Gedling House Woods and Meadows Nature Reserves, Nottingham

Situated next to the entrance to the driveway down to Gedling House is the entrance to Gedling House Woods which I decided to visit after I’d been around the house. It was quite busy with dog walkers in the meadows area but I chose to follow the path through the woods and had them pretty much to myself, other than the squirrels.

I did the trail which goes up from the entrance gate into the meadows through another kissing gate into the woods and to the right to do the circular walk which took me around half an hour. The trail was easy to follow and not particularly strenuous though there are a couple of spots where you need to be mindful of tree roots.

The nature reserves are owned by Gedling Borough Council but have been looked after by the Friends of Geding Woods since 2003. Once upon a time they were part of Sherwood Forest and Gedling was a small Saxon village until the Normans showed up. As its name suggests the woods were part of Gedling House’s estate when it was built in 1790 but eventually sold to the Council in 1955.

It’s a lovely space though a bit out of the way if you’re not local. There aren’t really many car park spaces nearby. I travelled by bus from Nottingham City Centre – the number 44 stops near Gedling Church and then it’s just a case of walking down the right until you come to the bridge and walking under that all the way along until you see the sign for the woods.