Has anyone an answer?

I hope that someone can solve my problem. I know everyone takes it for granted but who or when were the woodlands planted in the Ushaw Moor area?

The woods I refer to are the areas that run at right angles to each other from Durham Road in Ushaw Moor to the Club in Bearpark. I say Durham Road as I think the woods would have run down to that road before the first St. Josephs Catholic Church was built on the site in 1911 where the Catholic Club now stands. The first stretch stands from the Catholic cemetery upto Victoria Court. Then at a right angles down to Oakridge Road, then up to the Deerness School, then again at right angles up the side of the playing fields and at right angles again upto Bearpark Club. I don’t know if upto is correct grammar.

I am reading a book on the history of Ushaw College and in the early years of the College it states that new woodlands were planted and that if Ushaw College owned this land at the time did the College authorities lay down this new woodland? The very geometrical shape of the woods point to the them being planned and planted by man and not by nature.

I spent many happy hours as a little lad playing in the woods and especially the area where New Acres now stand. I remember the work that went on to open the woods to gain access to the fields where Oakridge Road now stands. No modern plant on site in those days and the trees were felled and the roots dug out by hand. A six foot wire link fence ran from the cut onto Hall Avenue (known as Radstocks cut after the family that lived in the first house through the cut in Hall Avenue) down to the bottom of Bracken Court, then up the side of Bracken Court and then upto the top of Whitehouse Court where it joins the Bearpark Road.

The woods are shown on an Ordnance Survey map I have seen on the site dated 1911 so they have been there for well over 100 years.