Wyre Forest

The forest covers an area in local terms of 2,634 hectares (6,509 acres, 26.34 square kilometres (10.17 sq mi)) and is noted for its variety of wildlife.

[1][2] On 9 April 2024, a family of 6 Eurasian Beavers (Castor Fiber) were reintroduced to a tributary of Dowles Brook, within a five-hectare enclosure spanning the stream and surrounding woodland.

Wyre Forest has none of the legal peculiarities of a historic forest at all, instead has those of a chase (of common land) with hunting rights belonging to the Mortimer family, who had the title Earl of March from 1328, as holders for centuries of the manor and liberty of Cleobury Mortimer, which technically still enjoys such hunting rights.

[4] How far north the Mortimer family's hunting rights extended is debatable, but it may have included the whole area in south east Shropshire of which they were overlords at the time of Domesday Book.

A large tract of woodland on the north side of the Dowles Brook was Kingswood, a detached township of the parish of Stottesdon.

Far Forest was until recent times part of the borough of Bewdley, though separated from the rest of it by New Parks, which were in Rock parish.

Historical references to the Wyre Forest in this period seem to relate to this rather smaller area owned by the crown.

Coppicing in the Wyre also provided industry to towns such as Bewdley, where local Tanneries profited from the woodland.

It branched from the main line north of Bewdley station and crossed the River Severn at Dowles Bridge, the supports of which still remain.