Flass Vale
Tree Planting in Durham at Flass Vale
Flass Vale lies within the boundaries of Durham City and has the Flass Stream running through it.
The Vale formerly consisted of woodland, bog and meadows. In Victorian times it contained formal gardens and a curling pond.
IMPORTANT VISITOR INFO – Take only photos. Leave only footsteps.
To keep the woodland as natural as possible we don’t label individual trees and we ask that visitors do not place their own plaques, labels, flowers, etc in the woodland. Each tree we plant should be seen as part of a natural woodland.
Before visiting this woodland, please read our Frequently Asked Questions page, which gives you helpful tips about your tree and visitor guidance.
* THIS WOODLAND IS Full *
We’ve planted so many trees here that there isn’t any space to plant more.
For the nearest alternative woodlands take a look at the Woodlands Locations Map.
Flass Vale lies within the boundaries of Durham City and has the Flass Stream running through it.
The Vale formerly consisted of woodland, bog and meadows. In Victorian times it contained formal gardens and a curling pond.
The 20 hectare site now consists of woodland and areas of dry grassland and there are two abandoned sand quarries from more recent times.
An area in the centre of the site was tipped with rubble about 40 years ago and a plant community characteristic of rough ground has now developed here.
A waterlogged area containing a number of marshy plants surrounds the rubble.
The east-facing slope of Flass Vale is covered with oak trees, holly and elder with some patches of sycamore. A display of bluebells may be seen in the more varied area of woodland to the north of the site. Here, other typical woodland plants such as wood sorrel and wood anemone grow alongside the bluebells.
Flass Vale is maintained with the help of the Friends of Flass Vale - a volunteer group who give up their time to look after this local area of woodland. With their help, EFORESTS planted a mixture of English Oak (Quercus robur) and Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) trees on the site in April 2008.
The volunteers have to manage a lot of 'weeds' as part of the tree maintenance (bracken, bramble, Himalayan balsam, etc.) but thanks to their hard work and constant vigilance of the site, the new trees will survive and mature to a ripe, old age.
Since spring 2010, EFORESTS and the Flass Vale volunteers planted a further over 200 new trees at the site - including a large Victoria Plum and Bramley Apple to help rejuvenate the remains of the old orchard.
The Bramley and Victoria provided by EFORESTS are doing well and the Flass Vale volunteers grafted shoots from the existing old apple and pear trees onto new rootstock and these will be introduced to the orchard in spring 2012. They hope to establish some more uncommon fruit trees such as damson, quince and medlar at some stage in the future.
In recent years, some of the very old trees on the site have died and then been removed for timber.
When the timber has been extracted from Flass Vale, rather than using a tractor, a shire horse was used to drag the timber off the site so as to minimise damage to the ground.
Photo Gallery
Tree Species at Flass Vale
Since 2010 EFORESTS has worked with the land owners and local volunteers to plant 379 new native tree species.
The following tree species were planted on the site:
Address
Durham
Map
External links
http://www.fofv.org.uk/about.htmlEFORESTS is not responsible for the content on external websites.
IMPORTANT VISITOR INFO – Take only photos. Leave only footsteps.
To keep the woodland as natural as possible we don’t label individual trees and we ask that visitors do not place their own plaques, labels, flowers, etc in the woodland. Each tree we plant should be seen as part of a natural woodland.
Before visiting this woodland, please read our Frequently Asked Questions page, which gives you helpful tips about your tree and visitor guidance.
Dedicate a tree to be planted in Durham or elsewhere in the UK.
