Swithland Wood and The Brand is a 87.9 hectares (217 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire.

[3] The Brand is designated a Precambrian site in the Geological Conservation Review,[4] but the dating has been changed due to the discovery of trace fossils from the succeeding Cambrian period.

Swithland Wood has been a public woodland since 1925, upon its acquisition by the Leicester Rotary Club, having previously been part of the estate of the manor of Groby.

By the mid-19th century under the management of John Ellis of Leicester, among other things Chairman of the Midland Railway, slate in the Great Pit was being extracted from a depth of more than 180 ft (55 m).

[16] Both pits now have deep water and are fenced off for safety reasons, but paths around the quarries afford good views of the pools and rock faces.

[17] After the closing of the quarries the area continued to be an important woodland resource, with active timber management and planting by the Grey Estate.

A charitable trust was established and a fund-raising appeal raised £6,000 (more than half of it from members of the Rotary Club itself) which covered not only the £3,000 purchase price but also renewed fencing, woodland management works and public access facilities.

"[19] Swithland Wood has received a blend of continuity and disruption in its management that has stimulated its diversity of plant life, whilst allowing complex ecosystems to survive and develop.

The disruptions include the quarries, substantial periods of felling in the 19th century, construction of a water main across the site, clearing back of rides and paths, and the arrival of countless tramping feet.

The ancient rocks that characterise Charnwood Forest are an eroded anticline - the layers of sediment built up on a sea floor were uplifted some 420 million years ago, at the end of the Silurian Period.

The oldest rocks are found at the northern core, at Blackbrook Reservoir, while Swithland Wood lies on the south-eastern edge of the anticline.

However, recent discoveries of trace fossils, evidence of animals burrowing in the soft mud that became the Swithland Slate, have reclassed all of the Brand Group rocks as Cambrian, formed around 530 million years ago.

[5] The mud that became Swithland Slate was deposited in great quantity on the sea bed, after the more dramatic Precambrian volcanic activity had subsided.

Subsequent deposits above it, combined with the uplifting of the anticline, produced the heat and pressure which turned the mud into hard rock (lithification).

There then began a new deposition, this time of desert sand and fine dust, that produced a new layer of soft red marl, creating the gentler rolling appearance of the land, with just the tips of the older rocks reaching the surface.

Finally, during the ice age, glacial erosion stripped back the Triassic material (plus whatever had accumulated above that), to re-expose the eroded peaks of the older rocks.

At the end of the ice age, patches of boulder clay were deposited over much of the local area, including parts of Swithland Wood.