Most of them reportedly circled English woodland tract (3,5)

I believe the answer is:

the weald

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'most of them reportedly circled english woodland tract' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.

'most of them reportedly' is the wordplay.
'most of' means to remove the last letter.
'reportedly' becomes 'weald' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'them' with its final letter taken off is 'the'.
'the'+'weald'='THE WEALD'

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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