A large section of a much-loved stretch of woodland in the heart of South Bristol is being auctioned off - even though most people in the area thought it was publicly-owned - and now a campaign is underway to protect it. An area of around two and a half acres of the Nightingale Valley, a popular woodland area in the middle of Brislington , has appeared on an agents’ upcoming auction list and will go under the hammer on November 20. The sale is of the former coach house and stable buildings that were part of the Wick House estate in Brislington dating back centuries.

The entire parcel of land being auctioned is actually six acres, with more than half of it on flat land at the top of the valley behind Wick House itself. The sale, which Bristol Live first reported last month , has come as a bit of a surprise to many in Brislington, who assumed that all the woods of the Nightingale Valley were owned by Bristol City Council . But now the people who regularly walk in the woods that stretch from Allison Road all the way to the railway line at St Anne’s are concerned whoever buys the southerly section could have plans to develop it, or close it off.

The coach house and stables, the three and a half acres of mainly woodland at the top of the valley, along with the two-and-a-half acres that form part of the Nightingale Valley that’s open to the public down to the Brislington Brook is to be auctioned by Hollis Morgan later this month with a guide price of £350,000. The Friends of.