All Round the Wrekin - The Ercall

Through The Woods

The slopes of the Ercall Quarries are home to a wide variety of plant life, while a number of moth and butterfly species can be found close by, in the grassy areas of the nature reserve. Limekiln Wood contains over 150 different plant species and areas of semi-natural ancient woodland that were once part of a royal forest that pre-dated the Norman Conquest. Like The Ercall Hill, the wood has suffered the depredation of industrial activity over the course of many centuries and was used to provide the raw materials for local lime workings (a constituent ingredient in the iron making process) from the mid 13th Century onwards. The remains of some of these lime kilns can still be seen near Steeraway Farm, while abandoned mine workings in the wood have since been used as roosting sites by Daubentons, Pipistrelle and Long-Eared Bats. On its eastern and southern sides, Limekiln Wood merges with Short Wood and Black Hayes which were formerly part of Wellington Hay, the deer enclosure within the Royal forest, which formerly ran northwards towards Watling Street. It may have been that Black Hayes was originally wood pasture and the majority of semi natural ancient woodland surviving in the area today is located in the southern part of Short Wood, which itself was split into two parts during the 18th and 19th Centuries.