Swinley Forest

Swinley Forest is a large expanse of Crown Estate woodland managed by Forestry England mainly within the civil parishes of Windlesham in Surrey and Winkfield and Crowthorne in Berkshire, England.

Coverage

Situated to the south-west of Windsor Great Park, the forest stretches from Bracknell, in the north, to Bagshot, in the south. It is owned and managed by the Crown Estate and comprises over 2,600 acres (11 km2) of woodland across gently undulating hills. Although now mostly a modern plantation of Scots Pines, the area was once part of Windsor Forest. Swinley Forest includes Crowthorne Woods around Caesar's Camp between the Nine Mile Ride and Crowthorne; Swinley Park between Forest Park and the B3017; Bagshot Heath just west of Bagshot; and Swinley Woods around Kings Ride between the B3017 and South Ascot. Much of the woods cover what used to be moorland as indicated by the names of some of the hills, such as Broadmoor, Owlsmoor, Wishmoor, Gormoor, Whitmoor and Englemoor (now Englemere).

History

Swinley Park once surrounded Swinley Lodge where the King kept the Royal Staghounds in Georgian times. It was at the centre of Swinley Walke, one of the sub-divisions of Windsor Forest.

In the 18th century Daniel Defoe - writing in the fashion of the time of regarding uncultivated land as wild and forbidding - described Bagshot Heath as "a vast tract of land [...] which is not only poor, but even quite steril [sic], given up to barrenness, horrid and frightful to look on [...] much of it is a sandy desert [...] This sand indeed is checked by the heath, or heather, which grows in it [...] but the ground is otherwise so poor and barren that the product of it feeds no creatures, but some very small sheep, who feed chiefly on the said heather [...] nor are there any villages, worth mentioning, and but few houses or people for many miles far and wide".

There are a number of late 18th century redoubts scattered throughout the forest.