History
Forest of Arden
In 1153 an order of monks swapped their lands in Radmore, Staffordshire, for the Stoneleigh Estate, in the heart of 'Arden' (the ancient word means high forest) woodlands. The estate had been the property of the Crown since the days of the Norman conquest, but passed to the newly founded Cistercian Abbey at Stoneleigh (or Stanley as it was then).
Henry VIII and the Leigh Family
The estate and the woodland it included remained the property of the church until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, between 1536 and 1539, when King Henry VIII seized all the lands of the church
The King granted the estate to the Duke of Suffolk and, in 1561, it was sold in part to the then Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Leigh.
Recent History
By the year 1800 the Leigh family had over 20,000 acres of land in the Stoneleigh estate and it remained their property until, 1926, when almost 2,500 acres were bought by Coventry Corporation, including approximately 350 acres of woodland.
Past Use
Ten Shilling Wood gets its name from Ten Shilling Field; the reference relating to the cost of a shooting permit per gun per season. We also find local reference to Park Wood as Fifty Shilling Wood and at £2 per licence we can see why only the wealthy could afford such hobbies.
Pheasants would have been reared in the woods until the start of the season (1 October) when they would be driven towards the shooters in nearby fields.
Although shooting no longer continues in these woods, pheasants can still be seen around the field boundaries where they feed during the day, entering the wood to roost at dusk.
The Doomsday Book tells us that Arden woodlands, including those in Canley, were used for the grazing of 200 pigs, which fed on acorns and beech seed. During this period large trees (mainly oak) were used for building work, with the smaller pieces being used as firewood.
Since the Council bought the land there has been occasional use of timber, especially during the Second World War when an area of conifers (mainly Larch and Scots Pine), planted in Park Wood at the turn of the century, was felled for pit-props in the mines. Recently the woods have been managed for recreational use with only selected felling on individual trees.
New Woodland Belt
A new strip of woodland was planted along the west boundary of the woodland in 2002. This belt of trees is about 17 metres wide and a mixture of native broadleaved trees and shrubs. There is also some Scots Pine. These trees form part of a 40 metre wide buffer strip between the mature woods and the Westwood Heath Housing Development. The remainder of the buffer strip was sown with wildflowers in 2001.