In addition to the visitors' centre, there is a cafe, toilet facilities and cycling, walking and running trails.

They were housed in one of a number of instructional centres created by the Ministry, most of them on Forestry England property.

These were basically work camps, where unemployed men carried out heavy labour and lived on site in wooden huts.

A number of Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age flint tools have been found in the forest in Doctor's Gate Quarry.

An episode of Time Team in 2008 examined a large stone structure known as "the Castles", with walls five metres thick.