A woodland trust has today been forced to deny it is 'anti-fairy' after it launched a crackdown on the number of doors being nailed to trees as homes for the tiny ethereal beings. Fairy control has had to be brought in at Wayford Woods in Somerset because it has been overwhelmed by hundreds of sprite homes. Families with children flock to the woodland to nail doors to trees and leave notes for the fairies at the beauty spot near Crewkerne - but critics say it has descended into a fairy 'free-for-all'. Wayford Trustee Steven Acreman said: 'We've got little doors everywhere. We're not anti-fairies but it's in danger of getting out of control. Crackdown: A Somerset woodland trust has launched a crackdown on the number of fairy doors being nailed to its trees . Magic: Hundreds of the doors have appeared in Wayford Woods near Crewkerne, where children leave handwritten notes for the magical creatures to read . Fairy explosion: The number peaked a year ago when more than 200 little doors had been screwed, nailed and installed on trees . He added: 'It's a very complex situation and nobody's admitting that they're evicting the fairies. It's just that fairy control is required otherwise we'd be covered in fairy doors'. Originally an extension of nearby Wayford Manor Gardens, the 29 acres of Somerset woodland boasts a stream, meadow and ornamental lake. It was set up as a charitable trust in the 1990s but mysteriously someone nailed a fairy home to a tree. Mr Acreman said:  'It fitted perfectly, it had a little turned handle and inside was a bed. We didn't know who had done it but we left it there. 'But then another door appeared and now it's gathered momentum.' The doors have been installed by local people so children can leave messages for the fairies. The number  peaked a year ago when more than 200 little doors had been screwed, nailed and installed on trees. And with little tokens, fairy toys and notes secreted behind some of the doors, it has rapidly become known as the fairy woods. But some may have to be removed and a ban imposed. Complaints: The beauty spot has become known as Fairy Wood because of its elaborate handmade doors . Mystery: Some believe that Fairies exist, with 400 sightings nationwide in the three months to January, according to a Fairy Investigation Society survey . Mr Acreman said: 'We've had as many as 10 doors put up on a single tree, they surrounded the tree,' he said. 'We had a complete fairy fairground arrive but we rejected that planning proposal.' With elfin construction now including more and more garish plywood doors with lots of tinsel and glitter. Mr Acreman told the BBC they have had to bring in quality control to remove the worst offenders. He said 'We put a lot of time into the conservation of the woods. 'We're trying to keep people to the paths but the fairy doors are making it a free-for-all.' Despite most believing that fairies don't exist, a recent survey has revealed many people do. In January it emerged the Fairy Investigation Society is conducting a national survey and in three months received 400 sightings. Cottingley, a village outside Bradford in Yorkshire, was for many years the world's fairy hotspot. 16-year-old Elsie Wright took a remarkable photograph of her ten-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths, playing with 'fairies' on the banks of a stream which ran behind the garden of Elsie's house. A few days earlier, in the summer of 1917, Frances had slipped and gone into the stream, later telling her mother she had fallen into the water while she was 'playing with the fairies'. Her mother, unamused, sent her up to the attic bedroom she shared with Elsie where, later that afternoon, the two girls hatched a plan that would make headlines around the world, severely damage the reputations of eminent public figures and generate a controversy that endured for generations. Elsie suggested they should take a photograph of the 'fairies' to prove to Frances' mother that she had been telling the truth. The girls drew some fairies, cut them out and pasted them on to cardboard. With a few long hatpins on which to mount their 'fairies' and a roll of zinc oxide bandage tape. Arthur Wright willingly agreed to lend his daughter his camera and girls set off, blissfully unaware that they were about to create one of the most reproduced photographs in history. They arranged the four fairies - three with wings and one playing a piped instrument - in front of Frances, who put flowers in her hair, cupped her chin in her hand and, curiously, stared intently at the camera rather than the fairies when Elsie took the picture. When Wright developed the exposed plate a darkroom he asked Elsie what they were, and she told him they were the fairies that she and Frances played with by the stream - they took another photo a month later. Polly Wright, Elsie's mother, and her sister, Annie Griffiths, Frances' mother took the  photographs to a meeting of the . Theosophical Society in Harrogate. Knowledge of photography was not . widespread at this time and few understood that the 'spirit' could be . introduced by a simple double exposure on the same photographic plate. As . a result, many Spiritualists were encouraged to believe that the camera . could 'see' what the naked eye could not, a belief which helped . legitimise the Cottingley fairy photographs. Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle also believed this was photographic evidence of the existence of fairies. It was only many decades later did they admit that the photographs were faked and involved cut-out drawings of fairy figures that were fastened to foliage with hatpins. Elsie and Frances stuck doggedly to their story for years. Not until March 1983, when she was 76 years old, did Frances finally confess. 'I'm fed up with all these stories,' she complained. 'I hated those photographs and cringe every time I see them. I thought it was a joke, but everyone else kept it going. It should have died a natural death 60 years ago.' Elsie at first refused to comment, but later confirmed her cousin's story: 'I do not want to die and leave my grandchildren with a loony grandmother to remember.' Frances continued to claim, contrarily, that she had seen fairies and that the fifth photograph - the fairy bower - was authentic. She died in 1986; Elsie died two years later. 'The joke was only meant to last two hours,' said Elsie towards the end of her life. 'It lasted 70 years.'
Wayford Woods in Somerset flooded with fairy doors over the past decade . At peak there were more than 200 fixed to trees in Crewkerne woodland . One mysteriously appeared in 2000 and led to area becoming 'Fairy Wood'
But trustees say there are too many and several are particularly garish . One said: 'We're not anti-fairies but it's in danger of getting out of control'
400 seen in past 3 months according to UK Fairy Investigation Society .