Wildwood Discovery Park

Wildwood's history can be traced back to the 1970s when Terry Standford, Operations Director of English Woodlands, created a woodland nature reserve which grew into a small wildlife park in a woodland setting. This evolved into a small zoo called Brambles. Following major reinvestment from Terry Standford and his business partners Peter and David Rosling ‘Wildwood Discovery Centre’ started life in 1999 as a visitor centre, with the vision to educate local people about the need to conserve native wildlife and their habitats.

After three years of Wildwood being open Derek Gow, it's then owner, decided its future was best ensured by it becoming a charitable trust. A Charitable Trust was formed By Kenneth West, a retired company Chairman. Ken West assumed the overall running of the park in June 2002, officially taking over the park in December of that year. Since then it has been known as The Wildwood Trust.

The trust has acquired a second site based at Escot Park in Devon.

Following the death of Kenneth West in 2017, Paul Whitfield, ex Chairman of the Trustees, was appointed to take over the running of the Trust as its Director General. The Trust continues to grow under his guidance and is now one of the largest charities in Kent.

A twisting trail winds through 42 acres (170,000 m²) of natural ancient woodland which is attached to the Blean, one of the largest areas of ancient woodland in southern England. The woods have been managed by humans on a coppice rotation, harvesting trees between 5–20 years, allowing the stools to regenerate. Parts of the Blean woods are a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the presence of habitats and species of national importance. Heathy areas provides an important habitat for the rare heath fritillary butterfly Melitaea athalia, a UK BAP priority species, historically linked with traditional woodland coppicing. The caterpillar’s food plant, common cow-wheat is abundant in the woodland.

Consisting mainly of sweet chestnut, silver birch and English oak, one area of Wildwood includes a former conifer plantation of Corsican pine and Western hemlock. Some timber is used in the park, while much is left to provide suitable habitat for invertebrates and small mammals. The natural wildlife in the park includes red foxes, hazel dormice, wood and yellow-necked mice, bank and field voles, common and pygmy shrews, nightingales, woodpeckers (all three species), tawny owls, jays, tits (four species), thrushes, stag beetles, dragonflies, wood ants, bumblebees and butterflies.

The collection reflects species currently native, introduced and those previously native to Britain, back to the last ice age (~10,000 years ago). Wildwood Trust currently maintains the most varied native collection in the UK, comprising 30 mammals, 18 birds, 6 reptiles and 4 amphibians. There are two brown bears from a bear breeding facility in Kormissosh (Bulgaria). A pair of European wolves gave birth to four cubs establishing a new wolf pack who can be seen captive in a wooded enclosure. A group of badgers are in their underground set. Other species rarely kept in UK collections are water shrews, pine martens, stoats, European beavers, ravens, Eurasian cranes and Northern adders.

Wildwood Trust's Education team offers a range of Junior Level, GCSE and A level National Curriculum-linked programmes for local schools which can be tailored to each schools needs, such as adaptation, homes and habitats through to animals in Viking myths and English folklore, as well as running an informal public education programme including daily talks and events. Educators and animal staff work together to host a variety of programmes, from animal talks to training courses. The Trust has recently appointed a specialist Head of Conservation, Laura Gardner and a Head of Living Collections, Mark Habben in order to drive forward and expand their conservation work.

One species that Wildwood is linked with is the breeding of water voles. This species was in recent years tagged ‘the most catastrophically endangered species in the UK’ because of the decline linked to habitat loss and the impact of introduced mink. Wildwood Trust is now concentrating on reintroducing the species into new or reclaimed habitat through partnerships with other conservation organisations, including the Environment Agency, People's Trust for Endangered Species, WildCRU at Oxford University and the University of Greenwich.

There has been a reintroduction of captive-bred hazel dormice, with Wildwood stock transferred to sites in the Midlands and Yorkshire. Other on-going projects include DNA and behavioural research on pine martens with Waterford Institute of Technology in Éire; funding for the pool frog reintroduction with [[Herpetological Conservation Trust]]/English Nature; water shrew husbandry with Imperial College, London; and in-situ breeding of harvest mice with Chester Zoo.

Future projects might see Wildwood being more involved the use of large herbivores for near-natural grazing. They have been awarded funding from The Postcode Lottery to re-introduce Bison into Blean Woods, a project jointly run with Kent Wildlife Trust.

Two species (European beavers and konik polski) are currently used for these purposes on several reserves in Kent. Konik polski (meaning ‘Polish small horses’) are a robust breed closely related to the extinct tarpan and have been used in similar grazing schemes in the Netherlands and Poland. The long-term vision is for Wildwood Trust to manage large tracts of land with large once-native herbivores such as koniks, beavers, wild boar, and heck cattle (re-created aurochs).

• Official website