Some of the “strongest horses in the world” have travelled to Bricket Wood to farm ancient timber and revitalise a 16 acre nature reserve.

Faced with the noise, pollution and spiralling cost of tractors and lorries, St Stephen Parish Council and the Countryside Management Service decided to bank on horsepower and traditional methods of woodside clearing.

Although an opportunity to demonstrate craft and logging techniques to dozens of wide-eyed residents was readily taken up, the exercise in Blackgreen Wood was far from a mere nostalgia trip.

John Bunce, one of the workers, said horse-based work had seen a sudden surge in popularity.

He said: “It’s coming back big time. The price of diesel is so high and people are a lot more environmentally aware now. It’s also far easier for us to get horses in here and we are not destroying the undergrowth.”

Pointing to one of the one tonne animals he added: “He’s the strongest horse in the world. They can shift a good load of timber.

“This is beautiful oak and will be worth thousands of pounds.”

In January 2004, St Stephen Parish Council took over the woodland, off Lye Lane, finding it overgrown, dark and inaccessible.

Parish Councillor John Bell said: “The whole wood was dense with holly all looking like a large dark tunnel. It was quite spooky. Volunteers have managed to cut back the holly and help set it up as an accessible nature reserve.”

“If you look at the oak trees you realise it must have been planted to produce timber a long time ago but like many woods it has been neglected.”

He said the horses, which will be working in the woodland all week before moving to Bricket Wood Common on Saturday, would be brought back to collect additional timber in a few years.

The timber will be used to make benches and fences around the parish and the clearings will help support local wildlife.

Councillor Bell said: “It’s never popular cutting down trees but we’re doing it for a reason to let light through and encourage wildlife and the growth of better trees.”