Don’t do away with the fairies: we need to relearn our sense of the magical | Sara Maitland

Worries about proliferating fairy doors in Somerset’s Wayford Woods are misplaced. A sense of wonder can only be healthy for children and adults – and our woodland

If you go down to the woods today – at least in Somerset’s Wayford Woods – you are sure of a big surprise. It is not teddy bears this time, but uncontrolled immigration and house construction without planning permission – by fairies. More soberly, the trustees of Wayford Woods, near Crewkerne, are perplexed about what to do about the 200 or so tiny doors that have been screwed on to trees, and which purport to be entrances to the homes of the “little folk”. The 29-acre Somerset wood is accessible – legally as well as physically – and children have been leaving gifts and messages for the fairies for some years now, part of a wider trend for fairy doors.

So what exactly is the problem here? A few screws are not going to damage the trees; this is not ancient woodland or a site of special scientific interest; no wildlife is, so far as I can determine, being threatened. Environmental art (of widely varying degrees of merit) is now common, indeed encouraged, in woodland. We say we want children to get out into nature, to encourage the creative play of their imaginations; and I bet the little doors are increasing children’s “footfall”. In many ways indeed this is an appropriate place for such goings-on because the wood was originally part of the garden of Wayford Manor, designed by Harold Peto – a landscape architect of the Arts and Crafts movement, of which the fairytale revival was a central theme.

A fairy door I found in the woods. pic.twitter.com/kvlI4UzBhO

Related: Do you know the names of the trees in your neighbourhood? | Sara Maitland

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