July 2025
Written by Frances Llewellyn
The Caernarfonshire Branch this spring took a memorable trip to a twenty-year old woodland in Cwm Pennant – Coed Hendre Ddu, covering the area of the disused quarries and linking two other areas of open access woodland. The meeting had started in the Golden Fleece at Tremadoc where we met up with Terry Thomas, a retired lecturer in Forestry at Bangor, who was joining us for lunch and would tell us the story of the development of the Coed Hendre Ddu woodland. He had been the author of a book, funded by the European Union, on how to plant trees in agricultural land, a much more common phenomenon in Europe than Britain. The book was distributed in 2002 and read by an Anglesey sheep farmer, Iolo Owen, who was keen to restore biodiversity and was also very favourable to the encouragement of public access.
Together they identified an over-grazed area linking two Forestry Commission woodlands on the slopes of Cwm Pennant. With the aid of a Forestry grant and, later, additional corporate funding through the Carbon Neutral Company (perhaps a rather dubious operation through which companies pay to off-set their carbon emissions) the trees were planted and managed. In 2010 all the woodlands on these spectacular slopes were brought into a government scheme: Better Woodlands for Wales. This paid for interpretation boards, signage and car parks, as well as some help with woodland management. Unfortunately Better Woodlands for Wales did not last long, but Iolo Owen maintained the open access and management of his woodland and the quantity of slate from the abandoned quarry was invaluable for paths and car park surfacing.
In February 2023 Iolo Owen sold the woodland to a like-minded owner and the Welsh Government later that year invited owners to become part of the National Forest of Wales. Coed Hendre Ddu easily fulfilled the criteria for membership! There is a final objective to add livestock, which should make the management of the woodland easier since they will browse down some of the tree growth and especially the undergrowth.
Our woodland has for most of the 20th century been planted for commercial purposes, but many of those, like pit props are no longer viable. But walking in the countryside is now a much more common feature of our lives and, though the owners may not get direct returns, the tourism which these woods attract is a significant benefit to North Wales — and to those who walk.
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