Burleigh Wood is the last remaining part of the ancient deerpark of Burley. Now belonging to Loughborough University, its earliest name was Burley from the old English "Burh" (for lifted place) and "leah" (a wood or clearing within a wood. That early name possibly hins at the existence of the Park as early as Saxon times, though surviving records of it date from 1330. By 1559 it was beginning to be shown as Burleigh Park and continued as a private hunting area of woodland containing deer and game right up to the Civil War in the 1600s.
By 1656, records show areas of the park divided into fields and it was no longer used for hunting. Part of the top tip of the Park, however, survived as Burleigh Wood. Today its western edge still boasts the remains of part of what was once the huge ancient earthen deerbank, which completely enclosed the whole of the original park. Topped by high wooding palings, this enormous bank has a ditch and in places a double ditch where Charnwood Forest gave way to private parkland.
Burleigh Wood has been managed for hunting and resources for many centuries,producing timber for building, wood for fuel and hurdles, sometimes also for shipbuilding and also providing woodland for pasture and pannage (the grazing of acorns by pigs). Both coppice and pollard management were utilised and today the University is continuing to coppice. This encourages and reinstates the wide variety of rare plants and animals that disappear when woodlands lack management and become dense and overgrown, as happened to Burleigh during the World War II.
Burleigh Wood is listed on the Leicestershire Inventory of Ancient Woodland and is very important both nationally and locally. The University intends to continue to manage it primarily as a haven for wild plants and animals but ith controlled limited access for local enjoyment and as an educational resource. Please help Burleigh Wood survive by treating it with the respect it needs and deserves.
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