Selwood Forest

Selwood Forest was a large area of woodland on the borders between Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire in south west England. In Anglo-Saxon times it was very substantial, forming a natural barrier between the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex and the Britons of Dumnonia and the Severn Valley.

The name Selwood is first recorded in Old English around 894 as Seluudu, which some etymologists consider to derive from Sealhwudu or Sallow wood.

Selwood may have been the location of the Battle of Peonnum in 658. At this battle King Cenwalh of Wessex defeated the Britons and annexed Somerset as far west as the River Parret. Selwood is the location of Egbert's Stone, where Alfred the Great rallied his forces against the Great Heathen Army in 878. The event is recorded in Asser's Life of King Alfred:

Today only a few surviving areas of ancient woodland, none of great size, are considered to survive from the medieval Selwood. One such area is Picket Wood at Yarnbrook.

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