and lacking in top-soil. Soil pH varies from 4 - 5 across the site.

• 5.      The original vegetation cover on the project site consisted of conifers and broad-leafed trees such as Sweet Chestnut, with an understorey of Rhododendron. This was completely cleared in 1993. (This work was funded by the Countryside Commission.)

The initial regrowth consisted mainly of woodland species which would compete with regenerating heathland vegetation. It was therefore cleared by spraying with Roundup, which is a general purpose herbicide. This rendered the entire project site bare of vegetation, so that initially the site was superficially uniform.

• 6.         The nine sections demarcated on the heathland site are not uniform in terms of size (diagram), nor in terms of flora, since the sections at the boundaries of the area (1,2 and 8,9) will be influenced by adjacent woodland. This may affect both microclimate and soil conditions. These sections are also likely to have greater numbers of tree seedlings becoming established, due to proximity to the woodland. The top (western end) of each section may also be influenced by the deciduous woodland beyond the narrow path forming the boundary.
  
  With these limitations in mind, different management regimes were assigned to each section with the aim of successfully promoting heather growth in one or more sections. To compensate for their small size and the influence of the woodland boundary, sections 1 and 3 are duplicates of the same management regime, as are sections 2 and 4.

• 7.        Management Details.