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The following is taken from the information board near the Woodhouse Lane entrance: The area of land known as the Outwoods has been wooded for centuries. There are records showing that the site was managed as a woodland 500 years ago, which makes the Outwoods one of the oldest surviving woodland sites in Charnwood. Between 1914 and 1947 much of the woodland was felled with some areas being left to regenerate naturally while others were replanted with conifers and sycamore. The area to the south of the car park, along Woodhouse Lane, contains one of the few remaining examples of oak woodland. The 110 acre (44.6 ha) woodland site was bequeathed to the people of Charnwood during the 1940s thanks to the generosity of Mr Alan Moss and Mr George Harry Bowler. The Outwoods stands on some of the oldest rocks in Britain. These rocks were formed 700 million years ago in the pre-Cambrian era. Rare fossils have been found in these rocks which are of international importance to the study of early life forms. Some of the fossils found in the Outwoods can be viewed in the New Walk Museum in Leicester and Charnwood Museum in Loughborough. Because of the nature of the underlying rock many of the plants growing in the Outwoods are rare elsewhere in the county. Examples of some of the acid loving plants found in the Outwoods include cow wheat, pill sedge and sessile oak. Despite the large scale felling that took place during the two world wars many of the woodland plants and animals originally found on the site, such as bluebell and wood anemone, have survived. The Outwoods also supports a wide variety of woodland birds, including more unusual ones such as green woodpecker and woodcock. The Outwoods has been designed a site of Special Scientific Interest because of its outstanding geology, flora and fauna. The area now forms part of the eastern boundary of the National Forest which covers 200 square miles of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The Outwoods Management Committee is working with Charnwood Borough Council and Natural England to re-establish traditional oak woodland over much of the area. This process, which involves the removal of non-native trees and shrubs such as sycamore, rhododendron and larch will take many decades.