About the Black Wood

The Black Wood is a small enclave of woodland in South Liverpool. It now forms part of Childwall Woods and Fields, along with woods and open ground on the other side of Woolton Road. All of this land was part of the grounds of Childwall Hall for centuries.

The Hall is now gone, and the land is public. The Black Wood itself is surrounded by roads and houses - but step inside and you’re in a different world. It is a place of great trees - some beeches and Chestnuts are said to be about 300 years old. In its shadowed deeps, birds cry and saplings struggle for light. Trunks and branches from many fallen trees decay into new life, creating living sculptures of dead wood, fungus and moss.

Black Wood has always been a magical place to me: a shard of the Otherworld intersecting with ours.

So this blog will record my walks in Black Wood (and sometimes the other woods and fields across the road), hopefully on a weekly basis. They will be a chance to reflect on nature, spirituality and ecology within the pools of deep life still so close to us.