Preenshead is the only area of land actually owned by the Trust, the others being managed on a long lease. This 4.8 hectare (12 acre) wood was purchased in 1997.
Records show there has been woodland here for hundreds of years, clues to which are ramsons, wood anemones, bluebell and the rare wood barley, all species associated with old woodland. The area is also home to a relatively high population of breeding bullfinch.
Despite its ancient pedigree, the wood today contains few trees more than 60 years old, a state of affairs brought about by an almost complete felling during the 1940s.
Preenshead is adjacent to the Severn Valley Way (a former railway line and now a major walking and cycling route) and close to the village of Jackfield. Although the woodland itself is difficult to access, surrounding footpaths can be explored in some detail in the Trust’s publication Jackfield & Coalport: Five Historic Guided Walks.
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