Cloud Wood is an ancient semi-natural woodland that has long been known as one of the best sites in Leicestershire for flora, with over 220 recorded species of ferns and flowering plants recorded! This is the perfect wild place to see some interesting and beautiful wildflowers, including locally rare species like herb Paris, violet helleborine, greater butterfly orchid, bee orchid and broad-leaved helleborine. Solomon's seal is found here, and in the spring the woodland floor is carpeted with wood anemones, bluebells, primroses and many other flowers. Test your mammal-spotting skills by looking for signs of badgers, foxes and fallow deer, and in the spring and summer search for butterflies like speckled wood and white-letter hairstreak.

For more detailed information about the nature reserve, check out Cloud Wood: A history and natural history of an ancient Leicestershire woodland, by Anthony Squires.

Around the time of the Second World War, Cloud Wood was clear-felled and allowed to regenerate naturally. We were gifted the woodland in 1993 by aggregate company Ennstone Breedon plc., and have since reintroduced coppicing to benefit the woodland, it’s specialised flora and fauna. We are also encouraging other areas to develop into high forest, and keep rides and glades open.