The Centre building used to be the Forestry Commission's college for training their forestry managers over a 2 year residential course. The college ran from 1900 - 1970, with a break during the Second World War when it was occupied by the American Army. We occasionally have visitors coming to see us who once trained at the college and are on a nostalgic trip. It is always interesting listening to the stories of what these men used to get up to when they lived here. Recently we had some of the students from the last course to run that visited us as part of their reunion.
They were impressed with some of the changes that have happened including the much more modern bathroom facilities than they had! - see below
Over the Summer Holiday, Mike, one of our maintenance team, was busy refurbishing the First Floor Shower Room. It now looks a lot more modern and mirror lights even come on automatically as you enter the room!
With so many digital devices needing charging up these days, we've put in lots of new surge protected power outlets into the tuck shop. This now allows visiting staff to safely and securely charge up their various devices. We also have our own tablets and cameras charging there that are used for a Photo Challenge activity, along with our two way radios.
We've also had several wildlife sightings of a larger kind recently. Several groups have been lucky enough to see wild boar in the forest. This used to be a rare occurrence, probably as children are often making too much noise, but has been more frequent as of late. Mind you it is over the next few months that the Forestry Commission cull the numbers by several hundred and so the chance of seeing these animals may again diminish.