Laying-out Bridgewood

This year (2008) I've started laying out Bridgewood's physical structure of woodland paths ("rides") and cleared spaces by felling trees and thickets. The plans overview page has more about how I expect to use the wood and the byelaws that create its social structure.

The first thing is that alongside the BDSM plan for the wood is a set of forestry aims which promote biodiversity and native species. These are worth doing for their own sake but they also provide a more interesting and more suitable backdrop for BDSM. For example, having areas of undergrowth and open grassed rides (ie tracks) rather than just rows of mature trees is part of that diversity and provides cover for wildlife, but it also serves BDSM purposes by providing privacy for people using the wood, with visually and audially isolated spaces. A big part of the reason for chosing Bridgewood was that managing it properly would also be compatible with BDSM uses.

When I visited the wood before completion day it felt almost like exploring virgin forest: no tracks and no signs of human intervention (until you remember the trees were mostly planted ;) ) So the first job is to improve the access by establishing grassed rides. This will make it easier to get around the site and eventually provide a suitable surface for pony carts trotting around, chain-gangs shuffling along etc.

The ride that I've been establishing so far is the Middle Ride, since that has the best screening: even in March without any leaves on the trees it was already completely private. It runs right through the centre of the wood from one side to the other and so far I've marked it out with stakes and then cut out shrubby tree regrowth that was in the way. Due to the spacing of the mature trees, none of their larger root stumps will be on the ride itself - although some will be right at the edge. I've aimed for gentle curves to prevent long lines of sight without introducing sharp bends.

The Middle Ride gives access to the Glade, which is in the dead centre of the wood and was already quite open at the start. I expect this will be the "base of operations" and would be the place I'd set up any temporary structures like marquees for events.

I've also laid out a circular ride in two sections, the North and South Rides. These are much nearer the boundary and at the moment they are only completely private in summer, although in the longer term I'm looking at ways to screen that too with evergreens and promoting brambles and ivy on fencing, which are abundant in much of its route. This South Ride goes through some areas which are very open, and will provide more variety and maybe a straight run for ponies.

This combination of rides allows linear, circular and figure of eight routes by using the Middle Ride (~300m) and the North and South Rides (~900m). I also expect to have places for stationing BDSM equipment (eg stocks) along the rides and in the Glade and other new clearings.

For access onto the site, there's really only space for a single car to park at the moment (at the end of the access track to the gate) without venturing on soft-ground or parking nose to tail back up the track. Whilst there's plenty of space for more inside the wood, realistically it will need upgrading to park cars that aren't 4x4s and that's one of the major constraints on having visitors or any kind of event yet.

So I'm not really planning to be able to host events until next year (2009).