The National Trust's Toys Hill estate now runs to more than 200 acres (81 ha) of woodland.

Toys Hill was part of the Common of Brasted Chart, where local people once kept pigs and cattle, gathered peat and firewood and quarried Chertstone for their roads and buildings.

Various pits that are visible in the high woods of Toys Hill include those dug by charcoal burners as well as pits for quarrying chert, a hard sandstone found in the Lower Greensand formation that has been extracted for many centuries for local roadstone and building stone.

The dense woodlands that crown Toys Hill and the surrounding plateau were badly affected by the Great Storm of 1987.

Toys Hill used to be well known for its groves of ancient beech pollards, dating back to the early days of grazing, but only a few survived the 1987 storm.