An ancient wood,
kept alive by hand

Since 1992 we have been the volunteers who coppice, care for and celebrate Tottington Wood in Small Dole, West Sussex. Come for a walk. Stay for a work party.

Come to a work party Shop from the wood

Diary

What’s on

All work parties All events

First work party of the season Sunday 25 October · 9.30amWork party Enter by the main entrance, opposite the Fox, Small Dole The clocks have gone back, so the billhooks come out. Join us for the first Sunday morning of the winter coppicing season. Details

Coming up

Our wood

A community woodland

Tottington Wood is thirteen acres of ancient woodland on the edge of Small Dole, a village near Henfield in West Sussex. Since 1992 a group of local volunteers has cared for it the traditional way: coppicing the hazel by hand each winter, keeping the paths open, and giving the bluebells, butterflies and birds the light they need to thrive. The wood is a designated Local Nature Reserve, and everyone is welcome to walk it, join us for a morning's work, or simply come and see what a working wood looks like.

More about us

Plants of the wood

From bluebells to bird’s-nest orchids

Our volunteers have recorded every tree, flower, grass and fern they have found in the wood. See what to look out for on your next walk.

251plants recorded

Explore the plants What’s in flower now

What we do

Old skills, living wood

Winter coppicing

From the October clock change to the March one, we cut hazel by hand on Sunday mornings, just as people have here since Neolithic times. The light returns, and the bluebells with it.

How coppicing works

Wildlife & surveys

The wood is a Local Nature Reserve, and we keep careful count of what lives here, from 35 kinds of tree and shrub to the ferns and orchids of the woodland floor.

What grows here

Crafts, shows & charcoal

Nothing we cut goes to waste. It becomes bean poles, hedging stakes and our own kiln-burned charcoal, and in summer we take the pole-lathe out to local fetes and shows.

See what we make

Membership · £5 a year