Latest News ... Wooplaw needs PEOPLE

Wooplaw has flourished as a community organisation for 20 yrs. It offers a lot but needs your active interest and support .
YOU CAN HELP KEEP IT ALIVE... If you’ve enjoyed Wooplaw
and would like it to keep flourishing, we need your help now. Most urgently we need a Treasurer and Coordinator of voluntary activities.

read more here

Being involved can be a lot of fun and keep you involved. So, if you think you might like to help or would like further details, just contact or phone Bob on 01578 730327

Please help spread the word ... download and print this flyer to distribute.

What are Wooplaw Community Woods?

Wooplaw Woods is an area of woodland that is dedicated to community use. That means it is there for people like you to visit whenever you like.

Within Wooplaw there are four distinct areas – Big Wood, Axehead Wood, and Easter Park and Gullet Wood which lies within easy walking distance on the Lauder to Galashiels road. [see map]

At the moment, there is a mixture of native hardwood trees and commercial Sitka spruce. The long-term aim is to harvest most of the Sitka spruce trees and replant them with native hardwood trees, thereby adding to the wildlife potential of Wooplaw Woods.

Who owns Wooplaw?

Wooplaw Woods are owned and managed by Wooplaw Community Woodlands - a charitable organisation run entirely by volunteers who believe it is important to promote woodland culture and keep traditional woodland skills alive.

Our aim is to manage the woods for the benefit of the local community - in particular education, training, recreation, and the sustainable production of forest products. That includes providing a year round programme of events aimed at promoting a woodland culture, making the woods available as a free venue for other organisations to run events associated with music, arts, woodland skills, wildlife studies and other cultural studies, and also providing completely open access for members of the local community.

What happens at Wooplaw?

Wooplaw is open to all comers. Many come to the woods just to enjoy them, to walk around, to listen to the bird chorus, to visit the wildlife ponds, or picnic at the Log Cabin or the thatched Roundhouse.
Anyone interested in the conservation of the environment will find Wooplaw an inspiration. Visitors have come from all over the country, as well as from other more distant parts of the world, and have gone away with ideas for setting up community woodlands in their own home areas.

There are regular visits from schools who bring their children to Wooplaw to enjoy pond-dipping, mini-beast hunting or learning and improving tree identification skills. An Education Pack (written for P1-P3 but which can be adapted for older children) is available for schools.

Also, from time to time, Wooplaw acts as a venue for training course in rural skills and for a wide variety of events – which have ranged from our regular Halloween and Christmas days for children, to ‘art in the forest’ events and conducted wildlife walks.