TQ6968 : Woodland, Cobham Park
taken 11 years ago, near to Cobham, Kent, England
Cobham Park is the estate of Cobham Hall. Cobham Hall was the former 17th-century home of the Earls of Darnley: its gardens were designed by Humphry Repton and the surrounding woods contain the Darnley Mausoleum, a Grade I listed building now undergoing restoration. Since 1957, the Hall has been a public school for girls (Cobham Hall School); it opens to the public on some occasions in the year.
The Park today is mainly a woodland, farmland and a golf course, as well as the school grounds.
Cobham Woods is an area of woodland, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and part of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), located between Strood, Cuxton and Cobham in Kent. The SSSI includes the arable land in the Ranscombe Farm country park and nature reserve.
The woodland is largely sweet chestnut coppice with some coniferous plantations, while the parkland is mature woodland, with some clearings, of oak, sweet chestnut, beech, hornbeam, and other species. The soils range from acidic Thanet Sands to Upper Cretaceous Chalk. Managed grazing by deer, created woodland pastures devoid of ground shrubs, this has reverted but is being re-established. The arable land, has been a noted spot for botanists since the 1690s, and references to it occur in books on Chalk Grassland.