Woodcock Nature Preserve

I am a board member of Woodcock Nature Preserve and I love this place. Prescribed fire and native grassland, birds, Chinese chestnuts and other orchard and agroforesty projects, woodland medicinal herbs and mushrooms. This place has something for everyone who is interested in sustainable, productive land management in Appalachian Ohio.

There is a small visitor parking lot just off Marshfield Road, coordinates are 39.290205, -82.221984. I highly recommend using these coordinates instead of the mailing address, 5975 Marshfield Road, to locate your destination. Otherwise map apps on your phone typically send you either half a mile down the road, or else down of the tenant neighbors' private driveways. We hope you enjoy your visit to this magical place.

This is an interesting place I just found out about while looking at Google Maps. I did a few minutes of research and set out to check it out. We found the parking lot based on a previous review which gave coordinates. It is up the road a little bit from the entrance (or at least one of them) and on the other side of the road. From this point we weren't sure where to go, but we walked around a bit in a field with planted trees and followed some signs that said "5K" and then stumbled on a set of driveways, one of which is private and the other takes you back down a nice wide open trail. There is a summit area with a picnic table. We didn't get a chance to see where all the trails went but plan to in the future.

It is clear that they are doing a lot of work here as there are lots of planted trees, mowed trails, and burned brush. We came during the winter, and we are curious as to how it will look in the summer and in future years as it develops.

I lived there for about 7 years, and one of the owners (Ben) were somewhat self centered, and we had to raise our rent every time we did anything with the house. Other than that, very lovely scenery.

A terrific new chestnut tree orchard that will be economically viable and serve as a demonstration project for southeast Ohio.

This is a beautiful nature preserve but it took some effort to figure out what was private property and what was the preserve. The trail marked 5K is what to look for and there are signs that say private but the trail seems to cross over private property. It seems to be a work in progress and hopefully it will become better marked and less confusing. I did hike enough to see some of the scenic features so it was worth it. There isn't any restrooms or a playground that I noticed.