If you go down to the woods today, be sure of a big surprise

Our forests may be timeless but a stay looks very different after lockdown, says Chris Leadbeater

There are paw prints on the floor in the main lodge at the Forest Holidays camp at Blackwood Forest – telltale signs of life deep in the treescape of rural Hampshire.

Unfortunately, the tale they tell is not of carefree creatures scampering among racks of hiking fleeces and ecobottles, but one a little more in tune with 2020. Each pair of feet comes with an explanatory note – “these footprints belong to a red squirrel”. But the eye is drawn less to this titbit-detail than to the laminated circles that frame it, and the large-font message they bear – “Thank-you for keeping your distance”. The orange spheres mark out a route, winding between tables, to the check-in desks. Even here, down below the boughs, Covid-19 is having its unwanted say.

Still, the rodent claw-marks add a certain levity to the dark matter of social-distancing. And when Karen’s voice comes from behind plexiglass, it does so with a tinge of relief. It is the first Monday in July, a diary date that should signify nothing more remarkable than the last fortnight of calm before the school holidays – but which, thanks to more than three months of lockdown, is effectively the first day of the season at this oasis of 61 self-catering cabins a little outside Winchester. “It’s good to be back,” Karen says, as she slides my key under the screen. “We’re fully booked up this week – it’s going to be busy.”

She’s right. As I drive to number 38 in the gloaming, every other cabin has its lights on. Children’s voices ring gleefully under the canopy; the aroma of barbecues on rear verandas haunts the air. It feels comforting. So does the sticker affixed to the front door of 38 – “cleaned and sealed for your protection”. No chances are being taken. Around the back, the hot-tub wears its own sticker, declaring that it has been sterilised that morning. Inside, the remote control has been removed, and the TV is offering me a QR code to convert my phone into a substitute that only I will touch. It will order dinner too. The site’s restaurant is closed, but another square of black and white pulls up an online menu, and the chance to order pizzas and curries. They will be brought in minutes by buggy, and dropped on the front step by a staff member, who is backing away before I open the door.

This “new normal” continues the following day. Collecting bikes is now by appointment only to prevent families rubbing shoulders unnecessarily. Matt appears at the pre-arranged 10am, gloves on, the hard stench of disinfectant seeping from the cycle shed behind him. “It’s been a strange time,” he says, keeping two metres away as he adjusts saddles and fiddles with handlebars. He was on site during lockdown, keeping things ticking over. “In some ways, it was amazing,” he smiles. “We could hear the wildlife so clearly. The roe deer were really barking. But it’s nice to see people again.”

I go in search of these local residents on his advice that I will find them in the vicinity of cabin 38 – and, clump-footed on the trail, uncover no evidence of them. But the setting is glorious, entirely undamaged by the pandemic. Giant oaks stand staunch. Silver birch, beech and ash trees spread out around them, daylight woven in between, the atmosphere cool and fresh. An image soaked in centuries. A fragment of an ancient England, even. I find myself imagining this same place in the fifth century – the legions leaving, the future perilous and uncertain, sanctuary promised by the shadows under the branches. It is not so big a leap of the imagination. A map in the cabin identifies the A33 – which shapes the forest’s south-east flank – as a Roman road, linking the village of Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) to Winchester (Venta Belgarum) and to the sea beyond. Blackwood cannot have changed much in 1,600 years.

It seems only vaguely more modern to cycle through this context. The bikes may be a contemporary intrusion, but the Trim Trail, which skirts the perimeter of the wood, feels part of the timeless landscape – the squelch of mud under wheels, the scent of pine needles. And if the weather inserts itself grouchily into the picture, it does not matter. The rain brings with it that smell of damp earth, a ghost on the breeze as redolent of the British summer as a Wimbledon cream tea or a Glastonbury sunset. The forest awakens with it – the echo-splat of fat droplets on leaves, the burble of insects, rising or falling in volume in seemingly inverse proportion to the heaviness of the drizzle.

It is an environment – all 667 acres – which demands to be explored. My son Hal, a stubborn six-year-old, needs encouragement to venture out under grey skies, but he stumbles upon enchantment aplenty. An abandoned forester’s cottage exudes a ruined fairytale aesthetic, its exposed upstairs rafters purportedly home to a number of bats (though we do not see any). Alongside, a meadow sways with wild flowers, bluebells nodding their heads in the wind.

It is here that we meet Alison Seymour. Forest Holidays operates a total of 11 UK camps on land managed by Forestry England (and the respective bodies in Scotland and Wales) – and the ranger teams offer an element of education that complements guests’ need for escape. In the case of Blackwood, this means 90 minutes of flora, fauna and foraging, served with an enthusiasm and a gift for talking to children that disguises the fact that participants are learning as they listen.

“Say hello to the queen of the forest,” says Alison, bowing before a beech tree, and explaining that the maternal shelter provided by its branches has long earned it this matriarchal title. “Blackberries! In July! It’s madness!” she adds, picking plump purple fruit from bushes, and “blaming” the June heatwave for their premature presence. She finds us danger (the yew tree, with sickly green bark and toxic red berries), and a false suggestion of it (the harmless golden-brown slowworms that so resemble snakes). She plucks a plastic box from her rucksack, and opens it to reveal dried mealworms within. “Just like popcorn,” she says, with enough persuasion that my son takes a bite. The look on his face says that beetle larvae are unlike any cinema snack he has ever tried, but the salty flavour is not unpleasant. “Great source of protein,” Alison adds.

Alas, we are the sole members of her audience. Covid-19 dictates that what used to be groups of up to 12 are now limited to five. “It’s a bit of a shame,” she says. “Smaller numbers are fine if you have confident children, but sometimes, with shy kids, you need bigger groups to draw them out.” None the less, she casts two final spells, showing us how to build a lean-to from logs, and teaching us how to start a fire using twigs, cotton wool, and a steel flint. Then she conjures a finishing touch, nipping into the undergrowth under the pretence of a “forest fairy break”, asking us to seek out the “marshmallow tree” on her return. Hal falls for the trick, whooping as he spots the sweets she has impaled upon a low branch – and is no less delighted to roast them on a blaze he has helped to create.

We return to the cabin with lovely tendrils of woodsmoke clinging to our clothes and hair – wrapped, for a few more days, in a pastoral bubble that the world’s woes cannot puncture.

A three-night weekend stay in a Golden Oak cabin (sleeps up to four in two bedrooms, and comes with a hot-tub) at the Forest Holidays

camp at Blackwood Forest (0333

011 0495; forestholidays.

co.uk) costs from £1,325 in total, checking

in on Aug 21.