The Way of Healing Wood

The first picnic and the first trees go in at the Healing Wood

Saturday 9th July was hot and sunny.  Not the best day for planting trees but a good day for a picnic to celebrate progress on the Healing Wood sector of the Eye Town Moors Woodlands.  The plans had been initiated following an idea from Suffolk County Council to commemorate all those affected by Covid and the work supported by funds from SCC, Eye Town Council, Eye Primary School and several individual donors.

Way of Healing Wood tree planting in Eye

Volunteers have been been working every month for months to clear the dead ash trees, felled by Mike Smith, and prepare and install the new picnic benches.  There has been a lot of mess!! but at last things are making progress:  the tables are in, although the base still needs refining, and the line of the new sinuous path through the wood has been defined.  This path will be reinforced to make it wheelchair/buggy friendly and signs installed to link the work to the Way of Healing Pathway which runs from the Town Moors up past the old station through to the Fire Station.

Way of Healing Wood installing picnic area volunteers rest at the table after instalation

On the day a select band of children and parents from the school, volunteers, the mayor of Eye and donors gathered for a free ice cream and to lend a hand filling in the soil around the two new trees.  For those interested, the trees are “swamp cypress” (taxodium distichum) a deciduous conifer native to America but well adapted to sort of wet conditions that we have in this area of the moors.  The pair of trees should provide a green gateway to the path through the woods in the summer with the needles turning red before falling in the autumn.

Mike Smith’s little digger had done the hard work, digging three foot holes down to the damp sub-soil, and many small hands with spades quickly filled in around the roots.  A quick stamping down and heavy watering finished off the job….for now!  Please feel free to use the woods and picnic area and to join us in our work parties if able (3rd Sunday 10:00- 12:00) to make this area your own.

Chris Willoughby

This project is unique to Eye in Suffolk supported by

Essex and Suffolk Water