Piney Copse

Piney Copse is 1.7 hectares (4.2 acres) of woodland located approximately 450 metres (1,480 ft) east of Gomshall railway station and north of the Surrey village of Abinger Hammer. The copse is bisected by a public footpath. It was once owned by E. M. Forster, who used to live nearby and purchased the wood using funds from book sales - principally from A Passage to India - in order to prevent it from being developed into housing. When Forster died in 1970, he transferred ownership of the land in his will to the National Trust. In 1926 Forster wrote a short essay about Piney Copse in "Abinger Harvest", entitled "My Wood". The woodland is a secondary woodland comprising oaks, sweet chestnuts, and beech trees. The soil is freely draining, highly acidic, and loamy/sandy, sitting just south of a band of very chalky soils.