Episodes
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Join us for a woodland wander with adventurer, author and tree lover, Al Humphreys. The 2012 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year has cycled round the world, rowed the Atlantic and walked across India, but now focuses on pursuits closer to home. Pioneering the concept of microadventures, Al explains how exploring small pockets of nature in our neighbourhoods helps us to better connect with and care for the environment. He speaks of enabling young people to embrace wild places, and encourages us to take time to be curious and astonished as we discover new places on our doorstep.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Today I am off to meet an author and adventurer, and there's a title you don't get to say, or indeed hear very much. He's the author of a whole ton of books, including Microadventures, which I want to talk to him specifically about, but also books called the Doorstep Mile, Local, There Are Other Rivers, Grand Adventures, Moods of Future Joys, Midsummer Mornings, Thunder and Sunshine, and I could go on and on. And I'm meeting him at a Woodland Trust site called Ashenbank Wood. It's a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is teeming with extraordinary wildlife. So we'll be talking a bit about the woods and a bit about the sort of adventures he's been on and the sort of adventures we might all be able to go on. Anyway, I'll let him introduce himself.
Al: My name's Alastair Humphreys. I'm an adventurer and a writer and tree lover.
Adam: Which sounds very exciting. So when you say you're an adventurer, what does that sort of mean?
Al: Well, I was slightly hesitant to say that because I confess I feel more like an ex-adventurer, but I have spent pretty much all my career going off doing big adventures and then coming home and writing and speaking and making films about them. So they've gone ever smaller. I began by spending four years cycling around the world, I've rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, walked across the Empty Quarter desert, played my violin incredibly badly through Spain, and then gradually smaller onto what I call microadventures. So, encouraging people to find short, simple, affordable adventures close to home and squeezing around their busy daily lives.
Adam: So that's interesting. You talk about the mini adventures. On a previous podcast we talked to the natural navigator, I don't know.
Al: Ohh yes, Tristan. Well, he could tell you a lot more intelligent things than I can. He's great.
Adam: No, but I think he took very much the similar view of yours. He went, I've done all these big adventures. But actually when you’re doing these big adventures, it's all about tech, you know, and I needed satellite link ups and all sorts of stuff. And actually I wasn't, I was really looking at screens all the time. And he was going, the smaller adventures are actually much more revolutionary, because if you go low tech, that's a proper adventure. Just trying to find your way through a wood is a real adventure in a curious sort of way, even more challenging than doing something which sounds really flash.
Al: Yes. And what Tristan's done fantastically is taking those skills from bigger journeys down to his literal daily life, hasn't he? If you, I get an e-mail from him, I think it's weekly or so and it just essentially says, where am I now and which way am I facing? And from his little clues in the local park, he can tell whether it's north, south, east, and west.
Adam: Yes. No, you're right. I tried. I was very bad at that. And what I've learned, I've already forgotten. So tell me a little bit about why your connection to nature, then, how important that is to you, if at all.
Al: So I had a nice, happy childhood growing up in the countryside, so as a kid I spent a lot of time running around the fields and woods and streams and things, so I suppose that hammers something deep into your subconscious, although you don't really notice it necessarily as a kid.
Adam: Where whereabouts was that?
Al: In the Yorkshire Dales.
Adam: Ohh, God's own country. Amazing place.
Al: Yes. Lovely part of the world. Yeah, so I really enjoyed that, and then my big expeditions, I've spent a lot of time in some of the world's really wild places and that's a fantastic backdrop to your adventures. But actually my – oh, and I also did a zoology degree. Although I found it incredibly boring, and now looking back I find it amazing that you can find something like that boring. But it's taken me stopping the big adventures, slowing down, paying attention to my local area to build a deeper connection with nature. And I don't know if that's partly just me getting old as well, I suspect there is an aspect of that. But whereas in my youth I was sort of cycling moderately quickly across continents and now pottering around small little parks and I have time to be astonished in a way that you don't necessarily when you're on a big A to B kind of journey.
Adam: Yes, yes, there's the mechanics of getting you somewhere so challenging.
Al: Yes, and you're on a mission. The mission is to go from A to B and not die, and to succeed. And that's all quite, and the backdrop of it all is this wonderful nature. But the things I've been doing more recently, then nature has come to the forefront. I'm not really doing any big, exciting mission. And therefore the paying attention to the small bits of nature and the changing seasons comes to the forefront.
Adam: Yes, I did, I was just going to stop here. We're by one of the Woodland Trust sign posts about fungi and deadwood and the importance of that. We can talk a bit about that. But I was just thinking about what you said. I did an expedition across the Gobi in Outer Mongolia. I was working in Outer Mongolia, and it was, you're right, it was more interesting in retrospect. Because when I was there, we were just very concerned about the mechanics of the day. Getting through the day, making sure we weren't lost, getting food, all of that, rather than go ‘this is quite an interesting place’.
Al: Yes.
Adam: Whereas, because we didn't meander, you go, I think the importance of meandering and almost lost time, and in a way, I think, boredom. I mean, it was interesting to talk about kids, you know, I don’t know if you’ve got kids, but I think there's a lot of pressure on people to keep the kids busy, get them to this class, to do this, do this, do this. Actually the importance of just going, you know, ‘they're bored now, they'll just go do something’, is quite interesting.
Al: Yeah. And I think that's a fantastic aspect of it, a bit of woodland like this, isn't it? Is to bring some kids here and essentially say there is nothing to do here, but equally you can do whatever you want. So go on, clear off. Off you go, go climb some of these trees, pick up some sticks, rummage around, see what you find. And that's the great thing of a woodland like this.
Adam: Yeah. Do you have kids?
Al: I do, yes.
Adam: Well, how old are they?
Al: Well, they are entering the dreaded teenage phase. So the um, it's really interesting, actually, because they're completely addicted to their screens and that would be their preferred choice would be to live in a damp, dark, smelly cave and never emerge. But when I drag them by their hair kicking and screaming into a wood like this, they're grumpy for a couple of minutes and then I just say clear off, go away and then they love it. And there's a real physical and mental transformation that’s clear, when you can, once they get out here.
Adam: Yeah. So I think that's interesting. And as a parent and everything, I just wonder what your take is on trying to engage a younger generation with nature and whether that's difficult, how you do it and whether we should be doing that, is that a concern of us or just, you know, let people do what they want?
Al: I think it's a massive, massive concern and I also think it's extremely difficult. These screens are deliciously alluring. That's how they're designed. You know, if I was a kid today, I'd love to be just scrolling mindlessly through a thousand videos of people falling off their bikes. If it's endlessly addictive. So I think it's very, very hard and being a parent is exhausting. It's quite easy to not bother with the kicking and screaming, going to the woods, but I think it's really, really vital to do and the reward of when you get them out is of seeing how transformative that is for them, but also for yourself is really good. So yeah, I think screens are a massive problem. I think the nature disconnection of our society is a huge problem, both in terms of our physical health, our mental health, but also with our ignorance to the decline of species and the loss of wild places. So I think it's an enormous problem.
Adam: And I mean you know, you're a broadcaster, you create a huge amount of content yourself. So I think there's an interesting question about how to frame that, because I fear then talking about all the trees are disappearing and wildlife is dying and that it turns, well, everybody, but perhaps especially younger generations off. They go, well if it's that blooming terrible, well, I'd just rather be on my screen. So how do you get that tone right, do you think?
Al: That's a question that I've been thinking a lot about, particularly over the last year or so. I've just finished writing a book, which is all about exploring your local area, and when I wrote the book, in the early months of it, it was very much a moaning, ranting disaster book that everything's doomed and that it's all ruined. But as I was reading through my drafts, I was thinking, geez, this is this is, well, no one's going to read it for a start. But also, it's not going to encourage anyone. But as the project went on, I realised that I didn't need to frame it like that, because I could look at it another way, which was how much I personally was loving getting out into these small pockets of nature, what benefits I was getting and how much I was enjoying it. And then the more that I personally enjoyed it, the more I start to become connected and the more I start to care and the more hopefully I start to take action. So I think you're exactly right to try and frame it as a positive thing of saying hey, get out into X, Y and Z for these fantastic reasons and then hopefully the fixing the planet part will take care of itself, once there’s enough people enthused.
Adam: Yeah, interesting. Well, look, we'll carry on, but I said we stopped at this post. So the many dead and decaying trees you find here play a vital role in Ashenbank Wood's ecosystem. And that's a theme you'll see in lots of Woodland Trust places where deadwood is actually allowed to stay. In fact, it's not just allowed to stay, it’s positively encouraged because of the fungi and the invertebrates, and then all the way up to the different sorts of animals that can live off that. So what looks like sort of untidiness is sometimes a real sort of oasis of life.
Al: And this woodland here was completely smashed by the huge hurricane in 1987. So I think more than most woodlands, there's a lot of fallen down trees in this wood, which I suppose previously would have been carted off and chopped up for firewood or something.
Adam: So let's, I mean, we're walking down this idyllic sort of dappled light, coming through the canopy of the still full roof of this of this woodland. So this is really idyllic, but take me somewhere else. So tell me about those adventures that you've had in these distant lands. Were there any particular that stand out for any particular reason?
Al: Well, given that we're talking about trees, I spent 10 weeks, I think it was, on the frozen Arctic Ocean, up near the North Pole, which was a fantastic expedition itself, but the small detail that sticks with me now is that to get up there, you fly to Canada, then you fly to some smaller place in Canada and the planes gradually get smaller and smaller and the safety regulations get more and more lax till you're on the plane with people with rifles and harpoons and stuff. But up to this tiny little community right up in the north of Canada and the people - I went to visit the primary school there in the morning just to chat to the kids about my adventures and stuff. And they were chatting about my adventures and they were, the little kids there were amazed that I'd never seen a polar bear. And my riposte to them was along the lines of but you've never seen a tree! Where they where they lived, there were no trees, literally none above the tree line, and that really struck me, what it would be like to grow up in a place with zero trees. I mean, you get polar bears, which is pretty cool, but I'd be sad to have no trees.
Adam: Yes, yeah, yes. And what was their view of that? Do they go well, I've never seen that, don't miss. Or were they interested in that?
Al: Yeah, well, I guess everyone's normal is normal, isn't it? You know, they’re going to school on skidoos and things like that. And so, yeah, it's just fascinating to see the different people's views of normal in the world. And before I started my big adventures, one of the motivating factors for me wanting to go off around the world was that I found where I lived incredibly boring, as a lot of young people do. Oh my goodness, where I live is the most boring place in the universe. I need to go far, far away. And it took me going far, far away to realise that actually the stuff I'd left behind is pretty fascinating in its own way. If only you're willing to pay attention to it.
Adam: Yes, gosh, it sounds almost like a line from one of Tolkien's books. There you do a long adventure to find true interest is nearer to home. So I know you've written lots of things, but you've got a book just come out. So yeah, tell me, what's that book about then?
Al: So I've written a book that's called Local, and it's about spending a whole year exploring only the single Ordnance Survey map that I happen to live on. So, the whole of Britain's divided up into about just over 400 Ordnance Survey maps. So wherever you live, you could go to your local bookshop and buy your local map. And what I'm trying to do is encourage people to do that and to realise how much new, undiscovered stuff is on their doorstep. Woodlands, footpaths, hills, fields but also towns, villages. What's behind the industrial yards? Like a proper exploring curiosity to your own backyard.
Adam: And how much area does one of those maps cover then?
Al: It's the orange Ordnance Survey maps. They're more detailed. So it's roughly 20 kilometres by 20 kilometres.
Adam: Right. So a fair amount.
Al: It's a fair amount, but I've also in previous time spent a year crossing an entire continent, so in that sense it felt incredibly tiny to me. And when I began the project, I thought ‘this map is so small, it's going to be so claustrophobic and so boring’. But actually, by the end of the year, I realise, wow, actually it's enormous. I haven't even begun to cover everything on the map.
Adam: So what sort of things did you find there that was a surprise to you, then?
Al: So what I did every week, I would go out once a week for the whole year and my rule was to explore one grid square a week. So a kilometre square chosen at random and the random was really important because if it wasn't random, all I would do is just choose all the nice bits of woodland around my map. But by making it random, it sent me off to towns and suburbs and motorway junctions and all sorts of random stuff. And I discovered a few things. The first thing I discovered was how little I knew this area that I thought I knew very well indeed. The second thing that I realised was that, yeah, of course it's nice to go out to woods and hills and streams and stuff, but also I was surprised how much I loved the forgotten grid squares, the abandoned bits, the broken down, fallen down, behind the warehouse kind of landscapes. Like what's behind the supermarket car park? And I found in these forgotten edgelands a real sense of wildness and solitude that I didn't get in somewhere lovely. And this wood we’re in now is lovely, but you're not going to get much solitude. There’s a lot of dog walkers wandering around. And whereas if you're sort of behind some factory and some regenerating thicket, you think, wow, no one comes here. This feels adventurous. This feels wild. No one on the planet knows where I am. I’m only 20 minutes from a massive city, so I really was surprised how much I liked the forgotten corners of my map.
Adam: Well, it sounds romantic the way you describe it, but behind a dumpster or a big factory? I don't really want to go there.
Al: Why not?
Adam: Because it's not pretty. It's probably got some unsavoury characters hanging around there. It might be more dangerous than crossing, you know, at some wild tundra, so it doesn't attract. I mean, but it does attract you, genuinely?
Al: I think I'd have agreed with you entirely beforehand. It seems much nicer to come to a pretty woodland and stroll around there. What surprised me was how rarely I saw people when I was out and about, and we live in a very crowded country. I live in a crowded corner of the country, and yet once I was off meandering, once you're slightly off the beaten track, it felt like I often had the place to myself. In terms of being scared, I never had any problems at all. But I was very conscious that I'm a six-foot-tall white man who's quite good at running and that the countryside in general is not equally accessible to everyone. That really struck home to me in the year, how the sort of privilege I have of being able to essentially wander wherever I want. And the worst thing that's happened, someone will say go away and I go, oh, I'm terribly sorry and be all sort of posh and cheerful and it'll be fine and that's not fair, and it's not right that there's that inequality.
Adam: I wonder what you feel because we're talking now, a little after there was a big fuss in newspapers about Kirsty Allsop as children or a child who went off travelling and I think he was 16 or something like that. And it raised the debate whether that's right or wrong and people have their own views, it raised the debate about adventure, what it is, how much freedom we should give younger people. And there were lots of comments, you know, look back a generation, my parents' generation, you know, people of 17, 18 were fighting in wars. You know, the idea of going on Eurorail doesn't sound that adventurous by comparison. But it does engage with the natural world, doesn't it? You've done very adventurous things. What do you think about our position on safety now? The sort of vibe about that?
Al: I think a relevant aspect of that discussion what we're talking about today is if you look at the roaming distances that kids have from home and you can see statistical maps of this online of how far our grandparents are allowed to go from home, you know, they’d get on their bicycle with a pickled egg and off they'd go for a month and then come home for their tea. All that sort of stuff. When I was a kid, I was basically in the Yorkshire Dales. I was basically allowed to go wherever I wanted, and then I'd just come home when I was hungry. And of course, I had no cell phone. And then kids today would not be generally allowed that sort of thing, and they're kept very much closer to home. And I think that trusting young people in wild places is an important thing to do.
Adam: Well, on that note of wild places and adventure, we talked a lot about maps and if you want to visit Ashenbank Wood and are looking for a map, it is grid reference TQ 675692, map reference explorer 163, and OS land ranger 177. Good luck with finding this particular wood. I hope you enjoy it. And until next time, of course, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.
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Step into the heart of an ancient woodland as we explore Ashenbank Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest rich in history and teeming with wildlife.
Woodland has stood here for centuries, but this haven is under threat. A proposed tunnel project, the Lower Thames Crossing, could harm the irreplaceable ecosystem and ancient trees here. Jack, leader of our woods under threat team, explains what’s at stake and the challenges and strategies involved in trying to maintain a delicate balance between development and nature. A decision on whether the project goes ahead is due from Government in May 2025.
We also meet estate manager Clive, who delves into Ashenbank Wood’s history, tells us more about why ancient woodland is so important and shows us the unusual approach of strapping deadwood to trees.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Today I am at a site of Special Scientific Interest in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is teeming with extraordinary wildlife, and I'm told you can stand in the shadows of gnarled veteran trees and even spot some shy dormice, rare bats, and woodland wildflowers if you're there at the right time of year. But it is also a site under threat. National Highways propose to build a new tunnel linking Essex and Kent under the River Thames, and many feel that that will create a threat to the trees and wildlife here. So I've come not just for a walk, but to chat to experts and the first is the man responsible for coordinating the Woodland Trust response to big infrastructure projects and to chat to him about how infrastructure and nature can live hand in hand.
Jack: So I'm Jack Taylor, I'm the programme lead for the woods under threat team at the Woodland Trust.
Adam: Brilliant. And we're at Ashenbank Woods?
Jack: We are indeed.
Adam: Good, OK, sorry, yeah *laughs* I know I should sound more sure, we are at Ashenbank Woods.
Jack: I think its full title might be Ashenbank Woods SSSI, site of special scientific interest.
Adam: Oh right yes, yes. And we're going to see a bit later a colleague of yours, Clive, who will tell us more about the details of this woodland. But the reason why I wanted to talk to you first as we walk through, what is a lovely, actually dappled, dappled bit of woodland here is about your role in protecting places like this from development because, so what, what is your job?
Jack: Yeah, it's beautiful. That's a good question *laughs* what is my job? I I suppose the the base of it, the basis of it, the foundation really is about trying to protect ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees from forms of development, but also from other threats outside of that as well. So non-development threats like air pollution, pests and diseases, deer overbrowsing. Most of my work does focus on working within the development sector and trying to protect against those development threats.
Adam: Right, and you're the project lead.
Jack: Yeah.
Adam: When I first saw that, I thought you meant you're the project lead for this woodland, but you are not. You are the project lead for all development threatening woodlands throughout the UK. This is an extraordinary, I mean that's quite a job.
Jack: Yeah, it's it's a lot. There are a lot of threats to have to deal with across the UK because we're always building always sort of growing as a nation. We always need sort of new forms of infrastructure and new sort of housing. We recognise that. But all of that does come with the added impact of having threats on our ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees, so we have a team of myself and my my wonderful team of four as well.
Adam: Alright. Yeah, it's not big.
Jack: No, it's not big, but they they are enthusiastic and they're great at what they do.
Adam: So this is quite a political area because we've got a new government which has promised to improve lots of things, get the country working, build lots of homes. I think, I think the Prime Minister only recently talked about, you know, we're going to get spades in the ground, we're going to be doing stuff. Well, is it your job to stop all of that, I mean, or how do you balance what needs to be done for the country and what needs to be done to protect woodlands?
Jack: Yeah. So it's so none of this is really about stopping development from from happening and we we have to be sort of quite clear that that's not what we're set out to do as an organisation. It's about trying to ensure that where development is happening. It's not going to impact on our most important and our most valuable woods and trees and that's why we do have a focus specifically on ancient woodland, but and then also on ancient and veteran trees as well, because we know that for the most part, there are lots of really valuable woods and wooded and wooded habitats and trees that are plenty sort of valuable and important. But we know that ancient words and ancient and veteran trees are likely to be our most important sites. We have to focus on protecting those. So we do have to object to some developments where we think the harm is gonna be too great, but we're never really looking to stop them from happening, unless the harm is too great.
Adam: OK. Which way?
Jack: Umm, I think right.
Adam: OK. So one of the things I've noticed before, I mean, when I was following the HS2 debate, was politicians were going ‘it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. We'll cut this down, we're going to replace them. I tell you what, we'll do you a deal, we'll plant two for every one we cut down.’ On the face of it that sounds reasonable?
Jack: OK. Yeah, not to us.
Adam: Why not?
Jack: Well, I think if you're, if you're looking at ancient woodlands and ancient and veteran trees, you're looking at something that is an irreplaceable habitat. There is no sort of recreating that habitat in in one space again, once it's been lost and the reason for that is these things take centuries to evolve and develop to create those sort of vital links between animals, plants, fungi, the soils as well. So ancient woodlands are especially important for their soils. So you can't really just take those soils and put them elsewhere because once that happens you completely disturb the relationships that have built up over centuries within them. And ancient and veteran trees, so you're talking about trees that for the most part are going to be centuries years old. How do you how do you replace centuries of development creating these wonderful sort of niche habitats for different parts of our ecosystems?
Adam: And is it, you said quite clearly that it's not your job or the Trust’s job just to stop development, just to sort of blanket go, ‘hey, stop building’ so is it about going, ‘don't build here’ or is it about saying, ‘if you're gonna build here, this is how to do it with the least amount of impact’? What's the sort of your approach?
Jack: Yeah. In some cases it is about saying not, not building here. It depends what we're dealing with, I suppose so it's different if you're dealing with, say, housing developments or leisure facilities as opposed to something like rail infrastructure or road infrastructure, which is quite linear in nature, so they can only really go in one place to deliver its purpose, whereas housing is not as locationally dependent.
Adam: I see. So you feel you've got a better argument if it's a housing project, cause you can go, ‘put it somewhere else’, but the train journey from A to B has to sort of go through this area. You're you're on a loser there are you?
Jack: Well, sometimes, but there are there are ways of of getting around sort of kind of impact. I mean it doesn't have to go absolutely sort of A to B in one way. You can think very carefully about the design to try and minimise impact on ancient woods. You can also look at alternative solutions, engineering solutions like tunnelling for example, so HS2 is a good example of that. The Phase One section which is going ahead between London and Birmingham, they actually put in a tunnel under the Chilterns, which saved about 14 hectares of woodland saved these three really good prime areas of ancient wood. And of course the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty came into that in a way, and they were trying to protect that also. But that was one solution to stop wildlife and nature being harmed.
Adam: Right. So that's, was this, were you involved with that?
Jack: Yeah, yeah.
Adam: Amazing. So how difficult was that to get that that project through and try to avoid the destruction of all that woodland?
Jack: Well, a lot a lot of destruction still is happening from High Speed 2. So about 20 hectares of ancient woodland has been destroyed at this stage now. A lot of the sort of preparation works for the Phase One section, that London to Birmingham bit, are now complete. So it it was difficult, but it it the way in which we were involved is we really brought ancient woodland to the table and put it at the forefront of considerations and and gave it a voice I suppose. It's not that it wasn't being looked at at all, but not nearly to the degree that we thought it needed to be looked at. And so we sort of kind of introduced that idea of well look, there’s ancient woodland here, you need to be thinking carefully about the design and, you know, you think you're talking about halving the impacts on ancient woodlands from from our sort of kind of involvement and involvement of other conservation organisations in there as well.
Adam: So a lot of it is trying to say, to make the argument, but also to raise the profile of that argument,
Jack: Sure.
Adam: To bring, population and say this is actually a loss. You know, cutting it down is is a loss. So how much harder or easier has it got for you to make that argument?
Jack: Well, do you know, interestingly, I I would probably say that projects like High Speed 2, where there is such a big argument around the ancient woodland has raised the profile of ancient woodland itself. That's one of the sort of silver linings of that project for us, it’s put sort of ancient woodland on the map in terms of habitat that needs to and is worthy of protection. So I think a lot of people now understand ancient woodland a bit better and what it is. There's still lots of awareness to do, you know, people just think of ancient woodlands as bluebells, big large oaks and it's not quite there. I mean, they're all so kind of varied in their nature and geographically across the country, but it's got people thinking about them.
Adam: So that was something of a success, although I know more complicated than just ‘yes, we won that’.
Jack: Sure, yeah.
Adam: Any areas you feel you really lost that, you know, keep you up at night, you go, that was that was a failure and you know, we've lost that woodland?
Jack: Yeah. I mean, there've been, there've been some over the years. Back in 2012 a a large quarry was built on an area of woodland called Oaken Wood in Kent, probably taking about out about 30 to 35 hectares of ancient woodland which is massive, massive amounts, I mean, you're talking about in the region it's like 40 to 50 football fields and and and we're actually dealing with another threat to that woodland from an expansion of that same quarry. So yeah, you know that that one is one that gnaws gnaws at us, is that, you know, we don't want to see that happening anymore.
Adam: Are you getting more optimistic that you know the public are more on your side that this is at least something that plays in policymakers’ decisions now?
Jack: I I actually think the public have always really been on our side. I think if you ask the the general public, they would probably say to you, we do not want to see ancient woodlands subject to any loss or deterioration, whatever the cause.
Adam: Yeah, I think you're right. But they also say, yeah, but we like cheaper housing and want better transport links so.
Jack: Yeah. Well, I mean the Lower Thames Crossing, which is going to be affecting this site that we're in now, Ashenbank Wood is sort of a prime example of that the the intention of that project is to relieve traffic congestion on the existing Dartford Crossing.
Adam: Which I think actually I can hear in my headphones this, although we are, I mean it looks beautiful, there's quite a lot of background traffic noise. So we can't be that far away actually from from transport, from big roads. So explain to me you say this this particular site, Ashenbank Woods which is a site of Special Scientific Interest, so it's not just any old woods, this is a really special place, is under threat. What is the threat here?
Jack: So the threat here is partially there will be some loss to the wider SSSI ancient woodland in the area when you're losing sort of kind of, Ashenbank Wood itself is not going to be subject to much loss, although there is a cycle route diversion going through the woods that might impact on some of its special features.
Adam: Oh one second just, we've we've just turned off the path, we're just, oops crawling under some trees. I don't quite know why we’ve come, we we seem to have chosen the most difficult route. Well, it is beautiful because we've come off the path right into a magic dell.
Jack: There we go.
Adam: Oh, look, there's obviously some, I think, probably some kids have built a sort of camp, tent out of fallen branches. OK, so sorry so I understand that this is under threat from development, the the development plan though is what? What are they trying to do here?
Jack: So so what they're doing is they're building a new crossing further to the east of Dartford Crossing, but that's going to involve connecting...
Adam: A river crossing, a tunnel?
Jack: Yes a river crossing.
Adam: But it's a tunnel.
Jack: Yeah, it's a tunnel.
Adam: Why would that? That's that's great, surely?
Jack: Well, the tunnel goes under the Thames. But in order to connect the A2/M2 to the to the sort of tunnel portal, they're going to be going through a lot of ancient woodlands as a result. So just down the way Clay Lane Wood is one that's going to be heavily impacted by by the proposals, you know several hectares of ancient woodland loss there, but in terms of our wood itself, you're you're gonna have impacts on some of the veteran trees from some of the works that are required in here. But you're also sort of increasing the traffic around the area on A2/M2. And as you can hear, there's already quite loud background noise from the traffic. If that becomes louder, it further reduces the suitability of this habitat for a lot of species.
Adam: Right. So what are your, what are you doing?
Jack: Well we're campaigning against it for one thing. So we've been campaigning against it since 2016, trying to bring those bring those sort of impacts down as far as possible. At this point in time, I would probably say that it's unfeasible, that it could go ahead without causing loss or damage to ancient woodland and veteran trees, and that's something that we have to oppose as an organisation. So we're working with other environmental NGOs, conservation orgs like RSPB, Buglife, Wildlife Trust, CPRE to to oppose this scheme.
Adam: So, and if people want to keep an eye on the sort of campaigns you're running, and the sort of live issues around the country, where can they get that information?
Jack: They can go along to woodlandtrust.org.uk/campaigns and they'll be able to find out about what we're doing in terms of campaigning for protection of ancient woods and veteran trees. We've got a really great campaign at the moment, all about protecting ancient and veteran trees and we’re stood in in front of one of these at the moment, we call them Living Legends.
Adam: Right OK, what a lovely link, because I I was gonna say you've brought me to a stand. It looks like a sculpture this, so what, so let me just briefly describe this. I mean, it's a hollowed out tree. There's, it almost looks like there's 3 or 4 bits of different trees supporting each other, and you can go hide in the middle. I mean, there's, I’d, I couldn't spread my arms in the middle, but I mean almost, you know, there's probably, I don't know, 4 or 5 foot wide in the middle. It's most extraordinary. What is this? What's going on here?
Jack: So I would probably say this is an ancient ash tree. As trees sort of grow older, they they have to sort of kind of allow their heartwood to to rot away because that's what keeps them sort of stable and secure and in doing so that creates really important habitat for wildlife. And so this is what has happened to this ash tree effectively, its heartwood has sort of rotted away, it's still got this kind of all important surrounding ripewood to be able to support the rest of the tree.
Adam: That's extraordinary. So the the, the, the wood at the centre of the tree, the heartwood has gone?
Jack: Yes, yeah, yeah, cause it it's not it's not really useful for for trees at that sort of point. It's it's no longer the part of the wood that's carrying the sort of the water and nutrients up the tree. That's what the sort of outer ripewood does. So the heartwood decays away as they as they grow older.
Adam: And that's just ash trees is it?
Jack: No, that's that's pretty much all. Yeah.
Adam: How ignorant am I? OK, fine. OK. I didn't realise that that happens to all trees. And it looks like that would cause an instability problem, but this looks actually fairly fairly stable, it’s fine.
Jack: It it's it's actually it's actually the other way they do it because it allows them to remain as stable as possible. And I I mean this one it doesn't, it doesn't look in the best sort of structural condition does it, but they need to do that for their sort of physiological condition because if they have if they're trying to support too much sort of heartwood then it affects the trees energy balances. And I mean that there's actual sort of scientific things here between the kinetic and the potential energy in a tree and why why they do this but all old trees do it and in turn it creates this amazing habitat, so you can see all these little holes in the in the sort of kind of inside wood and the decaying wood as well, where insects have sort of burrowed into it, where birds would be, woodpeckers, you know would be would be accessing that as well.
Adam: Yeah. Amazing
Jack: Amazing structures, aren't they?
Adam: And so I'm going to meet now, one of the people responsible for actually managing woods such as Ashenbank, and he's waiting for me a bit further into the woods.
Clive: OK, I'm Clive, Clive Steward, I'm one of the estate managers for the Woodland Trust working in the South East.
Adam: So what is important about this site? What makes this wood special?
Clive: What makes this site special is that it's ancient woodland or partly ancient woodland, but it's also managed as a wood pasture or has been managed as a wood pasture in the past, and because of that habitat it has lots and lots of old trees and old trees is very important in terms of what they support in terms of dead and decaying habitats.
Adam: Right, so well we're standing by this extraordinary ash tree, I mean, it's extraordinary that there's an ash tree at all, given ash dieback, but it's extraordinary for all sorts of other reasons. But is ash a big part of this woodland?
Clive: In terms of its name, Ashenbank, you you think it should be but but it's it is a component of the site but it's not, the majority species is not ash.
Adam: What is this site then?
Clive: So mostly sycamore and we're in the northern part of Ashenbank where we've got a lot of sycamore and we've got some really big old sweet chestnuts, but there are lovely old oak trees and hornbeam trees.
Adam: Right. And so when we talk about ancient woodland, it's always worth, I suppose, explaining a bit about what we mean because clearly will go, well, that's old. But old for trees can be a whole different sort of thing. So how, what, what, what do you mean when you're talking about ancient woodlands?
Clive: Well, when we say ancient woodland ancient woodland is defined as areas which have been permanently wooded since 1600AD. That's the sort of the the the date.
Adam: Oh right, I didn't realise it was that precise.
Clive: Well, it well, yes, it's roughly when big old estates used to produce maps, so they discovered paper and started drawing maps of what they owned but prior so before this this, the assumption is that if it's wooded then it would have been wooded ever since the Ice Age retreated but managed by mankind for for thousands of years.
Adam: So we're, we're assuming actually that ancient woodland is all it's probably been here since the Ice Age?
Clive: Yes. Yeah.
Adam: So that's why I mean that's it's worth I think pausing on that because it's why when we're talking about ‘oh, we'll have to destroy a bit of woodland for a tree, for a road’ sorry, we're talking about taking away a bit of the landscape, which has been there since the Ice Age probably. So that's quite a big deal to have done that.
Clive: Yeah, yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. The the other part of Ashenbank, which is the bit we're in is a more recently wooded area, probably about 200 years old. I have a a map here which is not good for a podcast, but I can show you a map.
Adam: Go on go on, we can describe this. Hold on. I'll hold the microphone and you can describe what we're seeing. So go on, yes.
Clive: So we have a a map here of Ashenbank Wood dating from 1797, which shows the woodland it used to be. I have another map showing the wood as it is today. So here's a map from a couple of years ago, but we're we're actually up here, which in the 1797 map shows fields. And now, now, now it's woods. So so basically, what's happened this Ashenbank used to be owned by Cobham Hall, which is a big estate to the east of Halfpence Lane, so this used to be partly of Cobham Hall Estate and in 1790, as many of these big old estates houses used to do, they used used they they employed a landscape architect to make their their grounds nicer as it were. So it wasn't Capability Brown, but it was a chap called Humphrey Repton who worked on this site from 1790 to about 1880, when he died 1818 when he died. And he landscaped the estate and the view from the house over to here looking west to what is now Ashenbank Wood was obviously important to him. So they actually planted a lot of these big old chestnuts which we walked past, which date from 200 years ago.
Adam: Which is very nice and we often hear about cutting trees down and looking at old maps going ‘oh, we've lost all that wood’, here's an example of the reverse to actually that's a good nature story.
Clive: Yeah, yeah, definitely it is. Yes. As you get older, as they get older, these trees there are microhabitats which develop rot pockets, branches fall off, they they rot, big holes develop and that that's these microhabitats which are home to what's called saproxylic species.
Adam: OK, that's a new word, saproxylic?
Clive: Saproxylic. So saproxylics are are basically insects and beetles and flies which only exist in dead and decaying wood. So if these big old trees weren't around, they've got nowhere to live.
Adam: Right, which is why it's useful to have deadwood on the ground. It's not so, it looks untidy, but actually that's often the richest place.
Clive: Indeed. Yeah, yes, but often, but often these insects and beetles are actually in the living tree, not in the in the horizontal, dead and dying stuff. And it's the living trees, which are are why this habitat is so important.
Adam: But I thought you said you said they're living in the living trees, but but saproxylic means they're living in the dead trees?
Clive: But within these big old trees, there are these rot holes and pockets and little microhabitats within the tree...
Adam: Yes, which are dead and that's where they live?
Clive: Where they live yeah that’s right.
Adam: Right OK. Yeah, very interesting. OK, very interesting. Now, there's also, I knew I was told, but I'm completely confused by, an idea that I'm told that goes on here of strapping deadwood to live trees. Did I did I misunderstand that?
Clive: No, no, you you didn't misunderstand it. No.
Adam: OK and you’re going to show me where this is ?
Clive: Yep. Shall we shall we go, we'll we'll walk there, have a look.
Adam: Alright. Brilliant. So you've taken me to this tree, a very substantial tree, but next to it, this is the a bit of, what, you better explain, because this is really odd and I don't really understand what I'm looking at.
Clive: Right. Well, going back to 1999 when High Speed One was being built, they took out three hectares of Ashenbank Wood along with lots of other woodland in the area. And fortunately, somebody had the idea of of suggesting that we could save some of those big trees they felled and reerecting them against living trees to help them degrade and and become part of the habitat.
Adam: So I mean to describe this, we've got a very big tree. What sort of tree is this?
Clive: So you’ve got a big, big oak tree.
Adam: That's a big oak, and next to it is 6, 12, I don't know, 30 foot, 40 foot high dead tree, bit of bark. But it's it's not like a small, it's a 40 foot bit of bark which you have propped onto the living tree. Why is it better to have done that than just to leave it on the ground?
Clive: Well, it's about these microhabitats. So I mean, it’s not just propped up it's actually strapped to it, so it's actually quite secure.
Adam: It is secure, that's y your health and safety hat on.
Clive: We had to make sure it was strapped up, but vertical dead or decaying wood is equally as important as horizontal, dead and decaying wood.
Adam: OK. Is it different? What, does it do different things?
Clive: The wood doesn't but it attracts different insects and species so that that that's why so. But in most in most woodlands you'll see deadwood as being felled trees which are lying or windblown. You don't often see dead vertical trees.
Adam: I’ve never seen that.
Clive: Well, they're often well, they're often felled and taken out for firewood or something but they are important as as a sort of microhabitat for these saproxylics. That that's purely why.
Adam: So the saproxylics which are insects which live on deadwood prefer, some prefer the high rise living of the vertical tree rather than the low level bungalow type living. But what what sort of, do you do, don't worry if you don't know, but do you know which insects prefer living vertically?
Clive: I I don't know that.
Adam: You don't. Somebody will, somebody will.
Clive: Yeah somebody will. But if you look at that tree, you'll see that it's a there's a there's a U-shaped crook 2/3 way up and in that there's there's a there's a hole which has probably got water in it. So water gathers from rain and that's that that little microhabitat will be, something will live in it. And if that was horizontal, it wouldn't be there.
Adam: Right, yes, yes. Well that I think this must be, I mean, we've been doing this for a few years. I've never seen that. So that is amazing. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. So I know that the history of this site goes back quite a long way, not just the natural history, but the human history as well, and am I right in saying there's quite quite a lot of sort of Bronze Age heritage here?
Clive: Well, we've got a Scheduled Ancient Monument which has been dated to between 2000 and 1500 BC, which is a big burial mount and it is scheduled and it's, you know, English Heritage monitor it and we have to make sure it's free of trees and it's there to see.
Adam: Right. Wow. And it's interesting you talk about it's there to see because we came and parked in the Woodland Trust car park. Free parking, as is normal in Woodland Trust places, first time though a full car park. We are here midweek during the day. I was surprised to see it's full so talking about visitors, this is clearly a, I mean have I just come at a weird time, have they all come to see the Woodland Trust podcast being made, it's right, it's a popular site. That always feels like contention to me because I know you want to encourage people to come, on the other hand, coming in a sort of, destroys a bit of what we see. How much of a problem are the level of visitors?
Clive: Well, we basically have a path network through Ashenbank Wood which we maintain, we mow, we make sure it's open and safe. So most people walk on those those paths which steers people around the the wood, as it were, so and we we don't stop people from walking off the path but most people don't cause it's, you know, nettles or brambles or whatever. It's difficult to do.
Adam: Right, yes. And keeping dogs on the lead and everything. You've been with the Trust for a long time, haven't you, really. What sort of change have you seen in the the the debate around the natural world in your time here?
Clive: That's a big question.
Adam: Have you, I mean, sort of, it assumes you have seen a change, you might not have seen a change. I mean I the reason I ask it is because it feels to me it's gone up the political agenda, that it's not just, you know, people dismissively talking about crazy tree huggers and let them onto their own thing. It's become more mainstream. Do you think that that's it's become more optimistic, do you think it's become more pessimistic, do you think, you you know, it's become more informed, I suppose?
Clive: Well, I think there's a growing recognition that ancient woodland is a special habitat, but it hasn't quite gone far enough to get total protection. But I think there's a growing realisation that ancient woodland is special and we need to look after it. And I think the politicians probably do understand it, but maybe can't quite make that move to legislate against total protection.
Adam: Yeah. And I think that's part of the Living Legend campaign that the Woodland Trust is organising, isn't it?
Clive: Definitely is. Yeah. Yeah, very much so.
Adam: Well, there were two websites we talked about today. So if you want to get involved in a local campaign, search for ‘Woodland Trust campaigns’ and you can find out more about the attempts to get better legal protection for ancient and veteran trees by searching for the Living Legends campaign and of course I hope you get a chance to visit Ashenbank Woods yourself. So until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.
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Episodes manquant?
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Did you know oak supports over 2,300 species of wildlife? Discover this and more fascinating facts in our episode dedicated to the nation’s favourite tree. We join Trust experts, Jules and Kate, at Londonthorpe Woods, near Grantham, to find some fascinating growths on oak trees, known as galls, and learn why hunks of deadwood are so important.
We then visit the star of the show and 'Lincolnshire's best kept secret' - the astonishing 1,000-year-old Bowthorpe Oak. It's one of 12 amazing oaks in the running for 2024 Tree of the Year. Which one will you vote for?
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, in this podcast, we're looking at the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year competition, which is all about oaks and is on a quest to find the nation’s favourite one. And there are lots to choose from. There is the Elephant Oak in the New Forest, the Queen Elizabeth Oak in West Sussex, the Darwin Oak in Shropshire, the Capon Oak on the Scottish Borders and plenty of others to choose from across Wales, Somerset, County Fermanagh, Cheshire and well, lots of other places as well. And you can vote for your favourite oak by going to the shortlist of them at the voting site woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote, so that is woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote and we'll repeat that again at the end of this podcast.
Well, today I'm going to see one of the oaks in contention for the Tree of the Year, the Bowthorpe Oak in Bourne, in Lincolnshire, a tree which has a hollow interior and had previously, that interior had been fitted with seats and had been used as a dining room for 20 people in the past, 20 people! It must have been an enormous oak and that's not a practice I think that's recommended these days. Well, certainly not. But nonetheless it's a great oak which has played a great big part in the local landscape and is much loved, not just in the UK but attracts plenty of visitors from abroad as well. Now, oaks have an amazingly important part in our culture and in days gone by were, I think, central in Druid folklore, for instance, in fact one amazing fact I have learnt making this podcast is that the name Druid comes from druer, the Celtic for oak for the word oak and wid means to know, so Druid means oak-knower, so there's a good fact for you. Anyway, enough of me. I'm off to meet some people who know all about oaks and unusually I am not starting by a tree. So, unusually, we're starting in a car and I'm joined by two women from the Woodland Trust. So first of all, introduce yourselves.
Kate: I'm Kate Lewthwaite. I am citizen science manager at the Woodland Trust.
Adam: Wonderful. And our driver for the day is...
Jules: Hi, I'm Jules Acton. I'm a fundraiser with the Woodland Trust.
Adam: So we're going to look at a few oaks today, one of which is actually in the running to be the Tree of the Year, and you can vote on that still and I'll give you details a little later on on how to do that. But first of all, you were telling me that you have a little present for me. I always like to start the day with a little present.
Jules: It's always good to start the day with a little present, I think and here's a little one for you.
Adam: Oh, and it's wrapped up in tissue paper. It's an early Christmas present. How very good. So what is that? OK so do you want to describe it?
Jules: OK so it’s a little, it looks like a little woody marble really, doesn't it? And it's got a little tiny hole you can see just there and some extra other little tiny holes. That is an oak marble gall.
Adam: An oak marble...ghoul?
Jules: Gall.
Adam: And how do you spell that?
Jules: G A double L.
Adam: G A double L and what what is it?
Jules: So this is this is incredibly special, so this has in many ways changed human culture, this little tiny thing. Certainly amplified human culture. So this is a gall, which is made by, and it's made by a little tiny wasp. And the wasp lays a an egg in the in the bud of the tree of the oak tree. And it makes the oak change and it sort of changes chemically. It's really strange. And it makes the the oak form this little marble shaped thing on the end of a twig. And that becomes home for the gall wasps’ larvae, and so that the little larva grows up inside it and it has this its own special home, but it's also full of lovely food. So that's interesting itself and that it's it's it's it's got this sort of little little home but it what's particularly interesting human, from the human perspective is that these kind of galls were used to make ink for about 1,000 years and the the kind of ink that they made, it was used, I think, until the middle of the 20th century. So kind of until quite recently. So Shakespeare's plays were written on oak gall ink, Newton's theories, the American Declaration of Independence, huge amounts of historic documents.
Adam: So just trying to understand that, Shakespeare's plays were written on ink created by this thing?
Jules: By a gall like, yeah, this kind of thing by by a gall. Yeah. But you can you can still now you can make gall gall ink from these little little things here. So it in many ways it it amplified, this little tiny thing we've got here, amplified the whole course of human history, culture, etcetera in our part of the world.
Adam: Quite an extraordinary place to start our journey today. Wonderful. So, OK, so we're, yes, we'll put that away nice and safe and we'll start our journey. Kate, do you just want to start by telling me what we're going to do when we get out of the car?
Kate: We're going to have a walk round Londonthorpe Wood, which is one of the Woodland Trust sites, one of our thousand woods that we own and we're going to see an oak tree that Jules has found for us to go and talk about.
Adam: Fantastic. All right, well, let's go.
Jules: Well, well so we've just seen some amazing galls on what looks like quite a young tree, it’s probably about 30-years-old, would you say, Kate, this one?
Kate: Maybe, yes.
Jules: And, yeah, they're they're bright red and they're on the underside of the oak leaves and they look a bit like cherries and
Adam: I was going to say, the one you showed me was all grey, you gave me an old rubbish one, didn't you? This is what they look like when they're on the tree. It's red, it does look like a cherry.
Jules: Yeah, this is a particularly stunning one, isn't it? And they they are literally called cherry galls. And they again
Adam: They’re called cherry balls?
Jules: Cherry galls.
Adam: Galls, cherry galls.
Jules: And they're about the same size as the marble gall that we saw earlier. And I believe they are also caused by a gall wasp. And but what is good about these kind of galls is that they're relatively easy to spot. So once you get your eye in, you start seeing them everywhere, so it's a really lovely thing to start doing, you know, with children or just looking yourself when you're out on a on a walk, you know.
Adam: Wow. So that shows that a wasp has formed that?
Jules: Yeah
Adam: And these are non-stinging wasps, aren't they?
Jules: These are non-stinging wasps. They're teeny, teeny, tiny wasps. They don't look like your your black, you know the big black and and and yellow stripey things that come at your ice cream, not that there's anything wrong with those wasps, they’re lovely too.
Adam: Inside that gall is baby wasps? Is that?
Jules: There will be a little larvae inside there.
Adam: And that's what they're using as as food, or is it?
Jules: Yes, that's their home but it's also their food source. And I'm not at some point in the year the the the little tiny wasp, once it's developed, will will kind of drill its way out and then be set free to the to the wider world. But I think we'll find some other kinds of galls, actually. So it might be worth us moving on a little bit and just see if we can.
Adam: OK. Moving on, yeah, that's politely telling me to be quiet and start walking.
Jules: Oh sorry *laughs*
Adam: Sorry, there’s a, oh it's a tractor going up and down the field next to us. So that's what the noise is in the background. But the fact that we we sort of just held a branch here and and Kate was already, you know, lots of wildlife, jumped onto her jumper, does raise the issue about how many, how much wildlife an oak supports. And I was hear some fantastic number. Just tell me a little bit about that.
Jules: We know that the oak supports more than 2,300 species and that they could be species that that feed off the oak, that live inside it, that live on, on, on or or around it, that you know they perch in it. So species using the the oak tree in all different ways and they are, they they they're birds and mammals, they're lichen, fungi, invertebrates. All sorts of different kinds of species, but what's important, I think, is that they're only the species we’ve countered, and I think there are a huge number more that we just haven't got around to counting would, would you agree, Kate? You probably know more about this than me.
Kate: Yes, definitely. And some of those species can live on other types of tree, and some are only found on oak trees, so they're particularly important. And of course, we haven't started talking about the value of deadwood and all those wonderful rare beetles whose larvae live in the wood. So there's lots to be said about that as well.
Adam: I'll tell you what, let's just walk all further away from this tractor, which sounds closer than it is, and you can tell me about the importance of the deadwood.
Jules: Well we might see some spectacular deadwood.
Adam: Oh well, we might see some, OK. OK, so we have stopped by some deadwood and you're going to explain why, is that right? Right. OK. Kate is going to explain. Well, why have we stopped here, Kate?
Kate: Because deadwood is absolutely fantastic and we have a history of a nation of being a little bit too tidy and taking it away and using it for firewood and other things, when actually it's an amazing habitat in its own right. I'm just looking at the variety of rot holes, of larval galleries where the insect larvae have fed, and then the adults emerged. And it is like a whole habitat in its own right. And actually deadwood is really rare. Much of the woodland in the UK is not felt to be in good ecological condition and one of the reasons for that is a lack of deadwood. So it's incredibly important habitat and we don't have enough of it.
Jules: One of the things I didn't understand until recently and Kate, you might know more about this than me, but there's there's different kinds of deadwood. So if you have, it's important to have deadwood in different formats, so standing deadwood so when the old tree is still standing upright, and and deadwood that's lying down on the ground.
Adam: Right. What what why, so it matters if it's vertical or horizontal?
Jules: It it it matters that you have both kinds.
Adam: And why?
Jules: Because, I feel like I'm at the edge of my knowledge, so it's because about it's about different habitats, isn't it Kate, is that right?
Kate: Yeah, I think so. And the the wood will rot at a different rate. It's quite ironic because the one we're standing at now is actually at a 45° angle. So it's neither vertical nor nor horizontal. And of course, oak trees are absolutely full of of tannins, which I think are the same compound you find in the oak galls that enable the writing. But they also mean, you know this huge, great piece of deadwood here could be around for hundreds of years because it won't, it will rot very, very slowly.
Jules: And and one of the great things is when you have deadwood right next to living wood as well, because that creates all these different conditions which will suit different kinds of invertebrates and fungi as well, so that that's really important to have this collection of of different kinds of wood in in you know in a similar area.
Adam: Excellent. OK, we've, we've stopped. We've stopped Kate, and you've got very excited.
Kate: It happens quite easily when I'm out in nature. And there's a whole pile of knopper galls on the floor here, and they're black. You know, they've dropped off the tree. They've done their job. The the wasp has flown off. But I wondered if we could, I've no idea if this is gonna work, I wondered if we could actually try writing with them because they are oozing black.
Adam: Oh my, right, this is so exciting. OK, so this is like this is a modern day Shakespeare. Have you got? OK. The line is to be or not to be. I see. Hold on a second. So you've picked it up, right, I I think you might do something to it.
Kate: Well, I might have to. Shall we see, shall we see if it just?
Adam: Right, but you’re not, you’re just gonna?
Jules: Ohh there we go.
Kate: There is a brown ooze and it's I think it's not just from the path.
Adam: I was going to say, it's not just mud.
Kate: It's not. It's this kind of coffee colour.
Adam: Wow, OK. And you are writing to be or not to not be.
Kate: I am writing to be or not to be, I I don't know if I break it open a bit more if you might get. Ohh. This is gonna stain my nails, isn't it?
Adam: OK. Ohh dear, don't worry I'll I'll pay for the the visit to to the nail parlour.
Kate: *laughs* I shouldn't worry. Yes, we are actually getting some.
Adam: To be or not to be. Well, I'm sure that would have actually been mixed with water or something.
Kate: Most likely
Adam: Or some alcohol and put into a quill, but that does what hold on, let me just rub it, see. Well, I can confirm that is not just what we have now created ink. Proper exciting.
Kate: Absolutely.
Adam: Thank you very much. Well, we're heading away from our ink gall-bearing oaks to see the main attraction of the day, which is a short drive from here. It is the Bowthorpe Oak, one of the contenders for Tree of the Year. It is rooted in a grass paddock behind the 17th century farmhouse nearby. In 2002, the Tree Council, in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, designated the Bowthorpe Oak one of 50 great British trees. One of the 50 greatest British trees in recognition of its place in our national heritage. And I'm meeting the current custodian of the oak who runs the farm in which it lives.
George: My name is George Blanchard and I am one of the family members here that farm at Bowthorpe Park Farm.
Adam: Right. And you have, we're standing by this famous tree. People come here to see this tree?
George: They do, yeah, we get them from all over the world. A lot of lot of UK, obviously, Europe and America, we get a lot of interest from America.
Adam: Well, tell me a bit about this tree.
George: So this tree, the Bowthorpe Oak, is the UK's largest girthed oak tree. It's absolutely stunning as you can, as you can see, fully in leaf at the moment it looks amazing and yeah, that's it's claim to fame.
Adam: Right it's wide the widest I think it was the second widest tree in the UK. Is that right?
George: We know it's the largest largest oak tree in in terms of it's it's the most complete, you know. So I think there could be wider ones, but not quite as complete.
Adam: Not quite as good as your tree!
George: Yeah, exactly. This is yeah *laughs*
Adam: No, I agree. And and is is this a family farm? Is this?
George: It is yeah.
Adam: Right so you've grown up, you've you played under the boughs of this tree.
George: I have. Yeah, yeah and and inside it as well. Remember it is hollow so.
Adam: Right. Yeah. So tell me a bit about the sort of the folklore and the stories around the tree.
George: Yeah so oak trees naturally start to hollow at around 500 years old, but this one was hollowed even further, back in the 1700s by a chap called George Pauncefort and
Adam: It was, it was, it wasn't naturally hollow, he hollowed it out?
George: They they do, they do naturally hollow, but he hollowed it even further. And you can tell this when you're looking inside it, because the the sides are quite flat. It's very unnatural. You can see so the hollowing has been done by by tools. And so he also put benches around the inside of it and a and a doorway on on the west side and even even sort of paved the flooring but and and put a pigeon loft in the crown, which I think, I think back in the day in the 1700s, if you had a pigeon loft in your tree, you were somebody *laughs*.
Adam: Ohh really that's like Lamborghini time, right? OK, forget your Lamborghinis, I've got a pigeon loft in my tree.
George: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he would have parties in there as as you would, wouldn't you?
Adam: Well, yeah, of course. I mean, you’ve gone to all that trouble. Was he a member of the family? Was this being passed down?
George: No, no, there's no there's no relation, no relation. We've we've only been farming here since the sort of late 40s.
Adam: Right. OK, amazing. Amazing stuff. And I mean, and it looks in fairly, I mean as you say, it's in good leaf, it's in also just it looks to the untutored eye in good nick as well, generally healthy.
George: It is yeah. Really good really good condition currently. We lost a a limb off the back and that was that was quite concerning because it's it's quite dramatic when they shed a shed a limb, but it is what they they naturally do. We have an inspection done on the tree annually, but at the time of losing the limb, we were, we were quite concerned. So we upped the type of inspection we had done. And they were quite, quite invasive, I say invasive it was, you know, using really small drills, to see if there’s any adverse rotting in any places. But no, they were really happy with the condition of the tree and and how healthy it is so other than any sort of man-made issue, I don't see why it shouldn't carry on growing as it is.
Adam: And it's amazing because, I mean, you know, it's taken us quite a while to get here and people come here all this way just to see this tree.
George: They do, yes, yes, seek it out, we call it Lincolnshire's best kept secret.
Adam: Right. Amazing. From all over the world?
George: They do yeah yeah. From all over the world. Like I say, a lot of a lot of Europe people come from Europe and a lot of people come from America. We find that the two two types of people from America, those that really appreciate it and those that just can't get their head around it because it's nowhere near as big as their redwoods *laughs*
Adam: Right? Call this big. Call this big, you should see...
George: Exactly. Yeah, call this big, we’ve got bigger.
Adam: Yeah OK. Brilliant well thank you very much, I will take a tour round it.
George: Thank you.
Adam: So one of the other, now I have to say, first of all, let me have a look at the front front, we've taken a book with us because Jules has published a book called Oaklore and you've brought it out here because there is a poem about this oak in your book.
Jules: There is and it was written well over 100 years ago by a poet called John Clare and but the interesting thing is when he wrote this poem this would have already been an ancient tree, so it's it's quite an interesting record that he was standing in awe, looking at this tree, just like we are now really.
Adam: Right, right. So when did he write this?
Jules: I don't have the exact date in front of me, but I know it's over well over 100 years ago.
Adam: OK, well over 100 years and you're going to put on your best poetry reading voice.
Jules: *laughs* I’ll have a go.
Adam: Go on, give us, I always love, I mean, we did this in the Sherwood Forest podcast where we took a book about Sherwood Forest and a book about a tree to the tree it's about. So we're now going to read a poem about the tree we’re standing by. So this poem by John Clare.
Jules: And it’s called Burthorp Oak. So here we go. Burthorp Oak.
Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood
Of vague indifference; and yet with me
Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood
For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea
Of grass that waves around thee! Solitude
Paints not a lonelier picture to the view,
Burthorp! than thy one melancholy tree
Age-rent, and shattered to a stump. Yet new
Leaves come upon each rift and broken limb
With every spring; and Poesy's visions swim
Around it, of old days and chivalry;
And desolate fancies bid the eyes grow dim
With feelings, that earth's grandeur should decay,
And all its olden memories pass away.Adam: Brilliant. That's that's a lovely poem to read by by the tree.
Jules: I think it's quite interesting that he says age rent and shattered to a stump so it it sort of suggests that the tree is in a worse condition than now, wouldn't you say so Kate? And it looks like it might be happier now than when Clare saw it.
Kate: I was just looking at it and I mean it looks like some of those shoots have put on a good foot of growth this year. So that's the amazing thing about ancient oaks is they they so-called retrench. So all the limbs, the limbs drop off, they become shorter and and and wider and then they might all just start to sort of grow again and it sort of goes through these amazing cycles. Certainly there's a lot more vegetation on it than when I last saw it 15 years ago. It looks fabulous.
Adam: And also a lot of oaks grow very tall. This isn't so tall it it is wider, isn't it? It's a squatter tree. Is that because it's actually not had to compete, because it's actually in a field by itself isn't it? It's not competing for light with lots of other trees.
Kate: Yes, maybe. And also trees like this do, the really ancient trees they do tend to become short and squat and it's part, and hollow, and that's part of their survival strategy is that they'll shed some of these top branches and they'll, they'll shorten and and widen.
Adam: Right. I mean, oaks are really important, aren't they in the UK especially, they're part of the national identity, really, aren't they? And and a lot of that's got to do with folklore, which I know, Jules, you've written about as well.
Jules: Yeah, I mean the the oak has been part of our culture well, as far as as, as as far as we know as far as written records go back and even we we believe that the the Druids themselves were very also very interested in oak trees and they worshipped in oak groves and they particularly worshipped mistletoe, the rare mistletoe that came off off oaks. Of course, we don't have written records on the the Druids, so we don't, we know very little about them, but that's certainly what we believe. And then it's been threaded throughout our our history and our culture that the oaks right up to the present day, you know people are still writing about it and painting painting oak trees and you've got wonderful ambassadors like Luke Adam Hawker who is very inspired by oak trees and goes out drawing them.
Adam: Why do you, I mean I don't suppose there's an answer, but do you have a take on why we've landed on the oak as such a a central part of our mythology and identity?
Jules: Well, I I think I think all of our native trees will play a role in that in our folklore and our mythology and and our culture, I think the oak is is is a particularly impressive tree isn’t it, especially when you're standing next to a tree like this that that is so majestic and and you know the words like majestic, kingly, queenly, grand, they they just sort of pop into your head. There is just something incredibly awe-inspiring about the oak tree. And then, as we've we've seen before it, it just has such a huge impact on our ecology as well. So I think I think it's just something it it does a lot of heavy lifting culturally and also naturally the oak tree.
Adam: And almost every pub is called the Royal Oak.
Jules: Yes, yes, I think there's at the last count there's well over 400 pubs called the Royal Oak.
Adam: And you know that personally by visiting them?
Jules: Well, I've yes, I've I've tried to count them all. I've still got some way to go *both laugh*
Adam: Yeah. OK, OK, alright. Well, it's it's a good project to be having.
Jules: So there's an interesting story behind the that name the Royal Oak. And the reason the pubs are called that relates back to a very special oak tree, the Boscobel Oak. Now we have to go back in history a few hundred years. And it takes us back to the Battle of Worcester and the son of Charles I was in in battle with the with, with, with the parliamentarians, and he took a drubbing at the Battle of Worcester, and he needed to escape. And he reached this place called Boscobel House, and he was going to hide out in, in that house and try and escape the the soldiers, the the enemy. But it was very insecure and one of his advisers suggested he, instead of hiding in the house, he hid in the oak tree. So they spent the whole night in the oak tree, which subsequently called called the Boscobel Oak, and this and and and they escaped capture and the king spent the whole night with this chap called William Careless as he as he was called
Adam: William Careless?
Jules: William Careless who turned out not to be careless at all because he actually saved the king. And apparently the king sort of curled up with his head on Careless’ knee and and he, they they got away. They got away with it and because of that you know that then obviously led into a whole series of events which ultimately led to the restoration of the monarchy and said King became Charles II and and because of that there was an enormous celebration of oak trees. So they they they were raised in status even further. So we've got all the Royal Oak pubs which are effectively commemorating that occasion. But there's also a great day of celebration was declared. It was the 29 May. I think that was the King's birthday, and it was 29 May. And it became oak apple day. And that was when we would all when people across the land would would gather and and celebrate the restoration of the monarchy. And one of the things they used to do was they people would bring branches with oak apples, which is another of those amazing galls. And the more oak apples you had on your branches, the better the better you were, you know, the, the, the cooler you were at the party. And if you didn't bring oak branches with you, apparently people would be mean to you and they'd whip you with nettles.
Adam: Blimey, this story took a turn!
Jules: Yeah, these parties got these these parties got quite out of hand. I actually think we should bring these days back. Not, no nettles. But I think actually wouldn't it be great if we spent every 29 May celebrating our amazing oak trees and and and also the wider nature around us.
Adam: Yeah, we've missed it this year, but I'm putting a date in for us to meet at a Royal Oak somewhere between us on 29 May.
Jules: Yeah, let's do it. Let's party. Yeah. And maybe drink a glass of oak flavoured wine or whisky.
Adam: OK, never had that, but I'm I'm up for it. I'm up for it. Kate, this is also important because this is in the running for Tree of the Year.
Kate: Absolutely. So the Woodland Trust hosts the UK Tree of the Year competition, and this year we've focused on oak trees.
Adam: So so they're all oaks.
Kate: All of them are oak trees this year, so we've got 12 candidates from across the UK and the wonderful Bowthorpe Oak here is one of them. It's my local tree so I'm a little bit biased, but these trees all tell amazing stories. We've got one that's shaped like an elephant in the New Forest. We've got one that has survived being in the middle of pine plantation in the Highlands of Scotland and we've got one that's sadly under threat from a bypass in Shrewsbury. So we've got some amazing stories from these trees and the public can vote. So voting closes on the 21 October 2024 and you can go to the Woodland Trust website so it’s woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote.
Adam: There were some cow noises just as you said that in the background! Just to prove that we're in a farm *all laugh*.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.
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Accompanied by experts Adam and Louise and a 100-year-old-book, our latest episode takes us to Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest to visit two astonishing trees. The Parliament Oak and Major Oak have each stood through several centuries and have fascinating stories attached to them. Equally astonishing is the fact that magnificent oaks like these don't have legal protection like our built heritage. Join us as we learn the magical lifesaving strategy of ancient oaks that could make them immortal, how penny coins can tell us about the health of a tree, whether Robin Hood really lived in Sherwood Forest and what you can do to help earn living legends like these the protection they deserve.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam Shaw: Today I'm off to Sherwood Forest, home, famously, of course, of Robin Hood. The name Sherwood Forest actually comes from its status as a shire and the word shire was turned into sher...wood of Nottinghamshire, therefore Sherwood. Anyway, I've come to visit two trees, in particular: the Parliament Oak and the Major Oak. But before we get to that a lot more details on why those trees are so important later on, but first of all, of course I have to meet my two guides for the day.
Louise Hackett: I'm Louise Hackett. I'm the treescape lead for Sherwood. I manage essentially a partnership project across the landscape of what was the historic Sherwood Forest. So that extends from Nottingham up to Worksop and Retford.
Adam Shaw: Fantastic. So huge portfolio and I'm also joined by another Adam. So you are?
Adam Cormack: Adam Cormack and I head up the campaigning team at the Woodland Trust.
Adam Shaw: Fantastic. And we are standing in a beautiful field. I've forgotten to bring my suntan lotion so I could have a red bald head by the end of today, which is very naughty, but we are standing by, well, I'm going to start with, it's called a palace, it may not be what you quite imagine this to be. I'll try and put this on my social media and the Woodland Trust social media so you know what this looks like, but who just wants to explain to me a bit about where we are? Adam’s being thrust towards the microphone.
Adam Cormack: So we're in a field in the middle of Nottinghamshire in a place called Clipstone and we’re by King John's Palace, which is a few remaining walls from an old royal hunting lodge that's about 900 years old. So this dates back to that time when Sherwood was a royal hunting forest. So it's called King John's Palace. But you have to kind of remove that idea of a palace from your mind as you're saying, Adam, it's basically a few remaining walls.
Adam Shaw: Yeah.
Adam Cormack: Which I you know, I can still still find it interesting. Kind of imagine what life was like here years ago.
Adam Shaw: Yeah. No, it is. I mean, yes, I mean look, it is a few remaining walls, but it is beautiful. It's you know it's it's it's not like a a breeze block or anything like that. OK. So we've we've talked about history already a couple of times and the only thing I know about Sherwood Forest and I think I'll be joined by lots of people here is Robin Hood. So Robin Hood was here. Apart from Robin Hood, what else is the historical context of this place?
Louise Hackett: So yes, as as Adam was just saying with the area subject to forest law, which is what made this area a royal hunting forest, the vert and the venison was protected for virtue of the king and that resulted in an incredible landscape that was a a rich mosaic of oak birch woodland, lowland heathland, acid grassland and it covered a huge swathe and it was incredibly dynamic landscape with a long history as as a hunting forest that would have looked very different through the years.
Adam Shaw: So this, it was protected because the king wanted to ride around and catch wild boar and all of that sort of stuff.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: And what sort of period are we talking about?
Louise Hackett: So we're talking from roughly the 1100s onwards or or earlier than that even, it has a long history.
Adam Shaw: Now also on the car journey here from, you were very kind you picked me up from the station we’re quite a way from the station, but you were, I was surprised you also said oh look we've been we've been in the forest all this time. So I often think of oh, we get to a forest and there's a bit of woodland, but we've been driving half an hour, I don't know, 40 minutes or so, and throughout that time we've been in Sherwood Forest.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things that I think when people say the word forest, people think of wall to wall trees. But as we were just saying that actually what a forest refers to is an area subject to forest law. And these would have been complex mosaics of lots of different habitats, primarily open habitat. That's what would have made it such an enjoyable environment for the king to ride through.
Adam Shaw: Yeah, cause you can't ride through the actual trees too much.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely, no.
Adam Shaw: OK. And a couple of times, you've already mentioned a new phrase to me. Woodland law?
Louise Hackett: Forest law.
Adam Shaw: Forest law. Never heard of that. What is forest law?
Louise Hackett: So so this was essentially the the a separate law system that applied to hunting forests, and there were numerous hunting forests across England. So this was a separate law system, as I say, that protected the vert and the venison. So anything green and growing and the the animals, primarily those that you'd hunt.
Adam Shaw: Right. Protected it for the king.
Louise Hackett: For the king. And his friends.
Adam Shaw: OK, but it has so, right. OK, fair enough. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because you know, that's really part of the aristocracy and all, you know, quite problematic in lots of social ways. But actually it has an environmental benefit - because it was saved for the king, it happens to be safe for everyone else and nature itself.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So so there will have been small communities that lived in these areas, but they would have had very strict rules as to what access they had to certain areas of the land and and what they had access to and and but but all of that defined really what this looked like as a natural landscape and it it really protected quite a special wood pasture habitat.
Adam Shaw: Wonderful. Now also Adam, you are clutching a very exciting looking book, proper old big bound book called Sherwood Forest by Joseph Rodgers. So how old is this book for a start?
Adam Cormack: So this book is just over a century old.
Adam Shaw: Wow. OK, proper old book. And this is all about Sherwood Forest. So how how's it split out this book? I mean, it's a it's a huge tome. So was it by tree or by person or what?
Adam Cormack: Yeah, it's it's a hefty tome, isn't it? It's it's so it's a kind of miscellany of Sherwood Forest really, so it covers the important old trees of Sherwood Forest. There's a little chapter on the Major Oak, which is a tree that we'll see today, a chapter on the Parliament Oak. And there's a chapter on where we're standing now, King John's Palace. So I thought I might just actually read out the first sentence because I think it's a good kind of encapsulation. So remember, this is written sort of 100 years ago, so ‘Such a feeling of quiet dwells in this little sleepy village consisting of a few labourers’ cottages and farmhouses with straight canals along the meadows in place of the pleasant river, with the golden ragwort flourishing on its banks. That, from its appearance, a stranger would gather no idea of its ancient importance, for there is nothing to indicate the rude state which must have at one time here been maintained.’
Adam Shaw: Well, look, it's a nice day we're standing by this palace. That's not why we've come here though. So just give me an idea of the trip we're going to take today.
Adam Cormack: So we're going to go and look at two really important trees of Sherwood Forest now. We're gonna go and look at the Parliament Oak, which is just five minutes up the road from here and there is links to King John's Palace. So we'll talk about that when we're at the tree. And then we're going to go to the Major Oak and let Lou just talk about the Major Oak.
Adam Shaw: OK, that's all to come. Bit of walking involved first though. So as we walk towards our first big tree of the day, the so-called Parliament Oak, I'm going to read from the other Adam’s 100-year-old book about this oak. I'm going to be very careful so I don't trip over and ruin this book which has been looked after for over a century. ‘It has been stated with some probability of truth that King John, while hunting in the forest, was informed by a messenger of a revolt of the Welsh and of an insurrection in the north of England that he hastily summoned a parliament to meet under this tree, and that it owes its name to that incident. On another account, it connects it with Edward I, who, when on his way to Scotland in 1290, summoned a parliament to meet at Clipton, at Clipstone, sorry, so it has no idea why it's called the Parliament Oak, so it could be to do with King John or it could be to do with Edward I. But it is called the Parliament Oak. And here it is in this beautiful book with a drawing or engraving of it, it looks like a sort of split oak. I'm just trying to see how accurate it is. Ohh, there it is. I'm being, I'm looking at the wrong blooming thing. There we are. So we can see it in the book and I can see it in real life. And what a wonderful, what a wonderful book. And what a wonderful place to read out that paragraph. Alright, we're resting, I just feel this is so apt, we're resting our book about the Parliament Oak on the Parliament Oak and and Lou it's I've lost the place.
Louise Hackett: Which page?
Adam Cormack: 197.
Adam Shaw: If you're following along at home on the few versions of this 100-year-old book that might be out there, it's page 197 *laughs*. I feel like I'm leading a congregation. If you turn now, that's in your prayer books, past the Shambles Oak. There we are, the Parliament Oak. So Lou. Did I miss out something important you wanted to read about this?
Louise Hackett: I just wanted to point out on the illustration, because I think on on some of the old illustrations you can see that there's two, what we call functional units, so one of the incredible things ancient oak trees do is they can separate themselves into functional units, which is a fantastic lifesaving strategy, which I I'll happily talk about more later. But on a lot of the old illustrations you you see what essentially are two functional units remaining of the tree.
Adam Shaw: So just to be explained, a functional unit is what looks like two trees, but you're actually saying this is one tree which looks like two trees, but you're calling them functional units.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So as it's aged, the tree has essentially segmented itself. And these these segments are what was once one tree starts to split out into multiple segments, which generally is associated with a large limb, but it means that if you have, if you lose one of your limbs and it's quite a catastrophic loss, you could lose that functional unit at no risk to your other sections, so it's quite a good lifesaving strategy. So we so in a lot of the old images you see these two sections and because we've got two trees still standing here today, people think that they are those two fragments. But but in fact it's only one remaining and the way we can identify that is you can see on the left-hand side of this illustration, you can see a small burr forming. That's what I'm resting th b book on, so it has grown quite considerably this burr since since the illustration.
Adam Shaw: Right. Wow. It's a little bump 100 years ago, it's now a proper table.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Yeah. So this is what's still standing and the piece of deadwood on the ground next to us...
Adam Shaw: OK, let's have a look. Oh, OK. Yes, that was that whole tree.
Louise Hackett: It was the section that joined those two functional units, so it was...
Adam Shaw: Right. And what's happened to that other functional unit then, that's gone?
Louise Hackett: So that's been lost. Yes, absolutely. So so what, what you can't see in this image is essentially it was, it was a huge tree at at its kind of height at its kind when it was at its kind of fullest, 9.5 metres in circumference, so it was a large tree and it would have been completely hollow at that at that point. And and that's when basically the the as the deadwood decayed and just those two functional units remained and and now just one. But what's magical with this tree is that you'd never know that to look at it. Today without these kind of past illustrations and photographs because what's actually happened is it's precluded fully around this this remaining fragment, so it looks like a 100-year-old oak. But actually it's potentially 900 years old.
Adam Shaw: Wow. That's extraordinary, isn't it? So, yeah, well, that is extraordinary. I was going to say, how old is it, so we're looking at a 900-year-old oak here.
Louise Hackett: But it's it's done this magical thing of having gone back to a younger stage of its life, we we quite often think of trees of of being young, mature, old and then dying. But actually what they have the capability of, which is what makes ancient trees so special is, they can go back to an earlier life stage. So this is now a mature tree and there is nothing preventing this tree going through that full lifespan all over again and becoming a huge hollow ancient of the future. It was already in ancient but...
Adam Shaw: Yeah, well that's extraordinary. So really, it might never die because it just rejuvenates, really.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: An amazing thing. Well, that is brilliant. And Adam is also standing here and we're talking about history, Adam. And we're talking about the history of this tree, but that feeds into quite an important bit of work you're doing about history in general.
Adam Cormack: Yes, so the Woodland Trust has been running a campaign called Living Legends for the past couple of years, which is about improving protection for trees like Parliament Oak, but other very old and very special trees. So we're calling them heritage trees. So people have been campaigning for protection of these trees for a very long time, for decades. But the last couple of years is where we've pulled that all together into a campaign called Living Legends. We've got a petition that's been supported by over 85,000 people calling for legal protection for very old and special trees.
Adam Shaw: So don't they have, I mean I always thought trees were protected anyway and you're not allowed to cut down a tree even in your own garden, because the local council object?
Adam Cormack: Well, I think it's just I think there's a sort of I think what you're talking about there is the sort of day-to-day protection that trees have from our feelings and attitudes towards them, which is the sort of social contract that we have that you don't just cut down trees. And that's the thing that protects trees sort of day in day out. There are policies and a few legal instruments, felling licences, tree preservation orders, that sort of together, provide trees with a basic level of protection, but there's nothing to recognise the value of this tree, the Parliament Oak, so 900 years or maybe even a bit older than that, in the way that we were just at King John's Palace, so we were there we were looking at a kind of heritage asset that was sort of similar sort of age, really, grade listed has legal protection. It's recognised for its value and for what it can tell us about the past and tell us about ourselves and what we think should happen is that trees should just have the same level of protection. Not all of them, just the oldest and most special.
Adam Shaw: So this 900-year-old tree doesn't have any historical protection compared to the 900-year-old odd palace, which does have historical protection. Is that fair?
Adam Cormack: You just said it Adam, no it doesn’t. But that's the case for all of our really old and special trees. Sorry we've just got a tractor going past. So you can, we're here, I mean, the tree is just, you can probably hear the cars going past, it's on the corner of a road, the corner of a farm track. And I think that just shows you that these trees aren't all in really safe, secluded places, they're they're there in day-to-day life, on road verges, parks, gardens, sometimes in woodlands and farms.
Adam Shaw: Yeah. It's odd, isn't it? Because it is a part of the British history, not just natural history. But, you know, history of parliament, of democracy, of kings and queens. And yet it it doesn't have any legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. But because it's actually not made of bricks, it doesn't have.
Adam Cormack: That that's it really. So I think we, you know, we protect the things that we've made as human beings. So we protect the buildings, the artworks, the things that we've created but so these old trees should just have a similar level of protection. It's great that we protect all those other important things scheduled ancient monuments, battlefields, works of art. Trees just fit into the same category.
Adam Shaw: And if listeners to our podcast believe in what you're saying and want to support that, how do they do that?
Adam Cormack: So listeners can go to the Woodland Trust website or just go to Google and type Living Legends campaign and they'll go straight to our petition and they could be the 85,001 person to sign our petition although hopefully it will have gone up a bit by the time people listen to this.
Adam Shaw: So, Living Legends, that's what you're looking for. The Woodland Trust’s Living Legends campaign, and you can add your name to that.
Adam Cormack: That's right. And and I think there's one other thing to add to that, which is that over the last six months, we've been successful in securing a private members’ bill for heritage trees. So we’re actually on that journey now towards legislative protection for some of these trees. Baroness Young has introduced a private members’ bill, so this is a heritage trees bill and it introduces this designation of heritage trees, so it's not law yet. It's got quite a long way to go before it does become law, but you can go online you can Google that too, and you can read it for yourself. It's only five pages long it's quite short, it just talks about bringing in legal protection for very old and special trees.
Adam Shaw: Of course, and and that needs government support, we’ve got a new government, so who knows what will happen to that. But I I know you'll be hoping that actually gets pushed forward.
Adam Cormack: We will yeah.
Adam Shaw: OK, well, while everyone is going to that petition to sign their names, we can walk on to another tree you wanted to show me. Where’s that?
Adam Cormack: So we're gonna go to the Major Oak now, which is probably the tree that most people know or think about when they think about Sherwood Forest. You know, it's legendarily the place where Robin Hood lived. You know, you can make that decision for yourself when you get there and you see the tree.
Adam Shaw: OK, brilliant. Alright. Well, we're gonna walk on, you go sign a petition if if you fancy or just sip your cup of tea. Now one thing, I was keen not to do too much about Robin Hood cause I thought there would be loads much there’d be loads more to talk about. But in fact, I’ve hardly mentioned Robin Hood. I feel that's a bit of a miss. So Sherwood Forest, most famous, the home of Robin Hood. He's a real character, isn't he for a start?
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: OK good. Right. Robbed from the rich and gave to the poor? I know you're a tree expert not really a Robin Hood expert and this is a bit unfair, but from your understanding is that a good reflection of what happened? Or is it more complex than that?
Louise Hackett: Well, I think I think you can easily understand how Sherwood Forest would be a landscape someone like Robin Hood would be able to hide and and for for hundreds of years you would have had to have hired a guide to take you through this landscape. It was considered so dangerous.
Adam Shaw: Really, you get mugged?
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: And it was the king's hunting ground. So this was a good place for someone who wants to, you know, pick on the rich, this is would be a place to do it.
Louise Hackett: It had an entirely different law system, so it prevented us, the commoners from from taking the vert or the venison from this landscape. So you can understand how local people would be slightly annoyed at the fact that the king was holding all of all of that for himself.
Adam Shaw: Yes, slightly annoyed. I think that'd be a great description of Robin Hood. He was slightly annoyed as he set up his band of merry men to take back the venison *both laugh*. Anyway, and it's still today, I mean, that's what draws a lot of the tourists in we’re standing up by this huge oak, but of course around us, lots of signage about Robin Hood and lots of young people dressed in green running around with lovely hats on. So yeah, still still a draw.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely and internationally as well, which I think is really exciting for the Major Oak specifically. It hosted many guests from from across the world, and not many trees can say that.
Adam Shaw: We've arrived at the Major Oak, which is a major tree. It is not called the Major Oak because it is big is it?
Louise Hackett: No.
Adam Shaw: OK so let's first of all explain why it's called the Major Oak.
Louise Hackett: So it's named after Major Hayman Rooke, who famously illustrated a lot of named trees across this landscape and and in Derbyshire also. But a lot of trees that were incredibly significant in this landscape but have since been lost. The irony is he didn't actually illustrate this tree *both laugh*.
Adam Shaw: So, so so it's called after him, but it's nothing to do with him at all.
Louise Hackett: Well, well, he, he, he, he he was certainly in this area and will have will have absolutely seen this tree but and there is an illustration that quite often gets labelled as the Queen Oak or which was its name before it was known as the Major Oak but actually when you study that illustration, it bears no resemblance to this tree.
Adam Shaw: OK. So it’s like in honour of a man who chronicled the trees of this region.
Louise Hackett: Absolutely.
Adam Shaw: Fair enough. Now let's describe it because it is an oak. To me, those familiar with the Harry Potter Potter novels might think of it more as the Whomping Willow. It's it's very sprawling, not particularly high. It doesn't really have an obvious crown. It's spreading out, and it's supported by lots of metal supports, which probably because the limbs are so old, they might fall off or fall down, and it's got a fence around it to stop you going up to it now. Is that a fair description?
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So, so those props, kind of the the the the history of this tree is quite complex, so actually measures were taken since the Victorian era to hold this tree together essentially. There were some fantastic pictures of the blacksmith posing in front of this tree with all the metalwork that we can actually still see in the crown, you can see all of that metalwork holding the branches together.
Adam Shaw: Ohh right I thought yeah now because it's all brown I missed it. I thought it was ropes. That's metalwork.
Louise Hackett: Yeah. No, that's all metalwork and and that's been there for a very long time.
Adam Shaw: This is really pulled together. This tree is being held together. But it still limps on.
Louise Hackett: It does, it does. It is struggling.
Adam Shaw: Right. How old is it?
Louise Hackett: So that's a fantastic question. *both laugh*
Adam Shaw: OK, I can I can tell from the moment I asked that you didn't want to be asked that question. OK, well, is it not clear how old this tree is?
Louise Hackett: There is no way to definitively say how old this tree is.
Adam Shaw: But you’re an expert, give us your best guess.
Louise Hackett: There, there are are are lots of guesses, some say 800, some say 1,300.
Adam Shaw: Which would make it very old for an oak, isn't it, 1,000 years is...
Louise Hackett: No matter what it is a very old tree.
Adam Shaw: Right. And I mean, I rather unkindly described it as limping on. It's it's clearly having help here. It's nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just old, is it?
Louise Hackett: No. So it's not its age that is causing it issues. So as I was saying the the Victorians did a lot of work in in terms of trying to keep the tree together. It was an incredibly popular tourist attraction through the for the Victorians.
Adam Shaw: Still is, there's a picnic area right by here.
Louise Hackett: And it it still is, it has 200 years of people visiting this tree and unfortunately that has compromised the tree as a result.
Adam Shaw: Why, what, why would that, people coming along and standing by the tree, why, what harm does that do?
Louise Hackett: So the first thing you want to do when you’re visiting an ancient tree is you want to walk right up to it, don't you? And put your hands on it and and and and kind of make that connection. And for a long time you could do that. At the moment it's fenced off, and it's been fenced off for for 30-odd years and that's because the compaction around this tree is considerable.
Adam Shaw: And that makes it hard for its roots to actually function.
Louise Hackett: It means that they can't access, the roots can't access the water and nutrients needed. And and it's now struggling unfortunately as a as a result of that.
Adam Shaw: Now also we passed just we're sort of one side of the of the tree, as we passed it, I could see sort of round I don’t know metal thing attached to it, looked like a scientific instrument. What's that?
Louise Hackett: Yes. So a lot of work is happening on this site at the moment to hopefully remedy some of the issues that the Major Oak is happening. So RSPB have employed a whole range of experts from from many different fields. And I've been working with them and Myerscough College to fit dendrometers to the tree.
Adam Shaw: Say that word again?
Louise Hackett: Dendrometers.
Adam Shaw: Dendrometers. What's that?
Louise Hackett: So these measure the the growth and shrinkage of the of the sapwood, so they're fitted...
Adam Shaw: And the sapwood is that the internal bit?
Louise Hackett: Yes, so so this is the, the, the the part that transports all of those water and nutrients.
Adam Shaw: Right. So it's got a sort of it it's got something buried inside the tree, which is measuring internal movement.
Louise Hackett: So so it's it's fixed to the tree, but it actually sits on the bark. So we've used one penny coins, which because they're magnetic.
Adam Shaw: Literally one penny coins?
Louise Hackett: Yeah, there are there are multiple penny coins glued to the Major Oak right now. And the dendrometer just sits on on that magnet. It has a magnet and it just sits on there. And it measures to the micrometre any growth or shrinkage every half hour.
Adam Shaw: Right. Right. Whether, it's like it's breathing, whether it's breathing out or whether it's breathing in and why, that's extraordinary. That's a normal process is it?
Louise Hackett: Yes.
Adam Shaw: And that's as the water's coming up it sort of expands a bit and because that's how it pushes the water up anyway, isn't it sort of like a like a snake sort of pushing it up and down?
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And it will be responding to its environment. So what we're seeing is after a really dry spell, it shrinks. And after a wet spell it it it expands so the cells are always dividing but the the kind of quantity of water in those cells depends on on the environment and and what's happening.
Adam Shaw: Right. And what you'd want to see in a healthy tree is a lot of movement or not a lot of movement?
Louise Hackett: It's not so much about the the movement, it's more about the trajectory. So over time we want to see the, the, the average going up, that it's constantly growing. Obviously the tree’s struggling at the moment and it's so it's a fascinating time to be observing what different sections of the tree are doing and because as we were talking before about functional units, the Major Oak will have separate functional units.
Adam Shaw: Right, so this is what I was going to come on to that, we talked about how actually trees could be immortal in a way, because it's not that an acorn comes off and grows another tree, but they split so the same tree, sort of starts its life again, genetically the same tree that, you're going to correct me here, but that hasn't happened here, has it?
Louise Hackett: So so so. In what way do you mean sorry?
Adam Shaw: Well, yeah, that's alright I because I'm an idiot, aren't I? What I mean is that it, wouldn't it be lovely if, like we saw with the Parliament Oak, that if a bit of it sort of split off you went OK, maybe the first bit might die back but genetically, the same tree that that continuous sort of lineage just starts afresh next to it, not as an acorn but as a part of its own tree. But we don't seem to be seeing that.
Louise Hackett: It has done that.
Adam Shaw: In the past or, I just can't see it now?
Louise Hackett: So it is you just can't see it. So yeah.
Adam Shaw: OK, I told you I’m an idiot! Show, show me what's going on. Show me.
Louise Hackett: No, no, no, no, no. So so so we were just, so the the the Parliament Oak just makes it incredibly obvious because we have images of two very obvious separate functional units because the the area in between has has died away over time, but we can't see that so obviously with the Major Oak until you really know what you're looking for. So if you think...
Adam Shaw: Right. That's why I've brought you along! Go on. Show me what I should be looking for.
Louise Hackett: So the large if you see that large limb to to the right, you can you can almost see a line going down the bark.
Adam Shaw: Yes. I definitely can see a line. It looks like someones lain something over that.
Louise Hackett: Yeah. So basically what it's done is it's formed this this separate functional unit associated with that large limb. And what you generally see when you when you've got strong functional units in, in my eyes, you you often see this almost like a wound wood response to the separate unit. They're starting to understand that they're separate and behave so they're healing against each other.
Adam Shaw: Right. So that tree that, that part of the tree really reaching out into the picnic area if you like, is part of a sort of a new a new development.
Louise Hackett: Not new.
Adam Shaw: I was going to say it's all, new is relative because this thing is maybe 1,000 years old.
Louise Hackett: It's. Yeah, I think it's hard. It's hard for us to understand, but it's essentially, you know, my arm, my right arm connected to my right leg is functioning completely separately and if I if that was to be completely removed, would continue happily.
Adam Shaw: Yes. Yeah, fine. So even if the main bit of the tree died back or something terrible happened to it, we might have that maintaining itself. It's a separate entity.
Louise Hackett: Potentially. We've we've definitely got some functional units doing better than others. And what that means is perhaps may, you know worst case scenario one of those functional units are going to die. Worst case scenario, hopefully that's not going to happen. But if it did, that doesn't compromise the other units, so they could carry on and and...
Adam Shaw: Yeah. So you're saying even though it actually it hasn't got a huge amount of leaves on it, it's rather bald actually that baldness is a sign of hope, which is a good... I'm just taking it, trying to take a good message for bald men like me, the world over there is hope in your baldness. Men and trees unite. *both laugh* You’re not so sure, I get that.
Louise Hackett: It's kind of the opposite but...
Adam Shaw: Oh, it's the opposite of that! Oh, you were saying there was hope though?
Louise Hackett: It's the, it's there's hope where where you've got more leaves. Yeah, sorry.
Adam Shaw: Ohh, there's hope they're, so I'm trying to find a good message in being bald. No, there's never a good... right scrub that. It's always bad.
Louise Hackett: It's not, it's I so so I quite often describe ancient trees the the process of retrenchment is they're quite like people is they they they come become a bit more rotund, they shrink and and they lose their hair. And this is what trees do. And that is a really positive process.
Adam Shaw: She's not describing me, just so you know. This sort of I mean it's an amazing it's an amazing, bit of nature of this, it's also a bit of history, which neatly ties in to this Living Legend's campaign, isn't it? It's an it's an important part of British history.
Louise Hackett: It is when you think about this tree alone. Let's say it's 1,300 years old, which is the upper estimate. The the the history that this tree has witnessed in its lifetime is immense, in a way that we would certainly look to protect a a building that has that, that, that history connection to it.
Adam Shaw: Yeah. I mean, during, so 1,000 years ago, what are we talking about? What were we saying before? It's like is it 1066. So it's, yeah, I don't know Edward the Confessor. It's I don't know if this was a man built thing we'd all be buying tickets to see it and there'd be an ice cream van outside and, you know, it’d be on a tourist trail. This is free. A part of British history. A witness to British history. And yet, trees like this don't have the same sort of legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. So do you, do you think this is a good ambassador or how good an ambassador is this for the sort of campaign you're trying to to rally around?
Louise Hackett: Absolutely. I think this is why people love to visit ancient trees. I I don't think you can help but be in awe for its age and and what it's witnessed in a way that I think it's quite hard for us to comprehend and and you know, comparing to our own lifespans.
Adam Shaw: Yeah.
Louise Hackett: It's inspiring.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Join us for a jam-packed visit to Frodsham Woods, Cheshire, where 80 volunteers were planting thousands of trees to help transform a former golf course into a fantastic new space for wildlife and people. We visit the neighbouring ancient woodland and admire hilltop views with site manager Neil and chat to Tim, supervisor of this army of tree planters, about how the new wood will develop. We also meet Esther, lead designer of the project, hear from comms guru Paul about the Trust's #plantmoretrees climate campaign, and speak to the volunteers about what the day means to them.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, today's podcast is a bit of an unusual one because I'm off to an abandoned golf course in Cheshire, overlooking Liverpool. Not far away, in fact. And the vision is to create this once golf course into a thriving mosaic of habitats, including lush broadleaved woodland, grassland meadows and wooded glades dotted with wildflowers. Throughout the site, they're creating a network of grassy paths so people can walk through them and get far-reaching views of the Welsh borders, the western Pennines and the Bowland Fells, along with, of course, Liverpool and the Mersey Estuary. And very excitingly, the man actually who's running all the tree planting there is also in a band, and it's his music and his band's music you can hear in the background. More about that a little later. It's called Frodsham Woods, and it's near the Frodsham train station. Guess where? In Frodsham. Well, today we are starting, I'm starting sitting down with Neil Oxley, who's the site manager here. Hi Neil.
Neil: Good morning, Adam.
Adam: Good morning. So, just explain where we are because we are, well, I'm not gonna take away your thunder. Explain. It's an unusual location.
Neil: So, we’re sat on a bench overlooking the River Mersey and Liverpool. We're on the old golf course that was closed about three years ago.
Adam: Yeah, well that's what I think is unusual – sitting on a golf course. I gotta take, it doesn't look like a golf course. They, the greenkeeper would have had a heart attack seeing the state of this place. But what's amazing is, well, I'm looking over a forest of planted trees. I mean, just within 10 yards, probably a couple of hundred of them, just been planted. So, this has got to be unusual. Take buying a golf course, turning it into a forest?
Neil: It is, yeah. I think it's probably the first golf course that the Woodland Trust has taken on and it's just a great opportunity, though, that when it became available, it's adjoining some of our existing woodlands, including ancient woodland. And it's given us an opportunity to plant lots of trees and work with local people and engage the community in doing something good for the climate.
Adam: And we're sitting down, looking over what might be, I don't know. Is that a bunker? Do you think that’s a bunker?
Neil: It is, yep. So, there there's probably about 40 bunkers on the golf course and we've kept them all, so some of those old features are still here.
Adam: And I saw one, some gorse growing, just naturally growing in the bunker there.
Neil: There is. Just in the two or three years since it stopped being maintained. There's gorse, there's silver birch, there's all sorts of trees and plants that are now appearing.
Adam: I love the gorse. It's bright. It comes out early. Bright yellow. Real splash of colour in early spring. It's really.
Neil: It is, yeah, it's lovely and colourful.
Adam: And we're looking over a range of wind turbines. And is that the Mersey ahead?
Neil: That is, that's the River Mersey.
Adam: Although there’s not much river, it looks, it looks like it’s out. It's mainly mud.
Neil: It’s probably low tide at the moment. Yeah, and Liverpool just beyond the other side.
Adam: Very nice. So, you're going to be my main guide today. We've got lots of people to meet, I know. Alright. Brilliant. So, explain to me the plan for the day.
Neil: So, we're gonna have a walk round and look at some of the tree planting that we've already done here. We've got some groups of corporate volunteers and Woodland Trust staff here today also who are planting trees. So, we'll go and see them later on. But I thought maybe to start off with we could go and visit some of the ancient woodland that borders the site and show you sort of why it's important that we're doing what we're doing today.
Adam: Brilliant. I'm of an age where sitting down is quite nice, but that's not going to get, that's not gonna get nothing made, is it? It's alright. We better get up and you lead on.
Neil: OK, let's go. This lady, by the way, coming with the pug. She's up here all the time. She's really lovely, friendly, always talks to me and Paul. And we've already said hello to her, but he...
Adam: Oh, this dog wants a lot of attention.
Neil: He loves that. He loves that, yeah.
Adam: We'll let the rest of the team pet the dog. You know, you've paused here for a special reason. Why?
Neil: Yeah. So, this area, we're on the edge of the ancient woodland now and the part of the site in front of us is going to be left for what's called natural regeneration to develop. So, that will be where trees can self-seed and set and grow naturally. So, we're not actually planting any trees in this area in front of us. And you can see there's some silver birch trees there that probably self-seeded five or 10 years ago on the edge of the golf course. And they're growing quite well already.
Adam: So, and what's the advantage of that? There's a big debate about rewilding and all of that. So, why has that become an important issue?
Neil: It is, I mean to different people it can mean slightly different things as well. But basically it's leaving the land to develop and rewild itself, you know, for nature to colonise it. It's a slower process.
Adam: So, because if you're planting them yourself, you're planting all the trees at the same time. They're all the same age, so they get wiped out. Everything gets wiped out.
Neil: Potentially yes. You could lose a lot more.
Adam: Actually, I'm surprised those are natural regeneration because they've, it's very regimented. Those silver birch, they've all come up in exactly the same space, very close together. It looks like there's been some thought behind that.
Neil: It does. It does and again nature can do things very similar to how people plant trees. You know, you often can end up with them very densely packed, more densely packed than we're planting them, actually.
Adam: Yeah, OK. Well, we're still surrounded by these young, young trees. So, you lead on. Where are we heading off to?
Neil: So, we're just walking into, towards the ancient woodland area. So, this this is called Woodhouse Hill and it's mostly oak and some silver birch, some holly growing in here, plus a few other species as well.
Adam: And wonderfully of you, you've taken me to the muddiest bit of land there is. Are we going through this?
Neil: This, well, we can do. It's unfortunately because of the winter we've had, some of the paths are very wet and muddy around here now.
Adam: So, I have my walking boots on. You squelch ahead and I’ll squelch behind you.
Neil: OK. We'll carry on then.
Adam: So, we're heading up, give us a better view of the Mersey, a better view of Liverpool.
Neil: That's right. Just around the corner, there's a really good viewpoint where the view will open up and a sunny day like today get quite good views.
Adam: And is it used by the locals a lot? I mean, it's relatively new then. I mean, presumably a lot of locals don't know about it.
Neil: Well, I mean since, the golf course was closed down during the pandemic, and at the time the owner allowed the public to come and walk on the site. So, suddenly from people being not allowed to use it unless they were playing golf, local people were allowed to come and walk the dogs or just walk themselves around with the family. So, people did get to know the site and start using it, but it also borders some existing woodlands with footpaths, which is where we are now. So, these existing woodlands were already well-used.
Adam: Right. And what's the reaction of the locals been to the development here?
Neil: Very positive. Yeah. I mean obviously there's always a fear when a piece of land is up for sale that it might go for some sort of development, housing or be sold to a private landowner who fences it off and stops people using it. So, people have been, yeah, really positive, really supportive. The consultation that we did before we started anything was all very much in favour of creating woodland and allowing public access.
Adam: I think we're coming up to a viewpoint here where there's a bench.
Neil: There is, we should have another sit down.
Adam: And it's very steep here. You wouldn't want to be falling off that, but this is a beautiful view.
Neil: Yeah. The weather today is just great for the view.
Adam: We've been blessed. Look at this. And then you look across a sort of flat valley floor with some wind turbines, which some don’t like but I always think they're really majestic. And beyond the wind turbines, the Mersey, where the tide is out. And beyond that, that's Liverpool. And is that Liverpool Cathedral? The grey building in the sort of middle there.
Neil: That's the main Anglican cathedral, and then the Catholic cathedral is just off to the right and beyond in the far distance is North Wales, so that low line of hills you can see is just within North Wales.
Adam: Oh, that's, those hills over there, beyond the chimneys, that's Wales.
Neil: Beyond the chimneys, yeah.
Adam: And some other lovely gorse and, whoops don't fall over, I thought it was going to be me that would be falling over, not the site manager.
Neil: Mind the rock.
Adam: Ice and sea. So, we've come to the sign. ‘The view from Woodhouse Hill holds clues to the distant past, the Mersey Basin and Cheshire’s sandstone hills were both shaped by advancing ice sheets during the last Ice Age.’ Do you know what? I wanted to say that because I remember from O-level geography, I think a flat-bottomed valley is a glacier-made valley. But I was, I didn't want to appear idiotic, so I didn't say that and I should have had the courage of my convictions. So, this is an ice-formed landscape.
Neil: It is. It is. I understand that the ice sheets came down to this part of the north of England back in the Ice Age. And there's some interesting features that are found here called glacial erratics.
Adam: Right.
Neil: Which is rocks from other parts of the north of England and Scotland that were brought down on the ice sheets. And then when the ice sheets melted, those rocks were left behind. But they're from a different geological area.
Adam: Right. Amazing.
Neil: So, around here it's sandstone. The erratics are all kind of volcanic rocks.
Adam: Brought down from the north, from Scotland.
Neil: Lake District and Scotland. That's right.
Adam: Beautiful. We were with a few other people.
Neil: I think they couldn't be bothered to come through the mud, could they? Yeah.
Adam: We seem to have lost them. OK, alright. Well, maybe we'll have to, we've lost our team, our support team.
Neil: We'll head back, but yeah, no, this was the view I thought we'd come to. Yeah, because it is a nice view.
Adam: Well, I'll tell you what. Let me take a photo of you, for the Woodland Trust social media.
Neil: Thought you were gonna say falling over the rock again. No, no, I'll try not to.
Adam: Yeah, let's not do that. Yeah, so to explain, you're running me across the field for some...
Neil: Walking fast.
Adam: Well, for you walking fast. I've got short legs. Why?
Neil: Well, we've walked over now to where we've got the people who are helping plant trees today with us. So, we've got a mix of corporate volunteers, Woodland Trust staff and some of our volunteers here to help us and we're gonna go over and meet Tim Kerwin, who's in charge of the tree planting and supervising the tree planting with us today.
Adam: Oh right, so these are, this is his army of tree planters.
Neil: It is, yes. Tim keeps things in check and makes sure they're doing the right thing.
Adam: OK. I mean, let's just look, there’s scores of people I’ve no idea of who Tim is.
Neil: Tim? Tim, can we get your attention for a few minutes?
Tim: Yes.
Adam: Hi, nice to see you, Tim.
Tim: I’ve seen you on telly.
Adam: Have you?
Adam: Well, Tim, as well as being in charge of everyone planting the trees today is also the sax player in a band. And of course we have to talk about that first and he very kindly gave me one of his original tracks, which is what you can hear right now. A first for the podcast.
*song plays*
Tim: You know, you know what? We probably do about eight gigs a year, right? But we're trying to find venues where people like jazz. We don't want to, you know, we don't want to do Oasis. That's not what we're about. There's plenty of bands like that. We play music for ourselves, and if people turn up and appreciate it, those are the people we want. I’ll play for one person.
Adam: You know, I was in a wood a few years ago and, can’t remember where it was, and we just came across a violinist, just playing to herself. And it was just like can I record it? And it’s like, just playing amongst the trees, and I thought it was really lovely.
Tim: You know what? I would, I would do the same. I mean, the places I like to play, like churches are fantastic because of the acoustics.
Adam: So, you might play that under this chat and what's the name of the band?
Tim: The Kraken.
Adam: The Kraken?
Tim: Yeah.
Adam: OK. Alright, The Kraken *laughs* So, all of which is a bit of a divergence.
Tim: I know, sorry *laughs*
Adam: So, I'm told you're in charge of this army of tree planters you can see over here. Three men having their sandwich break there. So, you've been working them hard.
Tim: We have been working them hard, indeed.
Adam: So, just explain to me a little bit about what's going on here.
Tim: So, today we can almost see the finishing line for our 30,000 trees. So, this morning we've actually planted just shy of 2,000 trees with the group that we've had, of which there's about 80 people.
Adam: That's a lot of trees. People always talk about how long does it take to plant a tree? It's not that big a thing is it?
Tim: No, but what we're keen about is it's not about necessarily speed, it's about accuracy. We want quality. So, what we're asking people to do is plant each tree really well. So, today I have to say the standard of planting has been amazing. From the first to the last, I haven't found one that I'm not happy with.
Adam: So, explain to me, and we're standing by a tree that's just been planted. It looks like they've scraped a bit of the grass away. So, explain to me, how should you plant a tree and what goes wrong?
Tim: OK, so what we've done here, we took the grass off before the guys came, so that's called scriefing. So, the purpose of that is the tree needs water. And this grass also needs water. So, we take that grass away, and the competition's gone away for the tree. So, it won't be forever, because within two years, that grass will have grown around that tree. But those first two years are quite critical. So, if we can get the new roots from, so those trees and little plugs, new roots which are going to come out in the next couple of weeks because the soil's warming up. I mean, the air's warming up, but the soil’s warming up. Those will send out shoots. They're already starting to come in to leaf, which is why the urgency to get these trees in now. They will take in the water around them and then keep on spreading with that root system. Enough root system will go out there and it will then not be competing with the grass because in fact the tree will be competing with the grass and actually taking over. So, eventually that grass will probably die because it will be shaded out in the future.
Adam: And talking about shade, I'm surprised how closely planted these are, about five foot apart or thereabouts. If this was a forest in 20 years’, 30 years’ time, it's exceptionally dense. Or are you expecting a lot of them to fail?
Tim: So, imagine you've got an oak tree and that throws down 40,000 acorns in usually every four years. So, it doubles its weight above ground.
Adam: Sorry, 40,000?
Tim: 40,000. A mature oak, yeah.
Adam: It’s worth pausing on that *laughs* A mature oak drops 40,000 acorns a year?
Tim: Every four years, roughly.
Adam: Because it doesn't do it every year, do they?
Tim: No. So, it has what they call a mast year, which is the year when everything's come together. It's usually based on the previous weather, weather conditions. So, that doubles the weight of the tree above ground, that throws all those acorns. Now you imagine they're gonna be a couple of centimetres apart on the ground. They're not all going to make it. What they're hoping is that something will take those away. So, a jay or a squirrel, they'll move those acorns away. Not all of them will get eaten. In fact, jays let the acorn germinate, and then they eat the remains. So, they wait to see where the oak tree comes up and then they come back and eat the remains of the cotyledon. So, you imagine if all those were going to germinate, there'd be a mass rush, and what they're waiting for is for the parent plant to die. And if that falls over, then they can all shoot up, but they're not all going to survive. So maybe only one, maybe two will survive out of those 40,000 if they're close to the tree. Now, what we're doing here is, imagine there’s the parent plant, the parent plant's not here. We've already spaced these out by this distance already. So, we've given them a better chance. So, they can now flourish. In time, so within sort of 10 to 12 years, we're going to start to be sending this out. So, you won't see this line. There are other parts on this site, 23 years old, and we've done a lot of filling through that. You wouldn't know it's been planted by, in a plantation.
Adam: So, what would you, what's the failure rate? What's a good failure rate to stay with?
Tim: It can really, really vary. I have to say that the soil here is tremendous. It's very rich. I'd be very surprised if we have a high failure rate. It could be 95% take.
Adam: So, that's really interesting. And what are you planting then? I've seen some oak. I've seen some silver birch. What are you planting?
Tim: So, Cheshire is all about oak and birch. So, 25% of these trees, so 7,500 are oak. And then 10% are silver birch. So that's 3,000. And then there's another 18 species that are all native to the UK that we're planting in here. So, things like rowan, holly, Scots pine and then we've got hazel, some large areas of hazel on this site that we've put in and then we've got hawthorn, blackthorn, couple of types of cherry, and then some interesting ones as well. So, we're putting some elm in and, specifically for a butterfly. So, there's a butterfly called white letter hairstreak. And the caterpillar feeds on the leaves of that tree. So, we've got those in Cheshire, but we're trying to expand it. And we've been working with the Butterfly Conservation group to get it right. So, they've given us some advice.
Adam: I thought elm was a real problem with the Dutch elm disease?
Tim: It still is. It still is.
Adam: There was some talk that maybe some had found some natural resistance to Dutch elm disease.
Tim: There are some resistant elm. And so, the plantings that we've done on here are what's classed as wych elm. It will still get Dutch elm disease, but it can last up to 16 years. And then there's always the opportunity to replant so we can get elm established. Then we can carry on spreading that through the site, so it's a starting point for that species we have. So again, we're trying to increase the biodiversity of the site by having specific trees for specific species. So, it's exciting. I mean, a lot's been lost and it won't become a beautiful wildflower meadow, although we are going to be doing some wildflower planting. We've already bought the seed. And in the next couple of weeks as it gets a little bit drier and a little bit warm, we're going to be, we're going to be sowing that in and that will come through the spring and summer. So, we've got lots to happen here as well.
Adam: Oh brilliant. Well, it's so nice to see it at an early stage. I’ll come back in a couple of years.
Tim: It’s probably one of the most exciting projects, tree wise, in Cheshire in a long time, because I've been doing this for a long, long time and these opportunities don't come up. So, for this to happen. And for the size of it as well. I mean, you're talking about a huge area of woodland now, over 180 acres. So, the second biggest area of woodland in Cheshire, so it's amazing. It truly is amazing.
Adam: Well, I'm walking away. In fact, all tree planting has stopped for lunch. What is the time? Yeah, it's 12:45. So, everyone has stopped for sandwiches and teas, and they're spreading branches of some trees. And while they're doing that, two people are still working. That's me. And Paul? Hi.
Paul: Hi.
Adam: So, just explain to me what you do, Paul?
Paul: I work as the comms and engagement manager for the north of England, so this is one of the best tree planting games we have had in a long time.
Adam: And the people we've got here today, they’re just locals? They from any particular groups?
Paul: No, the Woodland Trust staff as part of our climate campaign now get a day to come out and we've got various corporate volunteering groups out also planters. We've got about 80 people out planting today.
Adam: Well, that's amazing and we've just paused by this gorse bush. I'm rather partial to the gorse, so we’ll take some shelter there. So, you talked about that this is part of a bigger campaign. What is that campaign?
Paul: It’s our climate campaign. And very simple hashtag plant more trees. So, trees are one, probably one of the best things we've got in the battle against climate change to help. And they have the added benefit that also they're good for biodiversity as well. So, twin track approach if you plant a tree. Obviously they're not the solution to everything, but we're hoping, as the Woodland Trust just to get more people planting trees.
Adam: What is the target then? The sort of tree planting target you have?
Paul: Well we have a target to get 50 million trees planted by 2030. Across all of the UK, so quite, quite a number.
Adam: 50 million trees by 2030, so six years?
Paul: Yeah, yeah. And we've, I think we've planted 6 million trees, 2023, yeah.
Adam: Why is everyone taking a break? They’ve got millions to get in. That's quite an ambitious thing to get done, isn't it?
Paul: Yeah. And we need, we need to plant billions of trees longer term. So, it's really important we get everyone planting trees, but it's all that message as well, right tree in the right place, and get trees planted where they’re needed.
Adam: And this is an unusual project, not least cause it's on an old golf course, which I've never heard of before. Has it attracted much interest? Is there a lot of engagement from the media and the public?
Paul: Yeah, this site has had a remarkable amount of attention from the press. It started with local radio, then regional TV and then we've had things like Sky News Climate Show out here and then even international press coverage looking at rewilding of golf courses. CNN covered it alongside international golf courses and here in the UK, Frodsham. So, it's been amazing how it's captured everyone's imagination and it's been such a really positive good news story. It's a site that's a key site within the Northern Forest. So, the Northern Forest is another project that I’m involved with in the north of England, but.
Adam: Did you say a little project? *laughs*
Paul: Another, another project.
Adam: Oh sorry. I was gonna say, a massive project.
Paul: That’s a massive project, which is again stretching, looking to plant 50 million trees from Liverpool to Hull and we're working with the Community Forests in each area, in this case the Mersey Forest and again just promoting grants and support to landowners and communities to get more, more trees planted and to help acquire land for tree planting and give the grants for tree planting.
Adam: It must give you a warm feeling that your communications are actually being so well received that there is, it's not just you pushing out a message, that people want to hear this message.
Paul: Yeah, it's really, really good to not have a negative message. Generally it's a really, really positive message that people wanted to hear because it's great for the community. They're getting some amazing green space with stunning views of the Mersey on the doorstep. It's interesting story about how we're changing from a golf course to a woodland site. We've got the ancient woodland, got natural regeneration. And just the fact that everyone's smiling, everyone's really happy and just so pleased that they're playing their small part in helping us create this new woodland site. Just great to be part of that, that positive good news story.
Adam: Well, I'm going over to a group of people who have been busy planting all day but are now on their lunch break, just to bother them and ask them how their day has been and why they got involved in this.
Adam: OK, well, you can, first of all, you can just shout out so, well we've, you all are hard at work I hear, but I've seen very little evidence of it cause everyone’s sat down for lunch now. Have you all had a good day?
Everyone: Yes.
Adam: That would have been awful had they said no. Anyway, they all had a good day. So, I mean, it's lovely that you're out. You're all out here doing, I mean, very serious work. You've all got smiles on your face and everything. But this is important. I wonder why anyone's getting involved, what it means to you. Anyone got a view or get a microphone to you?
Adam: So, what's your name?
Volunteer 1: Rodon.
Adam: Rodon. So, why are you here?
Rodon: Well, nature, wildlife, planting, and I know the area quite well, so it's nice to see being developed in a sustainable way and being something for nature. It's a great place to come and visit, not far from the sandstone trail. I visit lots of Woodland Trust sites. I live in Warrington so it's sort of down the road, and it's, as I say, with the old wood over there that's quite an adventurous path. It's got lots of like sandstone sort of steps and little caves, and it's on the side of a cliff. So, this has kind of extended that over here as well.
Adam: It would be a lovely thing to return to in a few years.
Rodon: Well, it's a nice place now to be honest.
Adam: Brilliant.
Volunteer 2: My name is David Mays. I'm also from the from the town of Warrington as well. I'm an MSC and BSc student from local Hope University. I've finished both of them now, thankfully. I'm trying to get a job in the ecological management sector and I feel doing this working with people like Tim and Neil will help me massively get a, you know, it looks good on my CV. Most importantly, I really enjoy being out here and getting to know how the areas of ecological development, particularly in the woodland industry, is developing over the past few years and what are the plans for the future and what they hope to achieve in the long term and short term.
Adam: That's very good. So, it's also very innovative of you putting out your CV live on air there. Good. Hopefully someone needing a job, with a job to offer will contact us. Good luck with that. So, oh yeah, we've come under another lovely tree. I mean it looks set. I was just saying to Kerry, it's so beautiful here. It looks like we've set this shot up. Really, you know? But here you are with your spades behind you taking a break from the trunk. So, first of all, have you, has it been a good day?
Volunteer 3: Yeah. Yeah, it has been. It’s been dry.
Adam: It's been dry. OK. Alright. Well, let's get, so, the best thing about today is that it was dry.
Volunteer 3: It's one of the positive points. Definitely. Yeah, after the trees.
Adam: Yeah, with experience. So, why did you want to come out? What made you want to be part of this?
Volunteer 3: Well, I think it's because we are having a bit of a push with the climate change agenda at the moment, so it's, working for the Woodland Trust it's just a nice opportunity to get away from the sort of the day job for me and get out into the field and actually do something practical and help towards that.
Adam: Yeah. Did, I mean, has it been very physical for you today, has it?
Volunteer 3: It's not been too bad, actually. It's been fine. Yeah. No, it's been OK. Ask me tomorrow, but yeah *laughs*
Adam: Have you done this sort of stuff before?
Volunteer 3: No, this is my first, this is my first planting day with the Trust.
Adam: Yeah, and your last?
Volunteer 3: No, no, I'll definitely no, it hasn't put me off. We'll definitely, definitely be back out again when I get the opportunity. It's been great.
Adam: So, go on. Tell me what's all been like for you today?
Volunteer 4: It’s been really good. Yeah. I just can't believe we've covered so much ground in so little time, really. Seems we've only been here a few hours and because it's, I've been quite remote working from home, so it's quite nice kind of seeing some people I've met on screen, so it's nice to now, yeah, meet people in the real world and yeah, give back. I've never, I've not done anything like this before.
Adam: So yeah, so is this your first time planting trees?
Volunteer 5: It's not my first time planting trees, but it's my first time planting with the Trust. I was planting trees in my garden on the weekend, so I’ve done my back in. So, I've not quite got the planting rate of everyone else today I don't think, but you know, as the other guys were saying, we work office jobs really rather than on the front line of the Trust. So, it is good to get our hands dirty and to get involved with what we're supposed to be all about and contribute to our climate change campaign. So, hashtag plant more trees.
Adam: Yeah. There we are, on message as well.
Volunteer 5: I work in the brand team *laughs*
Adam: There we are. There we are. Thank you. That's excellent.
Adam: Now, really I should have started with this because we're nearing the end of my morning in the forest. But I've come to meet Esther, who's really one of the big brains behind the planting scheme. I know a bit modest about that, but tell me a little bit about what your involvement has been with this project.
Esther: I've been a lead designer on this project, so I've been putting together the planting plans and lots of maps and really working with Neil, he's the site manager, to make sure that we make this the best scheme that we can make it. We've included coppice coupes for biodiversity and.
Adam: Right, what's a coppice coupe?
Esther: A coppice coupe is just an area of where you're planning to coppice. So, cut a tree down to its very base and then it grows back up as shoots. So, it only works with a few species and the species that we've chosen is hazel. So, those areas are 100% hazel. And it's great for biodiversity because you sort of go in a rotational like a 10-year cycle or something like that and you cut back say 10% of your trees in that year and then you get a lot of light to the ground and then you get hopefully a lot of floristic diversity coming through.
Adam: And so, is that a job that, it sounds terrible the way I'm saying it – is that a job? Is it a job that you sit down and you go, you have a piece of paper or computer and you go, this is where we're, how we're gonna design the forest. We're gonna put ash over there. We're gonna put oak over there. Is that what you do?
Esther: Yeah. Yeah. So, we use something called GIS. So, geographical information systems which basically let you draw shapes on a map and then you can colour code it and basically make a really coherent design of something to tell people, you know, what you're trying to achieve. What's gonna go where.
Adam: And it's not every, it's not like building an extension to a house where you go well, there's probably thousands and going on all the time. There can't be that many forests being planted each day, so this must be a significant thing in your career I would have thought.
Esther: Oh yeah, this is my first woodland creation scheme that I've seen from pretty much the start to the finish, so I've been working on it for 18 months and then an awful lot of hours gone into it. It's been really enjoyable and it's just a wonderful, wonderful to see it coming together. And yeah, and we're nearly finished now, so.
Adam: And I know people often think, oh well, I'll come back in 100 years’ time and you know, my great grandchildren might see these trees. But actually, within your career, you will see a forest here won't you.
Esther: Yeah. So, I think within 10 years it will look like a woodland. It's had, this site has a history of agriculture, so it should in theory have a lot of nutrients in the soil. So, the trees should grow really well. So yeah, I would say within 10 to 15 years, it should look like fully fledged woodland, if not a bit young, but yeah.
Adam: And are you optimistic about really the change that you and your colleagues can make? Cause there's a lot of pessimism around. What's your view?
Esther: I think it's a really exciting time to be working in the environment sector and there's a lot of enthusiasm for making big changes in our lives and big changes in our landscape. I think there's a lot of hope to be had. And yeah, just seeing like the amount of enthusiasm on a planting day like this really fills me with a great deal of hope, yeah.
Adam: Yeah. Have you planted any trees yourself?
Esther: I have, yeah.
Adam: How many of these have been yours, you reckon?
Esther: We have 15, probably not that many *laughs*
Adam: Oh, that's not bad. I thought you were gonna be like The Queen. I planted one. There was a round of applause and I went home *laughs*
Esther: No, I put a lot of guards on, but yeah, not planting that many trees myself.
Adam: Fantastic. Well, it's been a great day for me. Our half day out here and I'll definitely return. It's amazing, amazing, positive place.
Esther: Wonderful, yeah.
Adam: And the sun has shone on us. Metaphorical smile from the sun. Brilliant. Thank you very much.
Esther: Thank you so much.
*song plays*
Adam: Well, if you want to find a wood near you, you can do so by going to The Woodland Trust website which is www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
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Our setting for this episode, Sheffield’s Endcliffe Park seems like many other popular green spaces, but it has a hidden history: its waterways once helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in the ‘Steel City’. We discover how Sheffield’s past intertwines with trees as local urban forester, Catherine Nuttgens, explains how nature and the city have shaped each other through the centuries, and why people here are so passionate about trees. We also meet Stella Bolam who works with community groups and schools to plant trees, and learn about the nearby Grey to Green project that’s transformed tarmac into a tranquil haven for people and wildlife and tackles climate change too.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Well, today I am in Sheffield, known of course as the Steel City renowned for steel production during the 19th century Industrial Revolution. But despite that historical heritage, woodland and green spaces were, and still are, the lungs of the city and seen as vitally important. In fact, it is now, according to Sheffield University, the UK's greenest city, with 250 public parks and over four and a half million trees. That's more trees per person than any other city in Europe and in 2022, Sheffield was named as a Tree City of the World. And I'm meeting Catherine Nuttgens at Endcliffe Park. That's a 15 hectare open space opened in 1887 to commemorate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. And interestingly, it isn’t in the middle of the countryside; it is two miles from the city centre, the first in a series of connected green spaces, known collectively as Porter Valley Parks, all of which lie along the course of the Porter Brook. Well, although it really is coming to spring, we've been hit with some rather unseasonable snow, and I thought we were going to start with some snow sound effects, but actually this is a very fast-moving river that I'm standing by and I am meeting Catherine. Hello. So, Catherine, just explain a bit about who you are first of all.
Catherine: OK. Yes, I'm Catherine Nuttgens. I used to be the urban lead for the Woodland Trust, but I've just moved into independent work as an urban forester, an independent urban forester.
Adam: Fantastic. And you have. We've arranged to meet by this. I was gonna say babbling brook. It's really much more than that, isn't it? So is this the river? The local river.
Catherine: This is the River Porter, so this is one of five rivers in Sheffield. And it runs all the way up the Porter Valley, which is where we're going to be walking today.
Adam: Let's head off. So I have no idea where I'm going.
Catherine: Going that way. OK, yes, let's go. Let's go this way.
Adam: OK. You sound already confused.
Catherine: I was going to look at that. I was going to look at that tree over there. Cause we planted it. Is it still alive?
Adam: We can go have a look at that. It’s still alive.
Catherine: Which tree? This tree? Here it's just so a total aside for everything that we're doing.
Adam: We're already getting sidetracked. You see, if a tree was planted.
Catherine: So yeah, I mean, this was one of... my old role at Sheffield Council was being community forestry manager and our role was to plant trees around the city. So one of the things that we planted were these War Memorial trees and it's very hard if you plant a tree to not go back to it and say, how's it doing? Is it OK? This is it, it's looking OK.
Adam: This looks more than OK and also it's still got three poppy wreaths on it from Remembrance Sunday. And a dedication, lest we forget: to all the brave men and women of Sheffield who gave their lives and those who hereafter continue to give in pursuit of freedom and peace. 2018 it was planted.
Catherine: One of the reasons I want to check it: it's quite a challenging place to plant a tree as there's an awful lot of football here. So the ground is really compacted, I think it's a red oak.
Adam: A red oak.
Catherine: That should be the right tree for this place. When they go in, they need so much water and it's 60 litres of water a week when it's dry, so keeping them alive, especially when the ground is so compacted is quite a challenge. It's something that happens all around the country is that people think ‘I've planted a tree and now I can walk away’. But actually the real work goes into sort of making sure trees have got enough water. So that they can, you know, for at least the first sort of two or three years of planting. So that they can survive to the good.
Adam: Brilliant. Alright. Well, look, we've already got distracted. We we've, we haven't even started. We've gone the wrong direction. But anyway, your oak is doing very well indeed.
Catherine: I'm sorry. It's it's, it's good.
Adam: So tell me a little bit about where we're going and why, why you've taken me on this particular trip.
Catherine: Sheffield is actually the most wooded, well, it's the most treed and wooded city in Europe. There are more trees per head in Sheffield than there are in any other city in Europe. So I thought the Porter Valley is quite good because there's quite a lot of cafés on the way. So that's quite good. But also it was a great way of describing about how the, how the landscape of Sheffield has kind of shaped the city and how how kind of people are shaped by the landscape also. The landscape is, you know, is is shaped by the people and, and here's a real case in point, because although it all looks very beautiful now and as we go up the valley you’ll see, you know it, it gets more rural. Actually it's all artificial. This is a post-industrial landscape.
Adam: So I mean when you say that, I mean this is this is a creative landscape this, so that I don't really understand what you mean. I mean they didn't knock, you didn't knock down factories. This must have been natural ground.
Catherine: Well, it was natural, but basically Sheffield started Sheffield famous for iron and steel, and it's also on the edge of the Peak District. So there's there's these five very fast flowing rivers that actually provided the power for the grinding holes are places where they made blades and scissors and scythes and all these different things. And so along rivers like this one, there were what were called the like, grinding hulls, the little factories where they they use the the power of the water to sharpen those blades and to you know, to forge them and things. As we go further up, we'll start to see how the Porter kind of has been sort of sectioned off. It's been chopped up and made into ponds. There's what we call goits that go off and they would have been the little streams that go off and power each, each grinding hull along here.
Adam: I mean you you say Sheffield is the most wooded city in the UK per head, and yet it hit the headlines a few years ago when the council started chopping down trees. And it wasn't entirely clear why, but the the local population were up in arms. So why was that? Is was that an aberration, or was that a change in policy?
Catherine
No, I mean people call Sheffield, the outdoor city. People in Sheffield have always been really connected to their trees. But I think when we got to the, you know, for the street tree protest, you know, the vision was beautiful, flat pavements and there were just these annoying trees in the way that were lifting all the paving slabs and everything. We thought what we need is lovely flat pavements, all the people that are complaining about trees all the time, they'll be really happy. But obviously that wasn't the case because people actually do quite like the trees. So what happened here was that the the council decided to send to send a crew to fell in the middle of the night, and then so they knocked on. Yeah. It was, yeah, honestly. Yeah, it was mad so. The the policemen came, knocked on people's doors, said ‘sorry, can you move your cars? Because we want to cut down the trees.’ And now obviously if a policeman knocks on your door in the middle of the night, you know, it's it's pretty scary. So the ladies that they did that to said no, I think I'm going to sit under this tree instead. And it was just mad. Just think, what are they doing? Because it was in the Guardian, like the morning, it got international by the sort of lunchtime. And it was if, if you wanted a way to create an international protest movement about trees, so that's the way to do it. So. But I mean, that was the thing Sheffield is, so it's not an affluent city, but people do stuff in Sheffield, you know, something's happened, someone's doing a thing about it, and they're really good at organising. And in the end, thank goodness the council stopped. If there are things going on in your city, dialogue is always the best way, and consulting and co-designing with the public is so important because it's that's what these trees are for. They're here to benefit people. So if you're not discussing kind of the plans with the people then you know, it's not it's you're not properly doing your job, really.
Adam: And you said there's lots of choice of places to go with trees in and around Sheffield. And the reason you've chosen this particular place is why? Why does this stand out?
Catherine: Well, I think I mean, first of all, it's quite it it, it is a beautiful valley that's kind of very accessible. We've got, I mean here the kind of manufactured you know the Porter has been Victorianised, it's all got these lovely little rills and things. Little rills. You know where little rills kind of maybe that's the wrong word, but the kind of.
Adam: No, but I do. Teaching me so many new words. So what is the rill?
Catherine: So you know, just kind of little bits in the the stream where they've made it, you know, kind of little rocks and things.
Adam: Like rocks. Yeah, that is beautiful. They're like tiny little waterfalls. It's wonderful. I love it.
Catherine: So here for example, I mean looks lovely like these ponds that we have. I mean there's always there's things like the, the kingfishers and and there's the kind of Endcliffe Park Heron that everyone takes pictures of. And there are often Mandarin ducks. I think we passed some Mandarin ducks earlier on, didn't we? But this is actually. This is a holding pool for what would have sort of, how would the grinding hull that now has gone. So it's actually a piece of industrial heritage. Yeah, it looks, I mean, it has now all been kind of made nice. In the ‘30s some of these pools were were kind of put over to and probably in Victorian times as well. They're actually swimming areas. They converted them into swimming.
Adam: I mean the water, I mean, you can't see this if you're listening, but water's super muddy or or brown. It's not appealing to swim in, I’ll just say, but OK, no, no one does that these days.
Catherine: No. Well, they they do up at Crookes, actually. There are people going swimming that that's a, that's a fishing lake. So it's much deeper, but it's a little bit.
Adam: Are you a wild swimmer?
Catherine: Yeah. Yeah. Let's go out into the peak a bit more and out into the the lovely bit.
Adam: Ohh wow, you said that's the way to. I mean, I can't get into a swimming pool unless it’s bath temperature, let alone.
Catherine: It's lovely in the summer. I'm not a cold swimmer, right? But I do love it in in the summer. It's not. I mean, that's what's great about Sheffield, really. And that, like, there's so much nature just within sort of 20 minutes’ walk. I mean, some people just get on their bike and go out into the peak and whether it's you're a climber or a wild swimmer or a runner or just a walker, or you just like beautiful things. You know? It's it's it's kind of here.
Adam: And there is an extraordinary amount of water, I mean. It's, I mean, you probably can hear this, but there seems to be river on all sides of us. It's so we've been walking up the Porter Brook, which you can hear in the background and we've come across Shepherd Wheel a water powered grinding hull last worked in the 1930s.
Catherine: Come this way a little bit. You can see the there's the wheel that they've put together. So inside. I'm just wondering whether we can through a window we can look in. But so so Sheffield say a very independent sort of a place. The what used to happen is the the little mesters there were they hired. They were men.
Adam: Sorry that's another word. What was a mester?
Catherine: That is another word. A mester. That is. I mean. So I think it was like a little master, so like a master cutler or whatever. A little master. But but in in there there were there were individual grinding grindstones right with the benches, the grinding benches on and they hired a bench to do their own piece work. So so it was very independent, everyone was self-employed and you know they they. So the wheel actually sort of was important for probably quite a few livelihoods.
Adam: We’ve come up to a big sign ‘Shepherd’s Wheel in the Porter Valley’. Well, look at this. Turn the wheel to find out more. Select. Oh, no idea what's going. You hold on a sec. Absolutely nothing. It's it's it's, it's, it's, it's a local joke to make tourists look idiotic. Look, there's another nutter just turning a wheel. That does nothing.
Catherine: And actually an interesting well timber fact is that up in North Sheffield there's a wood called Woolley Wood there and all the trees were a lot of the trees are hornbeam trees. Now hornbeam is really good, as its name might suggest, because it it was used to make make the cogs for for for kind of structures like this, because the the wood was so very hard and also it was quite waterproof. There's actually when the wheel bits were replaced here they used oak. But one of the I think one of the problems with oak is that it's got lots of tannins in that can actually rot the iron work. So so actually. There’s kind of knowledge that's been lost about how to use timber in an industrial way and and.
Adam: So if you happen to be building a water wheel, hornbeam is, your go-to wood. I'm sure there's not many people out there building water wheels, but you know very useful information if you are. All right, you better lead on.
Catherine: I think we can head unless you want to go, won't go down that way or go along along here much. There we go. We'll cross. We'll go this way. I think. Probably go down here. Yeah, this has got a great name, this road. It's Hanging Water Road, which I'm not sure I would think. It must be a big waterfall somewhere. I'm not sure whether there is one right so. It's just a a good name. So yeah, so this is more I think going into more kind of established woodland. Still see we've got the two rivers here.
Adam: So tell me about where we're heading off to now.
Catherine: We're going up into. I think there's a certainly Whitley Woods is up this way and there's one called Bluebell Woods, which would indicate you know, ancient... bluebells are an ancient woodland indicator, and so that would suggest that actually these are the bits where the trees have been here for much a much longer time. I think there's still kind of one of the things that they try and do in Sheffield, is kind of bring the woods back into traditional woodland management, where you would have had something with called coppice with standards. So the coppice wood was cut down for charcoal burning cause. So the charcoal, these woods, all these many, many woods across Sheffield fuelled all this steel work. You know they need. That was the the heat that they needed. So charcoal burning was quite a big industry. And and the other thing is that's good for us is that actually having kind of areas of open woodlands, you know, open glades and things, it's really, really good for biodiversity because you have that edge effect and you know, opens up to woodland butterflies and things like that.
Adam: We're just passing an amazing house built on stilts on the side side of this hill, which has got this great view of the river.
Catherine: There's. Yeah, there's some incredible houses around here.
Adam: Where? Where so which where are we heading?
Catherine: We'll go back down that way.
Adam: OK. All right. You may be able to hear it's not just the river, it is now raining. And actually it's all making the snow a bit slushy, but we're on our way back. We're going to meet a colleague of yours. Is that right?
Catherine: That's right. Yeah. So Stella Bolam, who. She's a community forestry officer who works for Sheffield City Council. She's going to be joining us. And yeah, she worked with me when I was working for the council and is in charge of planting trees with communities across Sheffield.
Adam: OK, so Stella, hi. So, yeah, so. Well, thank you very much for joining me on this rather wet day on the outskirts of Sheffield. So just tell me a little bit about what you do.
Stella: Yeah, of course. So our team, community forestry, we basically plant trees with people. It's our tagline, I suppose, and so we we work with community groups and schools to plant those trees and provide aftercare in the first three years, two-three years.
Adam: Aftercare for the trees. Yeah, yeah.
Stella: Yes. Ohh obviously for the people as well I mean.
Adam: What sort of? Give me an example of the type of people you're working with and what you're actually achieving.
Stella: Yeah, yeah. So I can tell you about a couple of projects I did. When I first joined a couple of years ago. So one was in an area called Lowedges, which is quite a deprived area of Sheffield. In the south of Sheffield. And we worked with a couple of local groups that were already formed to build, to plant a hedge line through the park. It's quite long. It's about 2000 whips we planted, and we also worked with a group called Kids Plant Trees, who advocate nature-based activities for children, which obviously includes planting trees, and we work with a couple of local schools. So we map all the trees that we plant and so for our records.
Adam: And how did you get involved in all of this?
Stella: I a couple of years ago I changed careers.
Adam: You were a journalist. Is that right?
Stella: I was a journalist. Yeah.
Adam: What sort of journalist?
Stella: I did print journalism and that.
Adam: Local through the local newspapers?
Stella: No, I worked in London for at least 10 years. I worked in London. I moved up to Sheffield and I was a copywriter.
Adam: Right. So a very different world. So it wasn't wasn't about nature. You weren't. You weren't the environment correspondent or anything.
Stella: It was very different. No, no, not at all. It's human interest stories, though. So I've always been interested in in people and communities, and that that's the thing that I've tried to embed in my work in forestry as well and trying to sort of help people connect to nature and understand that that connection a bit more.
Adam: You've moved around the country and we've been talking about how important trees are to people in Sheffield in particular. Is that true? Is that your experience, that it is different here?
Stella: Yes, they’re very passionate about trees and that can go either way. So you know there's people that love them and people that are actually quite scared of them.
Adam: Scared? Why? Why scared?
Stella: Yeah, I think because a lot of people don't understand trees and they think they're going to fall over. They say things like, oh, look at, it's moving in the wind. And I sort of say, well, that's natural, that's how they grow, right? But obviously I wasn't taught that at school. So people don't have that general understanding about trees. So I try to sort of, I suppose, gently educate people if they do say negative things. Because I obviously do love trees and you know, I think they give us so much,
Adam: And you said you work with a lot of schools.
Stella: Yeah.
Adam: Do you feel young people have a particularly different view of nature and trees than older generations? Do you see any distinction there at all?
Stella: Yes, I think though, because of the climate emergency we're in, I think kids now are much more attuned with what's going on with you know, are the changes that are happening in our climate. So we do incorporate a little bit of education in our work with schools. So we talk to them about trees, why they're important, and we'll often let them answer. We won't tell them they'll put up their hands and say, well, because they give us oxygen or, you know, the animals need them. So I didn't know anything about that when I was at school. So I think that's probably quite a major change.
Adam: You must know the area quite well, and there's lots of different parts of woodlands in and around Sheffield, so for those who are visiting, apart from this bit, where would you recommend? What's your favourite bits?
Stella: Ohh well I I like the woods near me actually. So I I live in an area called Gleadless and Heely and there's there's Gleadless have have got various woodlands there. They're ancient woodlands and they're not very well known, but they’re absolutely amazing. But the other famous one in Sheffield is Ecclesall Woods. Yes, it's very famous here. It's kind of the flagship ancient woodland. It's the biggest one in South Yorkshire.
Adam: And you talked about getting into this industry in this career, you're both our our experts, both women that that is unusual. Most of the people I I meet working in this industry are men. Is that first of all is that true and is that changing?
Stella: It is true. Yeah, I think it's currently about I'm. I'm also a board member and trustee of the Arboricultural Association, so I know some of these statistics around the membership of that organisation and I think there's. It's between about 11 and 15% of their members are women. So yes, it is male and it's also not very ethnically diverse either. I think it is changing and I think I can see that sometimes even when I'm working with kids. And you know, young girls who are you can see they're like really interested. And I sort of always say to them, you know, you can do, you can work with trees when you when you're grown up, you can have a job working with trees. And like a lot of sectors, I think traditionally men have dominated. And I think a lot of women sort of self-select themselves, edit them out of their options, really, cause you you're not told about these things. I mean, I'd never heard of arboriculture five years ago.
Adam: We've we've just rejoined the riverbank. It's quite wide. So this is the Porters River? Porter Brook been told that so many times today I keep forgetting that the Porter River, no didn't quite get it right. Porter Brook. Is it normally this high? I mean it's properly going fast, isn't it? Think that’s amazing.
Stella: Yeah. So I was going to just have a chat with you a little bit about a project called Eat Trees Sheffield.
Adam: Yes, OK.
Stella: Yeah. So this is a project that was initiated by an organisation called Regather Cooperative, but they also are massive advocates of supporting a local sustainable food system and as part of that, it's harvesting apples. And they make a beautiful pasteurised apple juice from apples locally.
Adam: From an actual planted orchard?
Stella: No so well, they actually have just planted an orchard, but no, they basically accept donations from the community.
Adam: So if someone's got an apple tree in their garden. They they pull off the apples and send it in.
Stella: Yeah, well, they have to bring them in. Yeah. And they have to be in a certain condition that they're good for juicing, but yes. And then they get a proportion of the juice back the the people that have donated get some juice back.
Adam: A fantastic idea. Fantastic.
Stella: Yeah. And then they obviously sell the juice as part of their more commercial offering. But yeah.
Adam: That's wonderful. So if you, if you've got a couple of apple trees in your garden, and you live around the Sheffield area, what's the the name of the charity?
Stella: It's called Regather Cooperative. So, we're trying to create a network of people that, basically, can be connected to each other and build skills to look after these orchards because they do need looking after and valuing. They're very important, so yeah.
Adam: Yeah, sort of connects people to their very local trees. It's interesting. I have a a very good friend of mine in London. Who does sort of guerilla gardening. And on the the street trees has just planted runner beans and things coming up so so you know it just grows up. You can see people walking down and going oh, are those beans hanging off the trees? and you she you know, just pops out and grabs some and goes and cooks with them. And you know I'm not. I always think. I'm not sure I'd want to eat some some stuff from this street tree because God knows how. What happens there? But I I love the idea. I think it's a really fun idea.
Stella: So it's just it's been nice meeting you.
Adam: Well, same here. So we're back, we're back by the river.
Catherine: By the river all along the river.
Adam: All along, so yes. Final thoughts?
Catherine: Yeah. So I mean, it's been so great to have, you know, have you visit Sheffield today, Adam. Like, it's always such a privilege to to show people around kind of the bits of our city that are so beautiful. Well, I think, you know, just this walk today in the Porter Valley and the fact that there's so many trees where there used to be industry is something that Sheffield's had going for it I think throughout the whole of its history. The the woodlands were originally so important to be the green lungs of the city - that was really recognised at the turn of the 20th century. But now if you go into the city centre, there's projects like Grey to Green, which is basically where they used to be a very, rather ugly road running round the back of the city centre, which has now been converted into 1.5 kilometres of active travel routes, and there the space has been made for trees. So instead of roads now there's kind of special soil and trees and plants and grasses and things like that. They're like, they look amazing, but also they help to combat climate change. So when the rains fall like they have done at the moment, the trees slow down all the flow of the water going into the River Don, it stops Rotherham from flooding further down. But it also helps well it also encourages people to visit the city centre and enjoy the shade of the trees and, you know, takes up some of the pollution that's in the city. And I think it's, you know, this kind of new kind of thinking where we're actually not just looking after the woods we've already got and letting it grow. Actually making new spaces for trees, which I find really exciting and you know, hopefully that's going to be the future of not just Sheffield, but lots of cities around the country.
Adam: That's a brilliant thought to end on. Thank you very much for a fantastic day out and I was worried that it would be really wet and horrible and actually, yet again it's been quite pretty, the snow and it's only rained a little bit on us. Look, a squirrel.
Adam: Well, I hope you enjoyed that visit to one of Sheffield's open wooded spaces, and if you want to find a wood near you, you can do so by going to the Woodland Trust website woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wanderings.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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This was certainly an episode with a difference - we begin in a Natural History Museum packed with 4,000 taxidermy animals! The Woodland Trust site and museum now share space once owned by the famous Rothschild family who collected stuffed species, as well as live exotic animals that roamed the park. We tour Tring Park’s fascinating historic features, from the avenue named after visitor Charles II to the huge stone monument rumoured to be for his famous mistress. Beneath autumn-coloured boughs, we also learn how young lime trees grown from the centuries-old lime avenue will continue the site’s history, how cows help manage important chalk grassland and the vital role of veteran trees and deadwood in the healthy ecosystem.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Today I'm heading off to Tring Park, one of Hertfordshire's most important ecological areas. It's filled, I'm told, with wildflowers and some really interesting historic features, as well as some stunning views. But first but first, I was told to stop off at the Natural History Museum at Tring, which is really a very, very short walk from the woodland itself. I was told to do that because they said it might surprise you what you find. It definitely did that. Because here are rows and rows of what I'm told are historically important stuffed animals. So I'm at the the top bit of the the galleries here at the Natural History Museum at Tring and well, bonkers I think is a probably good word to describe this place and I mean, I feel very mixed about it. So we're, I'm passing some very weird fish, that's a louvar, never heard of that. But there's a a rhinoceros, white rhinoceros, a Sumatran rhinoceros. There's a dromedary, a camel. There is a rather small giraffe. There is a head of a giraffe. Coming round over here, there is an Indian swordfish from the Indian Ocean. Goodness gracious, it looks like something from Harry Potter. That's an eel, very scary looking eel. And then there is a giant armadillo and it really properly is giant, an extinct relative of the living armadillos, known from the Pleistocene era and that's the period of the Ice Age, from North and South America, that is absolutely extraordinary. And there are some very, very weird things around here. Anyway, that's certainly not something you'd expect to see in Tring. Goodness knows what the locals made of it back in the Victorian ages, of course this would have been their only experience of these kind of animals. No Internet, no television, so this really was an amazing insight into the world, beyond Britain, beyond Tring. There is something here, a deep sea anglerfish which looks like it's got coral out of its chin. I mean, it's properly something from a horror movie that is, that is extraordinary.
Claire: My name is Claire Walsh and I'm the exhibitions and interpretation manager here at the Natural History Museum at Tring, and my job involves looking after all of the exhibitions that you see on display and any temporary exhibitions such as Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Adam: So this is a rather unusual place. I have only just had a very brief look and I've never seen anything quite like it. So just explain to our listeners what it is that we're seeing, what what is this place?
Claire: So the Natural History Museum at Tring is the brainchild of Lionel Walter Rothschild, who was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Walter Rothschild, as as we call him, was gifted the museum by his parents as a 21st birthday present.
Adam: That's quite a birthday, who gets a museum for their 21st? That's quite something.
Claire: Yes, yeah, so, so the family were a hugely wealthy family and Walter's parents owned Tring Park Mansion, which is the the the the big house next door to the museum, which is now a performing arts school, the land of which was formerly a a big deer park, and the Woodland Trust land and our museum is all part of that sort of estate.
Adam: And so this is a Natural History Museum. But as I was saying, it's not like when I've seen normally. So explain to me what it is that differentiates this from other museums people might be acquainted with.
Claire: So we have over 4,000 taxidermied animals on display from all over the world, some of the finest examples of Victorian taxidermy in the world and you can see everything on display from dressed fleas all the way through to wallabies, large deers, birds from all over the world. It really is an absolutely amazing place.
Adam: I've never heard of the species called dressed fleas. Is that a species or is it fleas which have got frocks on?
Claire: So these are fleas that have little outfits on so our our particular dressed fleas have little sombreros. They're from Mexico dressed fleas. We're very fortunate to have them on display and they're they are some of the most popular things in the museum.
Adam: *laughs* Extraordinary. Yeah, I'll go stop and have a look at those. Now, but there was, am I right in saying that that Walter Rothschild in the sort of posh manor, actually had weird animals rolling around, these aren't just stuffed animals, you know, live weird animals, unusual animals, just part of the park?
Claire: Yeah, so to take you back a little bit, Walter Rothschild first became really interested in natural history when he was about 7 and and he then decided to set up the museum. So throughout his teenage years, he started collecting different animals, living and dead. And the park at Tring was home to a lot of the animals so in in the park were lots and lots of living animals that he he kind of just kept there roaming free, so he had things like rheas, cassowaries, ostriches, emus, kangaroos.
Adam: I, I've seen a picture, I think I've seen a picture of him in a sort of horse drawn carriage, except it's drawn by zebras.
Claire: Yeah, so so he decided to train zebras to draw his carriage. So he started off with one zebra and then sort of moved on to having three zebras and a and a pony and he actually took the carriage along Regent Street all the way through the mall in London to Buckingham Palace where where the zebras met the Queen, which was a bit sort of worrying for Rothschild because actually zebras are really difficult to train and quite flighty sort of animals so he's a bit worried about the Queen petting his zebras and and something going wrong, but fortunately it was all fine. The zebras did come out to Tring when they retired as well, so they were also sort of roaming about. I think what you need to imagine is Tring at the time was a really kind of provincial country town, there was a lot farming going on and the Rothschilds came with this, massive amounts of wealth, but they really embedded themselves within the local community and and did lots of, you know, really helped people out. But Walter then started introducing all these animals into the park. He was really interested in adaptation of of different species of animals, so he actually rented out the island of Alhambra in the Seychelles to protect the giant tortoises, but also in Tring you have all of these different exotic animals from all around the world and I can't imagine what it must have been like to just be an ordinary agricultural labourer living in Tring and having the opportunity to walk through the park and just se all these amazing animals that you wouldn't have had the opportunity to see because there's no television.
Adam: It's a really interesting back story to it, but I wonder what you feel about the purpose of the museum and this collection now, when there's a sense I already feel a bit uncomfortable going, is this quite right to be watching stuffed animals, is this in keeping with our modern sensibilities? What's your view on that?
Claire: So our mission really is to educate people about biodiversity and to to ensure that our future generations become advocates for the planet. So we do this by, you know, trying to instil the importance and the wonder and beauty of nature within our collections and tell people about the things that are vanishing. We have lots of extinct and endangered animals on display, which we highlight to our visitors and and you know, to try and get them to understand that they need to look after the natural world today, and obviously our collections are incredibly scientifically important. We have researchers come from all over the world to visit Tring and to study their collections and you know, really make a difference to to our planet in terms of understanding how populations of animals have increased or decreased through time. You know, sort of engage with people and educate people so they look after the planet going forwards.
Adam: And explain to me a little bit about your relationship or the museum's relationship with the Woodland Trust, then.
Claire: So we have a really good relationship with the Woodland Trust. We work hand in hand with them, we share our our sort of knowledge between both of our organisations and advocate for, for you know, the good work that we both do.
Adam: I'm going to have a quick look around before we go off to the to the woodland itself. What's your favourite animal here? What's the favourite thing you think you’d direct me to?
Claire: Oh my goodness, you’ve put me on the spot there. I mean, I really love all the animals in the museum. I think the thylacine is really worth going to have a look at.
Adam: OK, thylacine, never heard of it.
Claire: So the thylacine is an extinct animal. It's an example of something called convergent evolution, where it looks very much like a dog, but it's actually a marsupial. It lived in Australia. So that's upstairs in gallery 5.
Adam: OK, that's where I'll be heading next. Thank you very much. Well, having finished my tour inside the museum, I'm off, it really is just across the road, to the woodland itself to meet my guide for the day.
Grace: My name is Grace Davis, I'm an assistant site manager at the Woodland Trust, I help to manage our woods in Hertfordshire and Essex.
Adam: So we're very lucky. It was raining when I left home. It is not raining, so I don't want to tempt fate but I do want to offer my thanks to whatever power that be. Where are we? Why are we here?
Grace: We're at Tring Park in Hertfordshire. It's just next to the town of Tring. It's 130 hectares of grassland and woodland. It's famous for its chalk grassland and has been designated a SSSI.
Adam: Right. And we were just walking down an avenue really weren't we and you were telling me they're lime trees because I couldn't spot it, but I did have a quick look on my app and just, maybe everyone else knows this, but apparently the nickname for Brits is the limeys, I think Australians call us limeys and it was because the lime trees were made, were used to make ships. And I think the Australians thought they weren’t great wood for trees and sort of nicknamed us limeys. Anyway, there's a little bit of a side note. We passed some cows, rather docile cows. What what are they doing here?
Grace: We've got a a number of cows that graze here most of the year, so they really help us to manage the scrub on the chalk grassland. If nature had its way, the the grassland here would eventually convert to be woodland, which isn't a bad thing but because of the SSSI designation of the chalk grassland here, and because it's a very rare habitat internationally, we really need to manage the scrub and any trees from from taking over, so the cattle are here to browse, to keep the the growth in check of the hawthorn, the blackthorn, the the scrubby species that really want to take over.
Adam: And we passed, just a bit of practical information with people, we passed a little area where I saw a lot of tree planting going on, but also that's going to be a new car park is that right?
Grace: That's right. So we've actually got Tring Park itself on a 400-year lease from the council after it was threatened in the nineties to be turned into a golf course, but we've also invested in this site by converting a patch of land to a car park for 50 spaces, and we hope that that car park will be open soon, very soon, and the one of the real benefits of it is it will provide a level access into the into the grassland, whereas at the moment people generally have to walk over the bridge across the very busy A41 but with the new car park, people will be able to park and walk straight into the grassland. So it will be great for anyone with a pushchair or mobility scooter.
Adam: Fantastic. Now we're we're on a bit of a hill on this path going towards, past the cows on my right, going towards the trees themselves Right just before we head off there here's a Woodland Trust little bit of signage which I don't quite understand, it's a wooden post with a foot cut out of it. It is Walter’s Wander. Walter moved into rooms at Magdalene College with a flock of kiwis, which were soon rehoused and cared for by a local taxidermist. Yeah, I'm not sure a taxidermist cares for animals much. I'm sure he cares, or she cares about her work, but I'm not sure that's the the verb of the job of a taxidermist. Anyway, yeah, so this is Walter’s Wander, and it is Walter Rothschild.
Grace: That's right yeah so this is this is showing a link between Tring Park and the museum of which Walter Rothschild is famous for having his his taxidermy there.
Adam: I mean, he proper barmy. He, Magdalene College, he was a student at university and he brought with him a flock of kiwis. I mean, my kids went to university, they weren't allowed to have a kettle in their room, let alone a flock of kiwis. Better times, eh, let's bring those back! Right off we go. Let's go. This is this is, look, I'll get this wrong, is this hawthorn on the left?
Grace: This is hawthorn, yes.
Adam: Ohh top marks for Adam *laughs* Top marks for Adam, OK.
Grace: We've got dog rose on the right, hawthorn again.
Adam: Oh you see, you're you're showing off, just cause I got one right, you’ve gotta get more right than me. *both laugh* OK, off we go.
Grace: So some of the plants that we have here growing on the chalk grassland have got fantastic names such as fairy flax, birdsfoot trefoil, lady’s bedstraw, salad burnet and you know they've all got different colours, so white, yellows, purple. So if you visit here in spring or summer, there’s just beautiful shades of colour all around the park.
Adam: They’re wildflowers are they?
Grace: Yes, that's right and they’re they they they they’re specialist to chalk grassland. In fact, up to 40 species of chalk grassland plants can grow in one square metre, which is quite astonishing.
Adam: I was taken by lady’s bedstraw. Did ladies use it for their beds?
Grace: I believe it was dried and used in mattresses.
Adam: Blimey. Not just for ladies, gentlemen too, presumably.
Grace: *laughs* Maybe
Adam: Who knows, maybe it was only for ladies. Let's do some research. OK. So we're heading uphill as you can probably hear from my laboured breathing to a wooden gate up there and that that leads us into a more densely wooded area does it?
Grace: Yes, that's right so that's the mature woodland up there. And we'll be we'll be leading on to the King Charles Ride, which is quite interesting for its connection with King Charles II.
Adam: So what tell me whilst we're walking up, you can talk which will mean people can't hear me panting. Tell tell me about King Charles Ride.
Grace: So Tring actually used to belong to King Charles II's wife. Catherine of Braganza, I think was her name. So King Charles is known to have visited the area and the avenue was named after him, and it's also heavily rumoured that his famous mistress Nell Gwynn came here with him on certain visits. She may well have lived in Tring during a typhus outbreak in London. There's also a monument here that is rumoured to be dedicated to her, which would make it the only public monument in the country to be dedicated to a royal mistress.
Adam: Wow, good knowledge.
Grace: I've got my notes *laughs*
Adam: If only this comes up in Trivial Pursuit. I go where's the only monument to a royal mistress? And I'll get, I'll astound people at dinner parties. Good stuff. So we’re taking a little break and I've turned around and actually it's it's beautiful looking back, we’re up at the top of a a small valley we can see a road ahead of us that will be the A something, A41 says my expert and the sun is cutting through greyish clouds hitting the fields, green fields and the hills beyond the A41. And it looks really pretty. I mean, it's an interesting point, isn't it, that that people, the clue’s in the name, the Woodland Trust, people feel it's about, get as many trees in the ground as possible. But it's not quite like that is it, because here in this particular patch you're doing what you can to prevent trees growing?
Grace: That's right. I mean, scrub, scrub and woodland are obviously fantastic habitats for a range of species. But but chalk grassland really needs a low, low, low sward so a short height of the,
Adam: Low sward, what’s sward?
Grace: Sward is the height of the the grass and the plants. So you can see it's quite low because the cattle are browsing it. So we need to keep that low. And the cattle will browse, they will eat like the young hawthorn and blackthorn and things coming through. They won't touch, really the the bigger, more established patches. But they'll keep the young stuff from coming through, and they'll reduce the competition of more dominant weeds like dandelion and things from from coming through. They they grow very fast and they will shade out and outcompete the slower growing rare chalk grassland species.
Adam: And I mean, as we're sitting here and it's sort of mid-October-ish. We're starting to see the trees change colour aren't they, you can see in the lower bits they're not this uniform green. We've got reds and yellows and coppers just coming out. It is this time of change in the year, isn't it?
Grace: That's right, yeah, it's quite beautiful, actually, at this time of year. Although we're saying we don't have the colours of the of the chalk grassland plants at the moment, but we do have the lovely changing colours of the trees. Yeah so this area here was enclosed about 300 years ago by by fencing, presumably, which which meant that a lot of the habitat was kept intact. It wasn't developed on and it's preserved the historic landscape as well of the area, and in fact it's, Tring Park is a Grade II historic parkland because of the ornamental park and garden features, which we'll we'll we'll see some of as we get to the top.
Adam: Lovely. Have we rested enough?
Grace: Yeah, let’s push on.
Adam: Push on.
Grace: It will be muddy this next bit, but it's not for very long.
Adam: OK. Ohh you can, you might be able to hear the sound effects of this getting very muddy.
Grace: Yes, claggy.
Adam: We've come into well, we're on a path, a little clearing and there is a mighty, mighty tree. But it's it's certainly dead. But it looks like something from a Harry Potter movie, The Witches or Macbeth, something like that. What's the story there?
Grace: Well that's a tree perhaps it was struck by lightning, or it's just decayed you know, with old age. That's what we would call a veteran tree. So it's got wonderful cavity at the base there, it's got fungi growing on it. It's got the the top is all split off. It's open, open at the top for birds to nest in. You know, we we really do like to keep as much deadwood on a site as possible. It's just fantastic for invertebrates, bugs, beetles, fungi. There's about 2,000 invertebrate species that are reliant on dead or decaying woods, so you know, we're really working at the at the base of the ecosystem to get those small creatures into the woodland ecosystem for, you know, birds, mammals to to then eat and forming the wonderful woodland ecology that we that we need.
Adam: So it it's not a good idea to clear away these things and make everything look neat. It's actually it's part of the ecosystem. There's it's funny cause you can't see anything that you know, there's no leaves on it or anything, but you're saying there's lots of animals actually dependent on that dead wood.
Grace: That's right. Yeah. Really, it's really. That's right. If we had a closer look, we'd see all sorts of small bugs and beetles and crawly, creepy, crawly things. There may well be bats that roost in there, birds that nest in there, probably fungi around the base and at the cavities.
Adam: Right. And that's supporting other animals who need to eat on that and and the soil itself obviously, which is increasingly a big issue, isn't it?
Grace: That's right. Yeah, of course, well that, that, that tree will eventually decay into the soil and the soil health of woodland is really really important.
Adam: Yeah, I mean, that's an increasingly big issue for people, isn't it? We don't we don't think about much about the soil, we look above the soil, but the soil health is a huge concern and and increasing issue for people to maintain, isn't it?
Grace: That's right. I mean, the trees will come and go over hundreds of years but the soil will remain, and it's got those nutrients that have built up for hundreds and hundreds of years, especially in an ancient woodland, so it it's really the soil that is the most important thing in an ancient woodland.
Adam: And remind me this is something I definitely should know but, is is there a definition of ancient woodland? Is there a cut off period?
Grace: Yeah, it's trees that date back to the the 1600s, which is really when records began of mapping out the country and what the land uses were.
Adam: Right, OK. And we're just going up, here are two or three felled trees. We’ve gotta turn right here have we?
Grace: That's right yeah.
Adam: They look like they've been cut down just left or no, they're very black. Is that fire or something?
Grace: I think that's just water from the, from the rain, because that tree there is very dark isn’t it.
Adam: Right, oh yeah, that's dark. So we’ve come up to the top of the hill, or is there much, is there another hill?
Grace: No, no, no, no more hills. Maybe just gently undulating, but no more hills.
Adam: OK, right. So we're at the top of the hill. But I see a regal path ahead. I can imagine myself in my zebra drawn carriage riding down here, waving, if not at my people, then at my trees. So is this all in my imagination or is this is this the King Charles road?
Grace: I'm not sure if the zebras made it up here, but this is known as the King Charles Ride, named after Charles II, we're also on the Ridgeway Trail, which is Britain's oldest road.
Adam: Sorry, this this road I'm standing on now?
Grace: That's right yeah, this, this, this stretch is part of an 87-mile national trail that stretches from Buckinghamshire to Wiltshire. It would have been used by drovers, traders, soldiers for at least 5,000 years.
Adam: Gosh, that's extraordinary.
Grace: So if if if, if, if one is so inclined, you can walk from Buckinghamshire to Wiltshire, or do it in reverse, taking in wonderful views, and you know, walking in vhy many hundreds of years of ancestors’ footprints.
Adam: Yeah. And and how many times have you done that walk then?
Grace: *laughs* Zero. But I would like to do it one day.
Adam: One day. OK. Well, you could do it in bits. I'll do I'll do the first kilometre with you.
Grace: Lots of people do do it in bits. They park up, they walk a stretch and they get somebody to pick them up at the other end and take them back to their car. But actually I was I was on site here in the summer and I heard some like tinkling bells and looked up and it was two guys with huge backpacks and they were walking from the start of the Ridgeway Trail all the way to the Avebury standing stones in Wiltshire for the summer solstice.
Adam: Blimey. How long would that, do you know how long that would have taken them?
Grace: I don't know actually. Maybe a couple of weeks.
Adam: Wow. And they had tinkling bells. I think you just sort of threw that in, which I think is that might get on my nerves with two weeks of walking with someone with a tinkling bell. Any idea why they were, were they just magical folk?
Grace: They looked a little bit magical, but also I think it was day one so they might have ditched the tinkling bells after day one.
Adam: Well, and actually we should, that's extraordinary, but I want to stop here because there's another felled tree and you were talking about the importance of actually decaying wood and even to the semi untrained eye like mine, we’ve got a tree trunk lying on its side and the roots of a tree still embedded covered in moss, but also fungi all over the place here. I mean, this is it's not a dead bit of wood at all really is it, it's hosting a huge amount of life.
Grace: Yeah, it's absolutely living. Numerous fungi, species and bracket fungi here on the side. Smaller, smaller ones down there, you can see like the holes where beetles and different invertebrates are getting into the deadwood, what what, which is getting softer and softer over time. Ahhuge cavity over there, which could be used for all sorts of species.
Adam: Looks like an elephant's foot at the bottom, doesn't it? Really does, amazing. Amazing that. Ah, OK. Back to the path. And we are, I mean, look, it's actually quite nice weather at a time of year where the weather isn't going to stay with us much and we are the only people. And I can see all the way down the King Charles Avenue and yes, just us, just us. All right, now we've had to stop because you got very excited about something you said ‘Stop!’. So why?
Grace: That's right yeah so these are young lime trees that have originally come from the veteran lime trees we saw at the avenue at the start of our walk. So we've we've propagated, we've taken the seed from those veteran limes and we've grown them on into these young lime trees which we've planted up here because those those lime trees on the lime avenue they're not gonna live forever. They've hopefully got many hundreds of years left, but we want to continue their historic link to the site so this is seed from those very trees that we've planted up here on the King Charles Ride.
Adam: And since, I mean, lime is obviously there's a lot of lime trees we've already been talking about that here. Just give me a as part of our online tree identity course, how do you spot a lime?
Grace: So you you can tell a lime generally from the quite heart shape of its leaf, and they do also have quite quite unique looking seed pods as well.
Adam: They've got little things on them. They flutter around to help them fly, like I always think of them as mini helicopters but anyway. OK, great.
Grace: There's a word for those things I can't think what they’re called.
Adam: Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll call them mini helicopters and see if it catches on.
Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah *laughs*
Adam: Yes, it's getting spookily dark under the canopy here, so these are clearly not lime trees. What sort of trees are these?
Grace: We've got a lot of mature yew trees here which are causing quite a bit of shade at the moment across the ride.
Adam: Yeah. So you showed you showed me how to spot a lime. How do you know these are yew trees?
Grace: So yews have got these needle-like leaves a little bit like a Christmas tree sort of leaf. But but needles and they also have usually very sort of gnarly, flaky bark and red berries. Hopefully we'll see some, that would be quite fun, they're quite a quite an interesting shape.
Adam: And yew trees are some of the oldest living trees, aren't they?
Grace: They can live a very long time, yes.
Adam: I thought, is it, I might be getting confused but I thought is it yew trees that often get planted in graveyards.
Grace: Yeah, that's right. Yes.
Adam: And I think, I mean, who knows? I think I've heard examples, you know in the thousand, 1,000 year old or or even more which is properly ancient.
Grace: Yes. I believe they were there before the graveyards,
Adam: Ohh I see it was the other way round.
Grace: Yeah, that's what I've read because the yews were connected to Paganism and the, the, the, the, I believe the churchyards were built on these sort of sacred or spiritual sites where the trees were already in place.
Adam: Right. Yes, must have something to do with rebirth or longevity of, you know, I'm I'm sure I've heard of a yew tree being 2,000 years old, so you’re thinking, God you know, there's a yew tree from the age of Jesus Christ which really think, makes you ponder doesn't it, but that's I didn't realise you thought it was the other way around, I thought they planted yew trees in graveyards rather than they built graveyards around yew trees, but it makes more sense in some ways. So we're taking a little path to the left. I say little it's also rather grand, to be honest. But I know why I'm being taken down here cause at the end I can see a stone monument of some description. So I’ll see what it is when I get there and you can hear the time of year, the leaves are falling, you might be able to hear that rustle. So this is an unexpected find, we come into another clearing and there is a huge stone monument. Grace, what on earth, what is this?
Grace: This is the obelisk. It's a it's one of two Scheduled Ancient Monuments here, we'll see the other one shortly. It was built in in the early 18th century, so it's contemporary with the the the start of the parkland here. And probably designed by the architect James Gibbs. And it's said to be dedicated to Nell Gwynn.
Adam: I mean, there's nothing on it, when you said you were taking me to see something dedicated to Nell Gwynn, you'd think they'd have a blooming statue of Nell Gwynn. It's, I mean, but it is huge and it's got a a round bauble at the top, I'm just going round it to see if there's any markings on the base, which there isn't. So maybe maybe this was a sort of you know, I'm going to publicly recognise you with this enormous monument, but because you're not the queen, I can't put your name on it. Amazing. Oh, my goodness, I'm turning around and there's another stunning thing at the end of this pathway, it's just full of surprises. So this looks like a Palladian villa at the end of this pathway, so is this also to Nell Gwyn but says nothing about her on it?
Grace: No, I no, I don't think so. This is the summer house. The other Scheduled Ancient Monument here, again designed by the same architect. Well, we'll see when we get there, but it it looks certainly very impressive from the front, but we'll see more up close what lies behind.
Adam: Ohh, you see, you're teasing me now *both laugh* Why she goes ohh what's, what does lie behind that villa? Alright. Let's go find out. You said go go at the back. There's something. It looks like it's very crowded at the back. Let's have a look. Ohh, there's nothing to it. There isn't a back. It's just a facade.
Grace: That's right. The facade is all that remains now.
Adam: There, there, there was more to it was there?
Grace: There was more. It was it was an actual building, it was lived in by a gamekeeper and and his son in the 19th century.
Adam: What a house for a gamekeeper. It's fit for a king. That's extraordinary.
Grace: But it was demolished to make way for the Wiggington Road, which you might be able to hear in the background.
Adam: Oh, how disappointing. Nonetheless a very nice pied-a-terre.
Grace: It looks like an ancient temple from the front.
Adam: It does. I just need a bit, you know, 4 foot at the back, I'll move in. Very nice. Now this has properly been a real treat, but modern life is intervening not only in the shape of the cars you might hear in background, but I have a Teams call with some TV producers I have to meet in about half an hour and they will be not and they will not be amused if I say I'm lost in a wood. So modern life as ever drags you back, what's the way home Grace?
Grace: I'll I'll I'll walk you back, don't worry.
Adam: Thank you, thank you, you're not going to just leave me to follow a trail of breadcrumbs back to the car. Well, that was quite a trip. If you want to visit Tring Park, it is on the A41, 30 miles North West of London and if you go to the Woodland Trust website, type in Tring Park, you'll find lots of other ways of getting there by bus, by train, on foot, by bicycle and even the What 3 Words location to use as well. And if you want to find a wood nearer you than Tring Park, well type into your search engine of choice Woodland Trust find a wood and you'll find one near you. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Sheltering from the rain under a yew tree in a Shrewsbury churchyard, we chat to 'Tree Pilgrim' Martin Hügi, the Trust's outreach manager in the South East. He’s taken a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats and visit thousands of incredible trees along the way. Hear Martin on awe-inspiring trees that have rendered him speechless, the vital Ancient Tree Inventory that helped plan the route, the value of ‘plugging in’ to nature and what's in his kit bag! We also hear from Adele, who explains that old trees like those on Martin’s pilgrimage are not protected or prioritised like our built heritage. Find out what you can do to help.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Today I am off to meet the Tree Pilgrim, which is the moniker of Martin Hugi, who is doing a proper marathon pilgrimage from Land's End to John O'Groats using the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory, so you're gonna visit a huge number of ancient and veteran trees, something like 6,500 of them he's expecting along his walk and I caught up with him in Shrewsbury in Shropshire, which is just on the River Severn about 150 miles or thereabouts, north, north west of London, and I caught up with him at a rather rainy churchyard. This is very unusual because normally I join people on walks, but actually you've been walking for what, what day is it?
Martin: I’m on day... 79 today
Adam: You had to think about that!
Martin: I had to think about that.
Adam: Yeah. So this is so you've actually taken a break and you've come into Shrewsbury and we're, we're we are in a green space in a churchyard where, now we're we're here for a special reason. Why?
Martin: So last night I was giving a talk, talking about ancient trees and the the need for greater protection and just telling my story of what I've been up to.
Adam: Right, well, first of all tell me a bit about this pilgrimage you're going on.
Martin: Yeah. So I'm calling it an ancient tree pilgrimage and it is a walk from Land's End to John O'Groats and I spent 12 months planning meticulously a route between some of the most amazing trees that I could fit into a north-south route and working out the detail of how I wassgoing to get to those trees via other trees on the Ancient Tree Inventory.
Adam: So the Land's End to John O'Groats, which that walk, famous sort of trip which is called LEGO for short, is it?
Martin: LEJOG, or JOGLE if you go the other way.
Adam: LEJOG, right OK, LEJOG.
Martin: Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Adam: OK. It’s long if you do it straight, but you've gone, gone a sort of wiggly woggly way, haven't you? Because you're going actually via interesting trees. So how many miles is that gonna be?
Martin: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, it's if you're going to go a sort of more classic route, it would be something like 1,080 or 1,100 sort of miles. The route that I've planned is 2,077 miles.
Adam: Wow.
Martin: So it’s double.
Adam: 2,077 mile walk.
Martin: Yeah, I had estimated doing 18 miles a day. That would be, that was my average. I'd sort of planned rough stops where I thought I might be able to get to. I'm more doing about 13 miles a day, which is not a lot less, but it's, I'm spending more time with the trees. And I, we also we lost our our dog on the day that I was setting off. We went down to Penzance to start and we took our our old family dog with us and he was very old and and elderly and he actually died on the morning that I was going to set off. So we just drove back home and didn't fancy starting again for another couple of weeks. So if you can be behind on a pilgrimage, I was already 2 weeks behind, but actually, I'm on a pilgrimage, so it's it's it's about the journey.
Adam: Would you say you're a religious person?
Martin: Not in the classic sense of an organised religion, but I, I do have a spiritual side to me for sure. Yeah.
Adam: And what difference then, you you talk about this tree pilgrimage and it not being about the distance, it's about the journey, which, you know, one often hears. What, if anything, have you learnt about your feelings for the natural world, or what you think it can offer you, or what you can offer it during this journey so far?
Martin: Yeah, I think I'm learning about my connection with nature and ancient trees and the sites that they sit in as being good places to access that connection. So one of the stories that I tell is about meeting the Majesty Oak in Fredville Park in Kent. And we went with a conservation trip with work and it's just such an incredible tree at it's 12.5 metre girth and a maiden oak. And it just goes straight up and it's just it's, it's, it's bulk, it's sheer dominance and size literally blew my mind to the point where I was speechless for a couple of minutes and I wasn't the only one, and because I think it it just it takes you out of the ordinary state of ‘this is what a tree is’ and it put me into a state of, this is something different, and it was a a real feeling of awe and I get that from ancient trees, I sometimes I will feel awe and that's a a rare feeling in my life and potentially a lot of people's lives. And I think that's well, that's what I'm seeking, I suppose, but it's almost like a gateway feeling for other potential feelings that you can cultivate around nature and trees. Just things like respect and gratitude, and I've actually found myself thanking some of the trees because of, they're just full, so full of life and and they're persisting and the resilience and feeling actual gratitude that they persist and doing what they do.
Adam: And you must meet a lot of people on your walk. 70 odd days in so far, they must ask you what on Earth you're doing and must give you some sort of response. What, have people been surprised, shocked, do they think you're nuts? Do they go ‘can I join you’? What's been the response?
Martin: All of those things, I suppose. Yeah, I'll, I'll sort of tell them what I'm doing and and as soon as I get to Ancient Tree Inventory, I get a blank look.
Adam: OK. Well, you say lots of people don't know about this, let's talk about this. First of all, what is it, and then how do people get involved?
Martin: Yes. So it is a citizen science project, it's an open publicly accessible data set of ancient trees across the UK.
Adam: And so I could, I mean, for instance, today if we think we found this ancient tree, we would go on the register and go, here it is, we think it's a, you know, a an ancient oak or what whatever it is and we measure its girth, its its width at about do you do it about 3 metres high? Is that what you meant to do?
Martin: It’s 1.5 metres.
Adam: So only twice wrong *laughs* there we are, well a good margin of error. Yeah, 3 metres is too high. No, I'm short as it is, overblown idea of how tall I am. So 1.5 metres high you sort of take a tape measure and you measure it and you say you you think you you know what it is, you give it a good go and there's lots of online apps you can help you. And you sort of make comments about the tree. You sort of say it's in this sort of condition, but you don't have to be an expert, it is just fine to give it give it a go.
Martin: Absolutely and and actually you don't need a tape measure, you can you can make an estimate and if you don't know what the tree is exactly or don't know what it is at all, you can still add it to the inventory and it will, it won't appear as a public facing record at that point, but it will show up to an ancient tree verifier, a volunteer ancient tree verifier. It will show up as an unverified tree and and I I am an ancient tree verifier, since 2008, and I'll be able to see that there's an unverified tree here and I can go along, I can say, well, it is an oak and I can measure it if I can measure it, if it's possible. And I can record other details about the tree like its veteran characteristics.
Adam: So already, I mean I don't get too bogged down into all of this, but I get notable trees like an event has happened under them, and there's lots of amazing trees where the Magna Carta was signed under one the Tolpuddle Martyr, the first ever union was created under a tree, so there's lots of historically important trees like that. But the the difference between veteran and ancient, is there a clear distinction between those?
Martin: No, in a way it's a subjective thing, but there is guidelines. There are, for different species, there are graphs saying if it's over this sort of girth you you would, it would be erring into an ancient tree. And and different species and different growth rates so there'll be different sizes. My, so a sort of colloquial definition is it's a tree that makes you go wow, would be an ancient tree and be that awe inspiring sort of feeling. But then also an ancient tree is one where you can see that it's been through multiple stages of growth, and what you'd say as a development phase for a tree, so an oak tree for example, you’d be able to see that it's it's, it's gone up and it's done it’s mature oak, it's lost limbs and then it's shrunk back down again and then it's gone back up again and then it's come back down again and it's gone back up again and you can see that history in the shape and form of an ancient tree. So an ancient tree is a veteran tree. It's just that it's been a veteran multiple times and it's gone through them.
Adam: And presumably it's different for different species, because I mean, we're looking at a couple of yews, I mean, a yew tree can last 2,000 years. So what might be old for a yew tree is very different, might be old for a cherry tree, for instance. So you you can't apply the same rule for all trees, presumably.
Martin: You can apply that same thinking and principle to all trees that, has it been through multiple stages of life and development. Yew trees for sure are some of the oldest living trees. Something that's really stood out to me in Powys, in Wales and, is how they will put roots down into the inside of their decaying stems. Roots go down, they're called adventitious roots, and it's literally feeding off of the decaying body of itself and then those adventitious roots become stems, and I've seen this over and over, and again in some of the oldest yews that, the internal stems are adventitious roots and the outside of the tree is decayed and and hollow and and so in theory a yew tree is potentially immortal. You know, they just go on and on because you you can see some of these big stems that will have adventitious roots inside them, but that big stem might have been an adventitious route originally, so they're just incredible trees and and all trees will do that.
Adam: And so why is it important that this thing exists? I mean, why why make a register of ancient trees, apart from the fact you might want like quite like an excuse to go around the country listing them, which I I get that might be fun, but why is it important?
Martin: I think there are, there's there's several reasons, really. I mean, apart from, I mean a simple one would be cultural and social history and the heritage as part of our our common collective heritage. But then there's also from a some more sort of biological view, they are old genetics, they're old genes that have persisted, so they're adapted to their conditions, who knows how many offspring they've generated and the genetics that that tree came from, you know, going back into millennia, so I think they're an important reserve of genetic history. They're also nodes of undisturbed soils, so they obviously clearly have been there such a long time that the roots and the mycorrhizal associations under the ground and the complexity of life that is in that area, it's like a node of of life and of part of our landscape that hasn't changed and that is an incredibly important place, akin to ancient woodland soils.
Adam: And the whole the whole idea about ancient woodland itself is that you can't replace tree for tree, you can't knock down an ancient tree and and put in a new tree and it be as environmentally beneficial, so it's surely it's important because if we know about how to modify our landscape, if we're, whether where we should build new homes or or or anything, then actually it's important to know what we're disturbing, you can only do that if you know what's there.
Martin: Absolutely, yeah and I mean *church bells ring* sorry that’s just distracted me *laughs*.
Adam: That's fine, distracted, distracted, slightly by the the ominous bells of the church in whose yard we are sitting in at the moment. So, you know, we're we're under a beech, you might hear the rain. We're cowering from sort of fairly light rain and in this churchyard and just listening to those those bells, anyway, they've they've gone, they've gone so.
Martin: It’s where Charles Darwin was baptised.
Adam: In this church? Charles Darwin? Well, that, that raises a really interesting point, because also I know the local community were trying to protect an oak. And they called it the Charles Darwin Oak. You know, it's always good to have a name, isn't it? And they called it that because they think, well, you know, Charles Darwin could legitimately have played under this oak. It's old enough, and it's where he was baptised and everything. And it raises this issue, doesn't it, about people's connections to trees and local communities’ connections to trees and it, I mean, I, from, as an outsider, it feels that that is becoming more a thing more a thing that people talk about, just regular people do feel it's important to have this connection.
Martin: I I think it's it's it really is yeah. I think people are now realising much more how the trees and the ecosystems around them actually provide us with the atmosphere and the our ability to live on this planet. It really is such a fundamental part of being human and survival to look after these green spaces that it's it's, you know, people are, people do realise that I think people do recognise that.
Adam: It it brings us on to the debate about the environment and protection. It was interesting, on the way here, I was reading an article by Jonathan Friedland, the great writer, who was talking about the ecological debate, saying they've said the the ecological sort of lobby group have the argument right, but they're using the wrong words and and he was saying that you know that that their argument isn't framed in the right way, but it feels like this is a super important moment, maybe a flex point, one doesn’t want to overemphasise these things, sort of, but does feel that, I mean, right this week we are seeing heatwaves, I mean sort of properly dangerous heatwaves in southern Europe. Flooding, there was flooding on the motorway as I came here, so we have extremes of weather which feel very unusual for this sort of early summery type period. How worried are you about the environment and our ability to actually do something to protect it and our place in it?
Martin: I am confident that we have the know-how and the ability as humans to change our ways to a more sustainable way of living in harmony. I think that is changing. I think the economics has got to be part of this debate and the conversation, I I read a fantastic book in 2008 by Eric Beinhocker, The Origin of Wealth. I don't know if you've heard of this and looking at the environment as complex adaptive systems, but he was also saying how the economy is a complex adaptive system and evolution of economy, evolution is a, you you can't predict a thing what's going to happen sometimes and
Adam: No, I understand. And that's interesting to the, that the economy is itself an ecology and it adapts to the environment that it's facing. And I agree, I used to do a series for the BBC called Horizons when we travelled the world looking at technology. And I tend to the panicky, I have to say, and I thought this wouldn't be good for me when I'm looking at big challenges facing the world. And actually, I was really drawn to the fact that there are tech solutions to all sorts of issues, and it's often the money that's preventing, you go, ‘we can fix it, it's just not commercially viable’. No one wants to pay to do this at the moment, but if oil prices went through the roof, suddenly this alternative would be commercially viable. So it was, we talk a lot about technology, sometimes it is the economics of it which are preventing us from doing things and the economics change, don't they? So that that might be.
Martin: They do and it's something that is not predictable because there's so many moving components, there's so many interactions, there's so many feedback loops that, I mean, that's something that intrigues me about complex systems is that, the more complexity you have, the more feedback loops, the more agents that are interacting with each other in a system, the more resilient it is to change, but it can shift if if you if you get some events that are just too too much or you you degrade the amount of complexity then that system becomes less stable and that's the, that's the danger with, potentially what we're doing with trees and our environment, our, if you like a tree is an emergent property of the soil, it's it's an expression of of of what, of plant life and it's it started as algae coming out of warm freshwater, sea, freshwater in, 600 million years ago and and partnering with fungi to make, to have lichens. And then you get soil and then other things, other more complex plants evolve and then we've ended up with trees and they're like the, an emergent property of complex systems of the soil.
Adam: So we're talking about people's interaction with the environment. I should explain some of the symphony of sound we're hearing. So we we had the church bells, we had the rain above us. And I think there is a charity Race for Life with, thousands of people have emerged, in in a bit of green land we were going to actually walk through. And I think there's a sort of charity run going on, which is why you might hear, some big blaring music in the background, which is not as quiet a spot as we thought we might have ended up with, but does show the amenity value of these open green spaces. It's just rather a lot of people have chosen to use it on, on this particular day. One of the other things I just want to talk to you about as well while we’re talking about this debate, and I know you talk on on behalf of yourself, not the Trust, and you're taking a sabbatical so these are your views, but given the debate we're all having, it feels to me that we talk a lot about armageddon. And I know from talking to people, you know, my family, they they sort of just disengage with after a while it just becomes background noise. And I wonder if you have an idea or an insight into how to talk about these issues to explain that they are potentially the difference between humans surviving and not surviving and yet not just sound like, some crazy guy screaming into the wind and also to stop people going ‘well, if that's the way it is then you know what am I gonna do I, I just better carry on because I can't do anything about it’. Is there a key that we're missing you feel, or an emphasis that we have wrong in engaging with this topic?
Martin: I don't know if I would say I have an answer to whether it's wrong or not, or the way we engage with it, but I think for me the the key is connection to nature and encouraging people and you've got to start young, I think, getting children through forest school perhaps, getting them out outside and experiencing nature because that's where nature connection comes from. And you don't need a, you don't need an ancient tree to to give you a sense of awe. I mean you I I can and ppeople can find awe in a tiny flower, but it's just a case of looking and spending time plugging in if you like.
Adam: You're right. I mean, I'm not sure I'd quite describe it as awe, but I often have in my car like a a little bit of a berry or an acorn and and you know, sometimes, it’s going to sound weird now I'm describing it *laughs* but if I'm in a traffic jam or something and I look at those things and go actually, do you know what, if that was a piece of jewellery that was designed almost identical, we’d pay a lot of money for it and we’d go, ‘isn't that beautiful?’ And you'd hang it around your neck in a way that you probably wouldn't hang an acorn around your neck or most people wouldn't. And yet you look at it and you go, it's quite extraordinary when you take time to look at these things a leaf or something, and I don't want to sound, you know, too Mother Earthy about it and people to, turn people off about that. But taking the time just to look, sometimes, you go, the wonder is in the detail. It is there actually it’s quite fun and it's free.
Martin: Yeah and and I think when we when we go into a potentially, you know an undisturbed habitat like an ancient woodland where there is complexity and and you you immerse yourself in those areas, that's that's where you you you you can see, you can feel life.
Adam: Let me take you back to your walk, because, from which I have dragged you. A hundred odd days planned on the road, carrying all your own stuff. That means you have to find a place to sleep. Wash every now and then. I mean you you smell beautiful so I'm I'm assuming you've found some magic trick or you are washing and carrying clothes. What, just what is the trick for doing that? Because sometimes I go away for the weekend and I feel I'm already carrying far too much. How are you doing a hundred odd day walk carrying everything. What's the trick, what's your sort of kit list?
Martin: Yeah, I I did spend about two years actually building up different kits and trying different things to be as lightweight as possible. But that's in a way that, the whole having to find somewhere to camp, having to find water, these are basic simple things that take you away from all the other stuff that is going on you know, in my life sort of thing so I can actually immerse myself into the flow of of that journey.
Adam: So, but just because you, look, you're wearing a lightweight top, it's it's raining. No coat at the moment, I mean, but sort of how much clothes are you taking? And you know, yeah, how many, how, how many shirts? How many socks? How many pairs of pants? I've never asked this of another man before *laughs* How many pairs of pants do you have?
Martin: Right. Well, I can answer that *laughs* I have five pairs of pants, five pairs of socks, three pairs, three shirts, three T-shirts and just one top that I'm wearing now, a rainjacket and some waterproof trousers and some walking trousers and a pair of shorts. That is actually my clothing list. The the socks, the pants and the T-shirts are all merino wool essentially so they're very lightweight, they're very thin, very lightweight. Don't, merino wool or wool doesn't pick up smells and odours readily. The socks have got silver woven into them, so they're antifungal, antibacterial, and they're pretty amazing socks, actually. And they they dry as well. So the T-shirts are very thin merino wool T-shirts. I can wash them and they'll be dry in a few hours, especially with the hot weather that I was having in May and June.
Adam: Not, not the rain, nothing's gonna dry in this rain, although this tree is providing some amazing cover for us. So look, you've come into Shrewsbury to to to meet me to have a look at this ancient tree, which I I might leave you to measure yourself given the the increasing amount of rain that is pouring down on us. And I stupidly did not bring a coat because I just thought it was such nice weather when I left. Anyway, what is, when I leave you, where are you off to? Where is the next sort of part of this walk taking you?
Martin: Well, I am, will be taken back to my tent, which I've left at a campsite in, near Brecon and and then I am heading north to some yew trees and then to, up to Welshpool and Oswestry and then across into, towards in between Liverpool and Manchester and then north, Cumbria, Scotland. We'll see how, how, how far we get.
Adam: I know you thought the first bit of the trip you've you've not been on pace to actually complete it, but you never know, it, you might pick up, it might might get easier going.
Martin: I’ve actually slowed down and I thought I would speed up as I went along and as I got fitter and stronger I thought I would speed up but actually I've started to slow down and go at the pace, at a pace that my body wants to go at as well as the time and mental space that I wanted to to have from this trip. Yeah.
Adam: That's the difference in us. You're you're going to go off and measure a tree, and I'm going to find a coffee *laughs* some, somewhere dry. Look, best of luck, an amazing journey. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if you've been inspired by Martin's journey and want to help protect veteran and ancient trees but don't want to take a marathon walk the length of the country, there is still something you can do from the comfort of your armchair.
Adele: So, I'm Adele Benson, I'm a campaigner at the Woodland Trust.
Adam: So what can people do to actually help?
Adele: We're running currently the Living Legends campaign to secure better legal protection for our oldest and most special trees. Because ultimately we are seeing some of our oldest trees with, you know, immense ecological wildlife and historic value being felled, or the value of them is not being fully appreciated in law. We've got a petition with almost 50,000 signatures and and we're trying to ultimately get to 100,000.
Adam: So if anyone is interested, they can search the Woodland Trust’s Living Legends campaign on their computer and you can sign that online. Great, great stuff. I I think people might be surprised to learn that buildings often, or perhaps most of the time, get better legal protection than trees, even if the trees are older and actually more significant than the built structure next to it.
Adele: Yeah. So in Hampstead Heath, there's a, it's approximately 300 year old beech tree. And and it was planted next to a fence that had just been erected so think back 300 years ago. Now this fence has a Grade II listing on it, but the beech tree doesn't have any legal protection at all. So when they were found that the roots of the beech tree and the trunk was sort of impacting quite heavily on the fence, they were very, they wanted to essentially cut down this tree and remove it. However, that's not now happened luckily, but it's essentially having that equivalent of protection that is so desperately needed because we're valuing this this built heritage but we're not valuing this natural heritage that we have such a wealth of in the UK. The Woodland Trust celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and in that time, it's been working considerably to protect some of our oldest and most special trees and woodland, and ultimately I think it's now a time for action.
Adam: So let's just remind everyone that is the Living Legends campaign, which you can search for online if you want to sign that petition. And if you just want to find a woodland near you to walk in, just go to the Woodland Trust website, type in, find a wood that will come up with a whole range of places near you that you can visit. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Discover the fascinating ancient art of coppicing as we visit Priory Grove in Wales' Wye Valley, where the technique is still practised on a small scale to benefit both people and wildlife. We meet site manager Rob and contractor Joe to learn more about the coppicing carried out here, and how this interaction between people and nature has enabled the two to develop and evolve in tandem. Also in this episode, find out how an unfortunate end for ash trees resulted in a fantastic sea of wild garlic, the team’s efforts to encourage dormice, bats, pine martens and other wildlife and which tree to identify by likening the trunk to elephants’ feet!
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Well, today I am off to Priory Grove, which is next door really to the River Wye near Monmouth in Wales to meet the site manager Rob there who's gonna give me a bit of a tour. It's predominantly made up of ancient woodland and provides a wide range of habitats for wildlife. Things like roe, fallow deer, they're known to forage throughout the area, and a wide variety of bird species, including the tawny owl, sparrowhawk, and the great spotted woodpecker, which can all be seen on the wing here. All very exciting and I’ve just got to find it and find Rob.
Rob: Hello, I'm Rob Davies, site manager, South East Wales.
Adam: So tell me a little bit about where we are and why this is significant.
Rob: This is Priory Grove woodland. It's quite a large site on the outskirts of Monmouth, but nobody really knows what its history is. It's it's called Priory Grove, presumably because it was attached to one of the monastic estates round here. And that probably accounts for its survival as one of the one of the largest ancient woodlands next to Monmouth. And it did retain a lot of its coppice woodland, which is quite important for biodiversity.
Adam: Right. And what we're, I mean, we're standing by some felled, are these oak?
Rob: These are oak. Yes, oak, oak in length.
Adam: So why why have these been felled?
Rob: This is part of the coppice restoration programme, so coppicing on this site has been a management tool that's been used for hundreds if not thousands of years in this area and it's used to produce products like this, this oak that will go into timber framing and furniture and all those good things. And also, firewood is part of the underwood and the the the hazel and the the the understory coppice. So products for people and in the past it was used for all kinds of things before we had plastic. But it's still very useful, and so because it didn't cease until recently on this site, the animals and plants and the fauna that relies upon this method that have evolved with it essentially in the last 10,000 years or so since we've been managing woods in this way, still are present here on this site or in the local area. So if you continue the cycle you continue this interaction with the wildlife and you can help to reverse the biodiversity declines. So it's very holistic, really this management technique. But it does mean that to make space for the coppice regrowth, because trees don't grow under trees, you know it needs the light. The light needs to be there for the coppice to come up again. You have to take out some of these mature oaks that were planted 150, 200 years ago, with the intention of being used in the future. So we're planting things and we're carrying out the plans, we're bringing them to fruition, what people enacted a couple of hundred years ago.
Adam: It it's interesting, isn't it, because it it it is an ancient woodland, but that doesn't mean it's an untouched woodland, because for hundreds of years it's it's been managed. Man has had a hand in this and not only that, commerce has had a hand in that, so often I think we think of these things as a dichotomy. You have ancient woodland, nice, pristine sort of nature, and then you have sort of horrible invasive commerce. Actually, I think what's interesting about this site is that there isn't that dichotomy. They both work in tandem, is that fair?
Rob: That's right, it's a false dichotomy. So the reason these woods have survived is because they were used for people, and because of the way they're managed, coppicing and thinning is quite a sensitive technique, it allows space for nature to be present and to develop and evolve in tandem, so they're not mutually exclusive.
Adam: Yes. So tell me about coppicing is an important part of this site, tell me a little bit about what you're doing at the moment with that.
Rob: Yeah, so we've had a grant actually from the Wye Valley AONB from, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to to do some coppicing work on stands that were coppiced about 20 years ago. So we're continuing that cycle. And we've been working with a company called Wye Coppice Community Interest Company, Wye Coppice CIC, and they're quite developed in, in the Wye Valley area. And we formed a good relationship with them and through them we've been able to do half a hectare of coppicing up on the other slope higher up in the site there. If you like we can go up and meet Joe?
Adam: That would be wonderful. Yeah. You you lead on I will follow. Well, you can hear from this I'm a bit out of breath, we've claimed, OK, I'll be embarrassed to say it's a hill, a small incline, but we’ve come across this stand of of felled trees. So just tell me a bit about what's going on here.
Rob: Exactly. So all these stumps you can see scattered throughout the stand. This is the coppice, so it's cut down to just above base ground level there now and it will just regrow. So it's kind of a natural defence strategy that we're just exploiting. So it's it's been used to, it's, you know, since it evolved things like hazel especially, it‘s used to being browsed off by animals, the animals move on and then the tree just comes back. So it's like a phoenix strategy it comes back, back up again. We're just exploiting that. So we'll cut the tree to base and then we'll protect the regrowth from the browsing animals and then the tree will come again.
Adam: Right, and this is the work done by Joe?
Rob: Yeah, this yeah so this is the work done by Joe Weaver. Joe's just down the end there actually if you want to come and meet him.
Adam: OK, let's go have it let's go meet him. Ohh I’ve got stuck. OK, so Joe, this is all your handiwork.
Joe: It is, yes.
Adam: Tell me a bit about what what it is you do then.
Joe: So I run Wye Coppice CIC, we’re a coppice contracting company and working with Woodland Trust, Natural Resource Wales and Wildlife Trusts throughout the Wye Valley and we're embarking on a project to restore areas of the Wye Valley to restore, do a coppice restoration project for for various organisations throughout the Wye Valley. The what you see, what you see here is about 1 1/2 acres of cut down trees with 7 or 8 standards.
Adam: What are standards?
Joe: The standards are the trees that we've left behind, so, so they're the large, they're the larger trees.
Adam: Oh, I see right. So you wouldn't be coppicing, these are very well established big trees, you don't coppice trees like that, you coppice quite small trees, don't you?
Joe: Yes, so all the small diameter understory trees we've cut down to ground level and and they will, they will resprout and grow back again. We can then come back in 10 years and recut them and have a healthy supply of continue, a continual healthy supply of pole wood.
Adam: And yeah, so what you're trying to get with coppicing is sort of quite it's quite small diameter wood, is that correct?
Joe: Yes, generally speaking, so this is a restoration project you can see this first cut is fairly large diameter. And so most of this will go to make charcoal but generally speaking after 10, maybe 15 years of growth, we'll have poles about sort of thumb size and maybe up to about 50 pence diameter.
Adam: Right. And that's ideal size, is it?
Joe: And that's a really good size for products like bean poles, hedging stakes and binders that go on the top of naturally laid hedging and then various other pole wood applications.
Adam: And and when you see a coppiced tree, evidence that it's been coppiced, there's, I'm trying to look over there, is is this where you see lots of different branches actually coming out from the stump in the ground? That's evidence that's been coppiced, cause it not just one thing grows, lots of them?
Joe: That's right. So you can, if you have one birch tree standing up, for example, you can cut that down to the ground, and when you come back in a few months’ time, you'll notice about 5 or 6 shoots coming from that one stump at the bottom of the ground. So if we can protect that from deer browsing and rabbit browsing, then those stems, those five or six shoots will grow up into individual stems that we can then use use in pole wood products.
Adam: It's odd, isn't it that that happens, though, that you chop down one sort of main stem and you get four or five coming back, that's sort of an odd natural thing to happen, isn't it?
Joe: It is. I think it's the tree's response to the stress of being cut down. So it sort of puts out a lot of it puts a lot of energy into regrowing new growth to try to survive because essentially these broadleaf species, trees, they're they're forever growing, you can cut them down they'll regrow, cut them down again, they'll regrow again. So it's a constant cycle of of regrowth.
Adam: Yeah it's it's like sort of, you know, thumbing their nose at you isn't it, going well, you cut me down well I'm gonna come back fivefold. You know, that's it's a sort of really funny response.
Joe: Indeed. But we can reap the benefits of that.
Adam: Yeah no, no, it's, I get, I get why that's good. And coppicing itself, that, and that's an ancient art, isn't it?
Joe: It has, certainly here in the Wye Valley it was practised at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to produce charcoal to power the Industrial Revolution until coal was iintroduced and so it happened for hundreds and hundreds of years here.
Adam: Right. So you think, do you think I mean there's no need for you to be an historical expert on the history of coppicing, but do you think that's the first big sign of it happening, sort of Industrial Revolution time?
Joe: Certainly around here it is yeah, and there's some of the coupes that we've cut, some of the coppice areas that we've cut here, we've found evidence of charcoal hearths. So you can see flat areas with bits of charcoal sort of sliding down the bank.
Adam: So that would be ancient sites in here, well, ancient, I mean, a few 100 years old of them actually making charcoal in this woodland?
Joe: Yes, in this woodland, throughout the Wye Valley all the way throughout the Wye Valley here, yes.
Adam: Amazing. Now so your company, it's not just a traditional sort of private business, it is a a different sort of form. Just explain how that works.
Joe: So we run a community interest company and that allows us to access grant funding if we need to. Essentially, we're run as a private business, but we are able to do community outreach work as well and that's part of what we do is to try to educate people about sustainable woodland management.
Adam: And how did you get involved in all of this then? Did you grow up as a boy going I want to chop down trees to make fences.
Joe: No, I didn't. I was walking in the Dolomites, I saw two stoats fighting and thought woodland life is for me *laughs*.
Adam: Ok, well, fantastic, never heard that, so inspired by the the battle between two stoats and the and and the Dolomites. That's fantastic, but a hard life, I would have thought to run a business to, I mean it's physical work anyway, but that's my perception from the outside, is it hard work?
Joe: It it can be very difficult, it does have its benefits. Obviously it keeps you fit and it gets you outside but yes, it is a hard life and and you know it's it's quite a technical job as well and the training is expensive so we're trying to introduce a training programme as well through through our through our business Wye Coppice to try to get young people interested in woodland management.
Adam: And do you find that people sometimes don't understand or or perhaps disagree with the fact that commerce and nature can be actually mutually beneficial? Do you find that an issue at all?
Joe: Yes I do. Yes, and we're we're we're always willing to stop and talk to dog walkers especially. Shortly after COP26, we had two dog walkers come past and shout at us for chopping the trees down, after sitting down with them and having a cup of tea, they bought a bag of charcoal off us.
Adam: Right ok very good there we are. You're bringing them round one by one, one by one, those customers are coming over. Well brilliant and we've had not a bad day. I thought I might have to put my wet weather gear on, but it's been it's been OK. Anyway well, that's brilliant thank you very much. That's been really interesting.
Joe: Thank you.
Adam: So we've got this stand of trees we're looking at Rob. A couple couple of oak. Did you say that was a lime?
Rob: That's a lime yeah.
Adam: That's the lime, that that one with lots of ridges in it is that the lime?
Rob: That's it, yeah.
Adam: That's the lime. So why have you left these trees? Is there particular reasons you didn't take these ones out?
Rob: Yeah. So these as you can see, these are all mature trees and so you don't take these decisions lightly. So when we coppice this sort of half a football field area here, there were thirteen of these big mature trees, trees you can barely get your hands around as they're so large, taken a couple of hundred years to grow, so you’ve got to be quite careful and quite selective, although you need the light. There's an old adage about oak trees, it goes something like this that to fell an oak tree you need three things. You need a good eye, a sharp axe and a cold heart because these trees, you know they've been grown and nurtured and developed, and they're impressive life forms. And so it's not something you do without considering it very carefully so so you can see a couple of trees in here which are a couple of oaks, good size, but they're full of ivy, very dense ivy and that's very good for wintering bats. For hibernation, or for potentially summer roosting.
Adam: So the bats would live just amongst the Ivy, they'd sleep amongst the ivy?
Rob: Yeah when it gets as dense as this, when it's really all knotted, entwined, there's lots of gaps behind it. You could stick your hand in and find little cavities and several species of bat, especially pipistrelle, they they will hibernate over winter in this kind of growth. So you really don't want to be disturbing this.
Adam: Right. And and what what's, is there something specific about lime that wildlife like is there any particular wildlife?
Rob: Well, it's good for bees. It's good good good pollen.
Adam: You get beehives in there? Oh I see, the pollen itself is good.
Rob: They like the flowers. Yeah yeah it produces lots of the small leaved lime it produces lots of good flowers and and it will attract aphids which is actually a food source for for dormice in the summer. So they they feed on the feed on the lime sap, you know if you park your car under a lime tree, you'll get this very sticky kind of substance coming off it.
Adam: Yes, yeah, yeah. Of course it does. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Rob: So that attracts aphids, attracts the dormice, it's good for insects who like nectar as well. So it's a it's a very valuable tree and and you know
Adam: So interesting it's it's not valuable commercially, it's valuable for nature.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And it's quite it's quite a special tree in the in the Wye Valley, it doesn't occur much outside this area naturally, and it's kind of an ancient woodland indicator in this part of the world, perhaps not officially, but it's a.
Adam: OK. Any other trees we’ve got here?
Rob: Yeah. The rest of the trees, then are beech.
Adam: Right and you've kept those why?
Rob: Yeah, because you can see if you look at this one here, it's got quite a few cavities in it at the base at the top, beech tends to do that. It tends to take, form little cavities, rot holes and ways in, and that's ways in for fungus and then they eat out and hollow the tree. So the potential for harbouring bats again is very high in these trees. Without sort of going into them, doing some invasive exploration, you can't tell, but it's it's very high potential for bats. So again, bats, all species of bats in this country are protected under law because they've had massive declines like a lot of woodland species. And so we'll do everything we can to retain that habitat.
Adam: It's it's the Field of Dreams, philosophy. You you build it and they will come.
Rob: Yeah, yeah. This as long as it stays there, it'll always be valuable as habitat and so at least then, there are future sort of veteran trees within this stand.
Adam: It is interesting you you've already, I mean, we've only done a short part of this walk so far, but you talked about whoever was managing this woodland 100 years ago knew what they were talking about. And I think that's fascinating that we don't know who that person is or who who they, who those people were. And in 100 years time, people won't know who you were p.sumably, but the the evidence of your work will be here. They'll go yeah, that was a good bloke who did all this and left us with something.
Rob: That’s it, you you don't plant trees for yourself, you plant trees for the future generation so you know, I won't see the oaks I plant develop. I'll be dead long before they mature and it's the same for the person who did this. But you can see the ones we took out, the ones I took out and selected were tall and straight. And that means that the coppice is well managed, because there was enough light for the hazel in the understory to come up straight away. If you cut hazel to the ground and you protect it, in a couple of years, it'll be way above six, eight foot and it'll just continue to get higher and higher over the next few years. And what that does is it shades the stem of the oak and it prevents side branching. So you get this very tall initial first stem. And that's what you're looking for. And that's what these trees had. So this would have clearly been cared for and these trees have been selected, they were on a journey from the moment they were planted.
Adam: OK. And just on my journey of education about trees, how do, what, they’re beech, I wouldn't be able to spot that myself, what tells you they’re beech?
Rob: It's a smooth trunk. If you look at this one here now you can see I always think of them as sort of elephant legs. They're grey and they're tall and they're smooth and they quite often have sort of knobbly bits on the base like an elephant's foot. And if you go through a stand of pure beech, it looks like it looks like a stand of elephants’ feet, really tall, grey stems and these big huge buttress roots.
Adam: Fantastic. I am never going to forget that and I will always think of elephants when I look at a beech, a brilliant brilliant clue. Thank you. Right. So where we off to now?
Rob: We'll walk around so you can see the top of the coupe and just see the extent of it and and then we'll walk back down perhaps and have a look at this oak.
Adam: Brilliant. Well we’ve come to the, over the brow of the hill and along this path, there's a tiny little path for me to walk, and on either side there's a carpet of green. And I think I know what this carpet of green is. Rob, what is it tell me?
Rob: This is wild garlic.
Adam: Yeah. This is the time of year, is it?
Rob: Yep, you can see the flower heads. Ramsons it’s also called, it's just about coming into flower now.
Adam: Sorry they're called what?
Rob: Ramson.
Adam: Ramson. Is that the flower itself is called ramson, or is that?
Rob: Well, just the plant.
Adam: We call it wild garlic but it's it's real name is ramson?
Rob: Well some people call it ramson too.
Adam: Right OK. And I never, I mean I have never picked and eaten anything from a forest because I am sure I will kill myself, but all of this, I mean, I've seen loads of people do that, pick wild garlic and it's, I mean there's there's acres of the stuff here.
Rob: It can it can yeah any kind of wild plant comes with the caveats that you need to know what you're doing.
Adam: Yes, which which I don't.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny yeah, this site is quite well known for its ramsons, for its wild garlic carpets. This this is in response to something here, quite a sad thing actually. We're right next, you can probably hear the road noise there, we're right next to the main road from Monmouth into the Forest of Dean, Staunton Road there, and unfortunately, a lot of the trees along the road edge were big, big, mature ash trees. And they all had dieback and they were all dropping limbs and about to crush a car. And so, you know, we take that very seriously in terms of health and safety so the trees just along the road edge, we left the ones in the wood, just the road edge trees we had to do something about them, so they’ve either been reduced or felled and what that's done in this woodland where in the last 60 years, you have had very little management, like most woods, post war, very little has happened. So it becomes very high, very closed canopy, very dense. And what's happened, because of the ash felling is, you've got this pocket of light here and the ramsons have immediately responded to that. So this wasn't here last year. This carpet like this.
Adam: What so this is this is brand new?
Rob: This is brand new. It was the odd plant coming up every year, patches of it.
Adam: I'm shocked because this looks like something from the Wizard, if this was yellow, this would be we’d be in the middle of the Wizard of Oz set here, the yellow brick road. It just I mean it it's just a beautiful, winding, lush, dense path of wild garlic. It looks like it's been here forever.
Rob: And in a sense it it was. It was just waiting for the opportunity, waiting for that temporary disturbance caused by the ash felling. And so like with the coppicing, that's what we're trying to recreate essentially, is these temporary pockets of disturbance where you you break up the canopy, you get this flush of greenery and then until the trees recover it and regrow again. So you don't want this homogeneous block of woodland really. You want, you want variation, because that's the key to success for, for wildlife and biodiversity, different niches, different ages. If you look closely, you can see it's not just the garlic either. You can see wood anemone, you can see greater wood vetch, you can see little violets. So, you know, quite quite a lot of species are now taking advantage of this temporary light that the ash felling’s produced.
Adam: It is a nice positive message, isn't it? Because ash dieback has been a real tragedy. But even in the midst of problems there are opportunities which nature comes back with, it’s an optimistic sign.
Rob: There is and so this as I say, you know these these trees would have coppiced without us because you know when animals browse them, they they they they come back after that so all we're doing is sort of recreating these natural processes through the management of the woodland. A once in a lifetime storm might have knocked these ash out or a hurricane, something like that, could have felled the whole area and then temporary open space, the plants capitalise and then the wood comes back again, so we’re just just mimicking what nature does anyway.
Adam: I'm going to take a photo of this, put it on my Twitter feed. It's fantastic. So we've just taken a little stop on this path of wild garlic. So over to the right is well, I thought it was a bird box, it’s a large bird box. You tell me it's actually something very specific.
Rob: Yeah, this is a pine marten nest box cause there was there has been a big release of pine marten. Pine martens are native to this country. It's kind of like a large weasel that lives in the trees. That's a really bad way of describing it, but it's a it's a mustelid. It's a large, impressive, intelligent animal and they were sort of pressed to persecute, to extinction, with persecution in the past. But they're very important in these woods for regulating, you know, the biodiversity, they, they prey on the grey squirrel especially, and they'll regulate bird numbers like any predator does. So it's it's great to see them coming back and it's a success story actually, because a couple of years ago now there was a release programme where captive animals were put into the Forest of Dean which is just over that direction. And so we put up some boxes and monitored them and pine martens are moving back into this area now. Whether they’re using the boxes or not, we're not entirely sure, but they are moving in, so it's a, it's a really good story. So we'll do whatever we can to sort of encourage them because we've we've lost a lot of this old growth woodland that we're trying to protect and so they haven't got the nest cavities, so temporarily we'll provide this habitat.
Adam: And over the other side of the little dip, there's another pathway and it looks like the bank has been cut away and it's very black so that it doesn't look quite natural. What's going on there?
Rob: Well the the track that's been put in there is exposed, an earlier industry, so that's that's a charcoal platform. See what is it about five, five metres in diameter. Sort of sort of circular and very, very thick layer of charcoal. A huge fire has been there, but that's that's lots and lots of fires, one on top of the other.
Adam: So this is this is not current, this is probably a couple of hundred years old?
Rob: I think the last burn in this woodland would have been before the Second World War.
Adam: Oh right, so not that old.
Rob: Well, I mean, if they were still burning, they would have had the odd one, but this probably dates to sort of the the height of the the periods of the the late 19th century. So this here, it's been buried and forgotten about. But it shows you as Joe was saying earlier, at one point this was a managed wood and quite a few woods in Wales if you look on the maps you'll see things like coed poeth, which probably roughly translates as sort of hot wood or or burning woods, very roughly, probably, which gives you, may may give you an indication that these woods were worked and if you came here, you would have probably seen people living in the woods with the charcoal, tinner and charcoal workers, especially in the the 19th century, would have moved in in the summer to do the charcoal production with their families.
Adam: Just living in a tent or something?
Rob: Living in on site yeah, because then you know you don't want to move products, move things twice. You know, it's it's an economic, so you bring your family in, you produce your product, and then you come out with it at the end of the season so it's very peaceful here today. You can hear the birds. It's great for wildlife, but it would have been a managed landscape and we're trying to introduce a little bit of that. Obviously not people living in the woodlands anymore, but there's space for both here within this woodland, a bit a bit of coppicing a bit of management and reserve areas.
Adam: And I mean, I I hadn't quite noticed it while we were walking, but now we're we're standing here on this green carpet, there is an overpowering smell of garlic, it’s quite extraordinary. It's very fresh, you know, sometimes when you're in the kitchen and the garlic it's it's, it's not fresh, it's pungent, but this is, you know, it's mixed with the sort of cool air, it's a really lovely smell.
Rob: It’s making me hungry, actually.
Adam: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I was thinking whether I should pick some for dinner.
Rob: Chop some up. Pasta sauce. It's lovely with that.
Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, lovely. And and there's another one amongst this wild garlic, it's clock, what was it?
Rob: Yeah, this one here, it’s the town hall clock or moschatel as it’s known.
Adam: Town hall clock that's it. So just, what's the what's its proper name?
Rob: Moschatel. Well, that, that's it's another acronym, ah pseudonym really it's moschatel.
Adam: Moschatel.
Rob: Or town hall clock. I forget the Latin actually, to my shame.
Adam: Is moschatel the Welsh word for it, or it's not
Rob: No, it's not. It's a general general word, just a colloquial local term.
Adam: And why is it called the town hall clock?
Rob: Look you can see these four, the flowers have four sides to them, like an old town hall clock would.
Adam: Right, lovely. It's really quite, quite a rich path we're wandering down.
Rob: You see the the bluebells are out look just now, if you look up into the wood there you can see them. In Welsh they're called clychau'r gog, which is the cuckoo bell.
Adam: Wow. Cuckoo bell.
Rob: Because it comes out when the cuckoo comes. Apparently, the grant paid for like a fence, contractors to fence off that, this boundary here, stop the deer coming in from the Dean. To stop the wild pigs actually, pigs are a
Adam: You get wild pigs here?
Rob: They’re a nuisance round here, yeah.
Adam: Wild pigs?
Rob: They call them, they’re not really boar, because a boar will produce like, I don't know, maybe a litter of six, and these pigs will do 22.
Adam: Right. Blimey. And how big are they?
Rob: They look like boar.
Adam: So and boar can be quite violent, can’t they, quite aggressive.
Rob: Yeah, they’re sort of half breed, half pig, half boar. They’re big animals, got a cute little stripey piglets, just like a boar does. But they, you know, they're exponential in their reproduction, so they're
Adam: And and they're around this wood?
Rob: They’re here.
Adam: So do they cause a problem with eating or do they nibble on the new trees and stuff?
Rob: Yeah, yeah, well, they sort of rootle, I mean you want boar, because they were here originally. You want boar, like the deer, you want them in sustainable numbers, they’re all sleeping now.
Adam: Do they come out at night?
Rob: They only come out at night yeah.
Adam: I'll have to return.
Rob: Yeah. I mean you'd see them if you went up to the top path up there.
Adam: We haven't done a night podcast. I think we should do some bats and.
Rob: You can do bats, if you wait, while you're waiting for the badgers to come out, you can do the bats. There's a few sites around here where you can watch them.
Adam: OK, well maybe
Rob: I'm sure there's other Trust sites where people know.
Adam: Maybe I'll come back.
Rob: One summer when I was doing my bachelor’s degree, I was working in Llanelli in like a, just a café just to get some money. I was working with the local girls there, I’d been out surfing in Llangennith on the Gower the day before and I was like just telling her how the seals came in because they chased the mackerel in just beyond the surf line and I was sitting there and the water just boiled with the stench of of fish and mackerel and I looked around and two seals popped up and they were driving the mackerel into the back of the waves to hunt them. I was telling her this and she was like, what, you're telling me there’s seals in the water here, in Llanelli, where? I said just in the Gower. Seals? Like seals seals, like live in water? I said there’s seals there, yeah, they’ve always been there, we just don’t value what’s around us.
Adam: We don’t notice it.
Rob: We don’t notice because you can’t see it, you don’t see it, yeah.
Adam: It's interesting, isn't it, Attenborough has done a series recently on the UK and you go, you don't have to go to Africa or Latin America to see these things.
Rob: There you go. I was in West Wales last week in Aberaeron, and you can see bottlenose dolphins. Increasingly under threat there’s that number of point but yeah, but they’re there. You can see the seals, you can see them all around us, yeah. This is doing well.
Adam: Well, I'm going to have to leave our little trip down the Wye Valley with some rather unexpected chat about seals and bottlenose dolphins and a promise to return one dark night to meet some bats. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Join us as presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble guides us through magical ancient woodland near her remote Wales home in the Wye Valley. With infectious enthusiasm and occasional impressions, she tells us about the plants and animals along our route as well as the story of her accidental career, becoming host of nation’s favourite Springwatch having never wanted to be a TV presenter! Kate also talks worldwide travels, access to nature and planting trees with the Woodland Trust on her smallholding.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Well, in early spring I went on a woodland walk in Wales with presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble, who was taking me around what promised to be some amazing woodland with her dogs. But as is increasingly common in these podcasts we of course had to begin with me getting absolutely and entirely lost.
This is an absolute disaster. Although I am bad at directions, this is not my fault *laughs* So Kate sent me a pin, she said look this is going to be hard to find my place, she sent me a map pin. I followed the map pin. Look I’m here I don't know if you can hear this you probably can’t hear this. This is the gate that's locked, which is across some woodland path. So I can't get there. And of course there is no phone signal, so I'm going to have to drive all the way back to some town to find a phone signal. And I'm already late.
OK. I have managed to find a village where there is a phone signal. I've managed to call Kate and Kate *laughs* Kate has clearly got the measure of me and told me to give up and she is now going to get in her car and find me in this village and I will follow her back. In the meantime, we have passed Google map pins back and forwards, which apparently tell her that I'm sitting outside her house. But I really am nowhere near her house, so I seem to have broken Google which well, that's a first. Anyway I've got a banana here, so if she's a long time, I have dinner and I'll just wait. This will never happen. This will actually never happen.
Well we’ve found Kate. We’ve found a whirly country drive lane. Feels a bit like rally driving. It's like, I mean, I don't understand why my map wouldn't find it, but this is certainly a bit of rally driving we're doing here getting to her house. My goodness. We found her house.
OK. Well, we're here. Which I never thought I I really thought it was really lovely. The idea was nice, and next time I'm in Wales, I'll give you a call so really, it's it's better than I thought better than I thought. Anyway, so you're leading me off with your two dogs.
Kate: I am. I am. I'm leading you off into one of the most beautiful I think I mean, obviously I'm a little bit biased but it is one of the most important areas of ancient woodland in Britain. This is the Wye Valley. We're the lower Wye valley, so we are the the the the bit really where the River Wye is in its sort of last bit of its journey. It's risen in mid Wales, about 136 miles from here. I know that cause I’ve walked the whole route.
Adam: Really, we're not doing that today, are we?
Kate: No we’re not no I promise. I promise Adam. So yes and we are basically about 5 or 6 miles from where it flows into the River Severn and then out into the Bristol Channel and the woods around here are a lovely mix of broadleaf, so we're walking through broadleaf woodland now and this is literally this is what I walk out of my front door. Aren't I lucky?
Adam: You are lucky.
Kate: I'm so lucky. So we've got a lovely mix of broadleaf woodland now and we're just coming into that time of year. Which is the time of year that makes everybody's spirits lift, because we are coming into spring, and if we actually just stop just for a second. You can hear that's a blue tit calling *imitates sound* and I mean, this isn't the perfect day for birdsong, but the birdsong was really picking up. And that's the lovely thing about living alongside woodland. So even in the winter, even when you don't think there are any birds at all, what you hear in these words is *imitates sound* that's a very, very bad impression of a great spotted woodpecker.
Adam: OK, I'm glad you. I I was guessing it might be a woodpecker, but I didn't want to.
Kate: So they start to drum around about sort of late January, they'll be drumming. And and then as the and we also have tawny owls, lots of tawny owls in these woods. We've got an owl box and we used to have an owl that we called Percy who we have no idea whether it was a boy or girl.
Adam: I was gonna say it was, a reason it was called Percy?
Kate: Don't know, just it just it looked like a Percy.
Adam: Just fancied the name. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate: But we have lovely tawny owls here. So, you know, at dusk and and when when I take the dogs out sort of last thing at night round about 10 o'clock 11:00 o'clock at night we walk down this track and and you stand here and you hear this wonderful and everyone thinks you know, tawny owls go toowit toowoo. They're the classic toowit toowoo owls, but actually you've got 2 owls calling, so you've got the male going *imitates noise* and then you have the females going *imitates noise*. And they're calling each other, establishing territories or going ooh I like the sound of you, there's a bit of flirting going on. So these are, as I say really it's it's just the biggest treat to live with this on my doorstep.
Adam: Right, so fantastic. You you clearly I mean, you've launched into a sort of fantastic description and detailed knowledge, but you are not a country girl by birth are you?
Kate: No, I am a country girl by birth.
Adam: Oh you are? I though you were born in London?
Kate: I am. No. Well, I was you're right, I was I was
Adam: Sorry, do I know where you were born and you don’t.
Kate: Well, being born and where you were brought up is different.
Adam: Yeah, OK. OK, fair enough.
Kate: So I was, you're absolutely right, I was born in London. I was born in well, I was born in Wimbledon in fact. This is my neighbour by the way.
Adam: Right. Right. Wow. I didn't, we’re in the middle of nowhere I didn’t know there’d be a neighbour.
Kate: I know, but I know. But there are other people mad enough to live in these woods, and he's particularly mad.
Adam: OK. Does he mind you saying that?
Kate: Not at all. Not at all. No. He's absolutely used to it. Hello. Come and say hello to the Woodland Trust podcast.
Adam: No. OK, I'm just checking. OK. Hi, I'm Adam. Hi. Nice to see you. Yeah, I hear you're her neighbour.
Kate: This is this is this is writer Mark Mccrum and his dog Jabba. Yes. So I'm just dragging Adam down to take a look at the ponds and talking about the ponds down there.
Mark: Oh lovely. Which ponds?
Kate: The ponds down there.
Mark: Oh those ones? Yeah, very good. I might see you on the reverse cause I'm gonna go all the way round.
Kate: Oh you’re gonna go round. OK, fine. Lovely.
Mark: These are lovely woods cause you never see anybody here. *all laugh*
Adam: I'm sorry.
Kate: Apart from you
Adam: I was gonna say, and me, I've ruined it.
Kate: Yeah we're the only people who see each other aren’t we.
Adam: So you were telling me you are you are born in Wimbledon, but you you grew up in the country then?
Kate: Yeah. So I was I was born in Wimbledon and yes. So after about, I think I was about six months old, my mother always says that she realised that London was clearly not the place for me and
Adam: From six months? Outward bound baby were you?
Kate: Yes! She said she said there basically wasn't enough space in London for me. So so yes, so I was brought up in Berkshire, right? And I was brought up next to a farm. So I was always a sort of vicariously farming kid. Even though my parents weren't farmers and and spent my childhood looking after various animals of various descriptions, and I think the wonderful thing about being the age I am, so everyone bemoans being old, but I think I just I I am so thankful that I was born in the sixties.
Adam: Why?
Kate: Because no one had invented health and safety, climbing trees, no one had climbing frames, you climbed trees. And I think the trees enjoyed it, and so did you. And if you hadn't fallen out of quite a lot of trees by the time you were 10 and had various, you know, scars or broken bits as proof of a proper childhood, it wasn't a proper childhood.
Adam: Right. OK.
Kate: So I had a lovely proper childhood of, you know, not being plonked in front of a screen of some description or another. We're going to cut off piste a little bit and head down here.
Adam: OK, I'm is this a precursor warning that I'm about to get bumps and scrapes and?
Kate: This is a precursor warning that you might yes, you might. It's quite a steep descent.
Adam: OK just as long as my, my face is my fortune though, as long as that's safeguarded throughout this, that'll be fine. OK. Well, that's good. Yeah. Lots of leaves around. Yeah.
Kate: Of course it will be a soft landing whatever you say. Lots of leaves. One of the nice things again about broadleaf woodland. And as you can see, I'm sure your leaf identification is brilliant, but we've got a lovely mix of oak here and beech, as well as the evergreen so the hollies and lovely, lovely mosses. But yes, what you’re walking on is is a sort of glorious mulchy carpet, but we have a profusion of bluebells.
Adam: Already they've come up?
Kate: Well the bluebells, the the plants themselves have come up so the leaves are up and there are one or two I'm going to show you, is it, will it be your first bluebell of the year?
Adam: It, almost, almost we we can pretend it is for dramatic purposes. Let’s let’s go along.
Kate: OK, OK. They are, they're just, they're just starting to come here now and and you get that lovely moment. It'll be about probably about three weeks or a month’s time, slightly depending on on what the weather does, where you get the, the unfurling of the beech trees. So that glorious kind of neon green which when the light goes through you get that sort of wonderful, almost disco light effect show.
Adam: And aren't they in Welsh, aren't they called cuckoos? The Welsh translation for bluebells is cuckoo clock. I think it's because it's like it's a harbinger of spring along with the cuckoo.
Kate: Oh, I didn't know that.
Adam: Oh my God, I found something you didn't know.
Kate: You know, you know, you'll know lots, I don't know, but
Adam: No, no, let's hope that's true that's that's I'll have to go check that. Do check that before you tell anybody.
Kate: Well, I'll just blame you.
Adam: But no, I do think in Welsh the translation for Bluebell is is cuckoo clock or something like that because it is this harbinger of spring and I think that's it's a really nice I I won't even try the Welsh but in Welsh it sounds very so I mean, I thought we were going to chat about your conversion to nature and everything, but actually that's a lot of nonsense. This is this has been a constant in your life?
Kate: Well, it's been, I mean, coming to Wales, so I did live in London, you know, after I left home.
Adam: Except, I mean, you didn't choose a a nature career, did you? I mean, you you're involved now we can talk about that. But first, what was your first career?
Kate: Well, I mean. Career always seems such a grand word and that you've planned it.
Adam: Yeah. OK, so your accidental career.
Kate: So my accidental career, well, I had this idea that that I that I wanted to work in television, although again I don't really know where that came from. We're going just down here. Part of me also wanted to be a a safari guide.
Adam: Good. I can see the appeal of that.
Kate: I went to I when I was 19 having never really been abroad at all, because again, our generation didn't really go abroad as a matter of course. So I went to Africa when I was 19 and.
Adam: Sorry we're not talking on a holiday?
Kate: No it was a well it was a it was probably a rebellion.
Adam: Right. You went as far away as your your parents as you could. I'm not going out for the evening I'm popping off to Africa?
Kate: Yes, yes. I'm popping off to Africa and I don't know when I'll be back. One of those.
Adam: Right. Yeah, good. Good exit line. So where, where, where in Africa were you and what were you doing there?
Kate: So I I started in South Africa. I ended up in Egypt.
Adam: Right, just bumming around doing sort of bar work or doing something more serious?
Kate: I did I did I was a waitress for a little bit, but I was very, very bad and was sacked. I I was a model for a little bit, also very bad, very bad at that too.
Adam: Why were you so bad at that?
Kate: Because because I really don't like having my photograph taken and I really like food.
Adam: Yes, OK well I would I would have guessed I could have advised you that wasn't the career for you.
Kate: So so the two things, yeah, didn't really weren't terribly compatible to that. But I then got a job as a cook and a driver on a safari, and I drove a truck aged 19, having never really been out of Berkshire, from Cape Town, through Botswana and into Zimbabwe. And and then I hitched back to Cape Town. So I had a a real adventure. But what I what it really did for me was, having had this very sort of unconsciously wild childhood, I don't mean you know lots of parties and taking drugs I mean, a natural wild childhood, I then went to a place where the natural world was was so extraordinary and so mindblowing, and on a scale, you know, everything was was was like technicolour. You know, the birds were amazing. The the you know the the the size of the animals, the proliferation of the wildlife, the size of the landscapes, the emptiness and I think it was that journey that turned my mind to really re-look and re-examine the natural world and think it's, you know, it's extraordinary, it's it’s mind blowing in every way and so even though I then came back and thought I want to have this sort of career in telly what I really wanted to do in my career in telly was work for the natural history unit.
Adam: Right. And is that what you did?
Kate: No. Not initially anyway.
Adam: OK, but you have done, I mean you've done nature programmes, lots of nature programmes. What did you first start doing?
Kate: We're going down here. I have. So I first started sweeping streets in the East End.
Adam: In EastEnders?
Kate: No, in the East End, no. I was a runner so I basically got jobs wherever I could get jobs and I got a job on a commercial that happened to be shooting in the East End and they needed the streets swept and so that was one of my jobs. But had no plans to be on the telly that that really did happen by mistake.
Adam: I think you know my first job in telly. I don't know if you remember That's Life with Esther Rantzen. Do you remember they she always had rude, funny vegetables?
Kate: I do, yes
Adam: That was my job to find them, yeah so only only marginally above the street sweeping.
Kate: Oh my goodness!
Adam: So you got how did you get picked there? I mean, we gotta get back to the natural world. But you’ve had such such a fantastic life. So I mean, I think people will be fascinated to know you have not much of even a vague plan about what you're doing. You're fumbling about a bit.
Kate: None, yeah. Living in a squat. Eating crisps.
Adam: So yeah, right. So not many models will be will be living like that and eating crisps, I get that You’re sweeping streets as your way into telly, all of a sudden you're on telly. How did that happen, was that more of a plan or did someone just turn around and go, hey, you, street sweeper, you’ll do?
Kate: No, it wasn't. So I had I had graduated from street sweeper, so it took about probably four four or five years I have become by now a sort of senior researcher. And I got a job at the BBC. My first job at the BBC on a programme called Animal Hospital.
Adam: Right. Yes. And you were still a researcher there or presenter?
Kate: Yeah, as a researcher. And and I think the reason that I got the job was actually my childhood. Because I think it was the first series, in fact, I think the only series that they did of Animal Hospital in a rural practice. So we went to a practice that didn't just do small animals, pets type animals, but also bigger animals like farm animals and horses and I think the only reason I got the job was that I was the only person they interviewed who knew what to do with something bigger than a hamster.
Adam: Right ok great.
Kate: And I had my own wellies.
Adam: Oh good. Always important for a career in telly, your own wellies, see these are the secrets people wanna know. Good. So you've got your wellies?
Kate: Always really, really important. They are. So I got that job I got that researcher job. And at the end of it, the BBC do this appraisal thing. And they said we thought you were alright, you did OK, will you come back and do the next series and I said I'd absolutely love to. I'd really loved it, absolutely loved it. Can we just pause here a minute because this,
Adam: A sea of wild garlic?
Kate: No, these are bluebells.
Adam: These are bluebells? Oh, sorry. Look at the ignorance here.
Kate: These are bluebells. Well, those white flowers let me show you these because they're beautiful.
Adam: I thought like I I think that's what I thought was wild garlic shows you *unintelligible* OK, we’ve got a proper safari expert.
Kate: No. So look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, first bluebell starting to unfurl except my dog’s just walked all over it. Come on you’re not supposed to walk on there.
Adam: So this is, all of this is bluebells?
Kate: So all of this will be bluebells and in about 3 weeks time you get this absolutely, it’s so blue it's like the colour actually detaches itself from the flowers and floats above it in this sort of glorious mist, it's beautiful. But this these flowers here I love. And these are these are one of the flowers along with celandines which are the kind of waxy yellow flowers that people will see in woodlands and even in their gardens at this time of year, these are wood anemones. And they are lovely, very delicate white flowers with these slightly sort of hand-like leaves and the lovely thing about these, they're not looking at their best at the moment because it's been quite a wet day. But when the sun's out, they open to the sun like these brilliant white stars. And sometimes there are areas around here where you'll see carpets of wood anemones and they're one of the first I've seen these as early as January, although not this year because we had lots of frosts.
Adam: It's funny you, you, you, you use the word magical I'm just looking at this tree with covered in moss and everything, there is something magical about these sorts of places, a sort of sense of, sense of, a Tolkien type moment isnt there?.
Kate: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've I I don't think it is a coincidence that lots of fairytales are set in woodlands because there is something otherworldly about them. We're going to head keep heading down just so that you have a really good climb on the way up.
Adam: Yeah, I was gonna say I'm fine going down, I'm assuming you're sending a car to pick me up? It's well a little, a little Uber will just I'm sure,
Kate: Nice try, Adam! Lots of Ubers around here. Look, look, look.
Adam: Oh look now that is OK that's a proper bluebell.
Kate: That is a, a, a bluebell that's a proper bluebell.
Adam: Yeah, that is my first proper bluebell of the year.
Kate: And you can see all the others are just starting to come.
Adam: And that's and it is lovely because clearly so few people come here that's the problem often with bluebells is when people trample all over them. And we've got just one clean path down here and it's completely undisturbed for as far as the eye can see. So yes, we OK, we we did a little pit stop for bluebells. We're back on and the what was the programme, animal?
Kate: Animal Animal Hospital.
Adam: Animal Hospital. So they wanted you back as a researcher. I'm interested in the jump from behind the screen to on screen.
Kate: So so they basically said lovely we'll see you in four months and I said oh well, I've got a landlord and rent to pay, I can't not work for four months. I'm going to have to get another job and it may mean that I'm not available. And they said ohh well, maybe we can find you something else within the BBC as a stopgap. And I had also at that point, so this is the mid 90s now, started writing. I was writing travel. And I'd spent at the the a end of a a, the second Africa trip that I did between 94 and 95, I’d spent the last two months of that in Madagascar.
Adam: Right.
Kate: Madagascar was a place that I was obsessed with because of its wildlife because it has unique flora and fauna. I came back and got an article commissioned to write about it, and it was the first,
Adam: Your first commission?
Kate: Yes, my first commission and my first article, and it was in a broad a broadsheet newspaper, and I was very excited and very proud about that. And so when I was asked by the series producer of the BBC Holiday programme, whether I would consider coming to work for them because I was a travel writer,
Adam: Right OK, yeah, you’re now a travel writer because of your one article.
Kate: I am I am now a I am now a travel writer on the strength of one of one article.
Adam: Whoa oh Kate, I'm so glad you were the first person to sort of go over *Kate laughs* That was before me I just want that on record.
Kate: Yeah.
Adam: OK so I haven't gone over yet.
Kate: You haven't got over yet.
Adam: OK. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
Kate: Yes. So I got a job on the BBC Holiday programme. Anyway the next day I got called into the big boss's office. And I assumed that my short lived career at the BBC Holiday programme was about to be ended because I wasn't quite sure why, but perhaps because I hadn't been taking the producers guidelines as seriously as I might and that also I had smoked on a fire escape, which probably wasn't a good idea. And instead I was asked to do a screen test and I assumed that this was the sort of common test that the Holiday programme did and I tried to say I really don't want to be a presenter thank you, I love doing, I love making the programmes, I love the research, I love talking to people, I love putting things together. I'm quite, I like logistics. I'm quite, you know, I like all that stuff I don't want to be a presenter. And they went well do a do a screen test. So at this point I just thought I've just got to get out of this office because I feel very embarrassed by the whole situation. So I will just nod smile say yes, do it, it'll be a disaster, and then everything can go back to normal. So that's what I did. Three weeks later, the boss came into the office,
Adam: Sorry, we have to stop. This is a story that's gonna last all day, cause I keep stopping because your dog is posing or it was posing beautifully by this river.
Kate: Well, so this river is an important, one of the sort of parallel streams that run into the River Wye for this is the Angidy, we are in the Angidy Valley, surrounded by amazing woodland on both sides, it’s a very steep sided valley. This river is particularly good for dippers, which are those lovely chocolate brown and white birds, they look like little waiters.
Adam: Right *laughs*
Kate: And they and they, they're called dippers because that's exactly what they do. So we'll keep an eye out because we might see some, but they’ll sit on a stone like that exposed stone within the waterfall there and they will jump into the water and literally completely submerge. They'll disappear completely and they're looking for things like caddisfly larva, which is what they feed on, and then they'll bob up and come back up and they're they're just these wonderful, perky, very smart little birds.
Adam: Brilliant, OK.
Kate: They're the only British songbird that is also a water bird.
Adam: Wow, OK, good. All right.
Kate: There you are, little bit of, little bit of,
Adam: No, I like these these these sorts of diversions we take, it's it's almost like doing a stand up routine, so we're gonna go gonna go back to the story now. So you thought everybody in the world gets a screen test. So I'm just doing this and then they’ll leave me alone.
Kate: Yes, yes. And and then the boss came into the office about 3 weeks later. And she said, can you go to France tomorrow? And I said yes, of course, assuming that they needed somebody to carry the heavy stuff. Bhcause carrying heavy stuff is the other thing that I am good at. I can whistle very loudly and I can carry very heavy things and those are really the only two things that I can offer the world.
Adam: OK, I I you, you have set yourself up for a big whistle at the end, so we'll we'll wait for that then let's hold out.
Kate: It it will blow your ears well, that's all I'm saying. So she said, we want you to present a film on a barge in Normandy, could you please do something about my hair, she said. My own hair.
Adam: I see she didn't ask you to be a hairdresser? Also could you cut my hair?
Kate: Yes could you cut my hair *laughs*. No, could you do something about your hair, she said. I thought she's been talking to my mum, who constantly despairs of my lack of my lack of grooming.
Adam: Right, also right at this point of hair hair disasters, we have to pause because we've come across as you may hear an extraordinary small waterfall, it's a weir, really, isn't it?
Kate: It is really.
Adam: I'm gonna take another photo of this before we get back to the life and misadventures of Kate Humble. So I'm just gonna take a photo. You'll find that, no doubt on one of our Twitter feeds. Oh, I know beautiful, oh no the dogs disappeared, the dog doesn't like posing for me. But all right, so now, you're off to France. You need a haircut and,
Kate: So I'm off to France. I need I need I need to basically smarten myself up. Off I went to France and presented my first film.
Adam: Right. And that was, I mean, we could talk about this forever, but that was the beginning of that was the beginning of this, the story. OK, well, amazing.
Kate: Yes. My first job for the natural history unit came in 2000. And I was asked to do a programme, which was a sort of, was made in response to Blue Planet. So the very first series of the Blue Planet, which I think everybody watched with their mouths open because we had never seen the oceans in that way before, particularly the deep ocean. And there was a phrase used which I have used many, many times since, which was that more people have been to the moon than there have been to the deep ocean. And people were fascinated by these, they were they were creatures that looked like they might have been designed for Star Wars. They were so extraordinary.
Adam: These sort of angler fish which have which have this light don’t they.
Kate: That sort of thing, and these these, you know, these astonishing, you know, plankton with flashing lights, there were Dumbo octopus with, you know, little octopus with these sort of literally did look like Dumbo the elephant, you know, deep water sharks that people had never seen before that were really slow moving and and, you know astonishingly well-adapted to live at depths and in in at water pressure that no one thought anything could exist in and come on dogs we're gonna keep, do you wanna have a,
Adam: And so yours was a response, in what way?
Kate: So we did a live,
Adam: The dogs keep looking at me like they want me to throw something for them is that what’s going on?
Kate: They do, and I'm going to just try and find a, here let's try let's try this, here we are.
Adam: Look, they're very, oh you’ve thrown it into the river?
Kate: Go on, in you go.
Adam: Oh, look at that go!
Kate: Come on Teg, do you wanna go in as well? Here you are. This one's going to sink, go on. Ready? Go. Good girl. Where's it gone? Teggy, it's just there. That's it. Well done, well done, dogs.
Adam: Oh they like that.
Kate: Well, I can't go and get it, you have to bring it here, that's the deal with sticks *laughs* So we did a live programme from a boat in Monterey Bay. I made some films to play into that live show. So I went to the Cayman Islands, which is a rotten thing to ask anybody to do, can you imagine?
Adam: Terrible, terrible. You wanted to be back in the East End really.
Kate: I did really, sweeping streets and instead there I was, doing films about coral reefs and this is the one of, this is the wonderful thing about the natural history unit or just about making films with animals is the lengths that you have to go to to be able to capture the natural world in all its wonder. And so I was asked to go and film a shark called a six gill shark that lives very deep and only about 10 people in the world had ever seen. And I was sent to go and find this creature. You know, I can't I can't even now I can't really believe that I was asked to do that.
Adam: And did you find it?
Kate: Eventually. We had to do two, we did one trip we failed to find it,
Adam: How how long was that?
Kate: So that was, we did 6 dives. It was an amazing trip. We didn't get the shark on the first trip. We went back for another trip. We didn't get it. We didn't get it. We finally got it and it was incredible. Incredible moment. And that was the first job that I did for the natural history unit and there was then somebody who came up with the idea of doing British wildlife life live at kind of springtime, like kind of now.
Adam: And this was Springwatch was it?
Kate: This was the precursor to Springwatch.
Adam: Oh I didn’t know there was one.
Kate: There were two!
Adam: What were they called?
Kate: So the first one was called Wild In Your Garden. So I'm just going to put the dogs on a lead here. Hold on, poppet. Just hold on my poppet. That's it. We've got to take Adam up the hill now. So yes, so the first one was called Wild In Your Garden and it was Bill Oddie and Simon King and me. And we did two shows a night, from gardens in Bristol, and it sort of worked as an idea.
Adam: Right. OK.
Kate: It worked well enough or it wasn't so much of a disaster that there wasn't a thought of let's try it slightly differently, maybe on a farm instead of in the garden, and we went to this wonderful organic farm in Devon and basically made camp for three weeks. And made a series called Britain Goes Wild. And Britain went a tiny bit wild. And so the following year we thought, well, we'll do it again, but maybe we'll just call it something different.
Adam: Right.
Kate: And someone came up with the idea of calling it spring watch and everyone said, and it always went out at the same time as it does now, sort of end of May and people go, it's not really spring though is it? And we're like, well spring enough, still spring things happening and Springwatch seemed to capture everybody's imaginations and and I presented that for 10 years.
Adam: And you presented that for how many, how many years?
Kate: Ten.
Adam: Blimey! That’s a long,
Kate: Yeah, I know. I've just grown old on telly and then Autumnwatch came into being and then Winterwatch and I did Seawatch. So I did a series about British Britain’s seas and and marine life. Yeah. So I did eventually get my wish of working for the natural history unit.
Adam: Oh, that's very good. The fairy godmother in the form of the BBC descended and granted your wish. And now from all of those adventures abroad and on TV and everything you then said, I'm gonna move to this really quite, there's another car coming, quite quite remote parts of Wales. Why that?
Kate: We're going to head up here. Hold on, dogs. There we are.
Adam: Oh there's some steps. Hallelujah.
Kate: OK, only for this little bit.
Adam: Look, stop stop taking away the hope.
Kate: *laughs* So so I we moved,
Adam: Yes so you you picked up sticks and then moved to Wales. Perhaps it's not such a big move because the natural world has seemed to be always the centre of things for you. So but why Wales in particular?
Kate: Well, that is a curious question. I had no connection with Wales as far as I was aware. I honestly honestly can't tell you why I felt this extraordinary pull to live here. But it really was it was like a magnetic pull. There is actually a a Welsh word and I'm not sure I'm really allowed to use it in my context, but I can't think of a better word to use for the feeling that I had. And it's hiraeth and is a word that it's sort of more than home sickness. It's like a deep longing for the place that you belong. A yearning, a pit of the stomach emptiness for your home.
Adam: You felt this was a spiritual home, did you?
Kate: I don’t know I really don't know, Adam. I, as I say I just had this extraordinary pull to live here. And yeah, I would look at the, there are these old fashioned things called maps, and I would look at the A to Z of Great Britain. And you know, there I was in the South East and if you look at a thing called a map,
Adam: Yes, sorry is this a point about me getting lost on the way to you.
Kate: No no not even remotely. No, it's the fact that no one uses them anymore, and yet, they're the greatest treasures we have. So if you look at a map, the South East of England is just this chaos of colour and roads and towns and names. And it's just, you know, there's not a square millimetre that hasn't got a name in it or something in. The further west you go, the browner the map becomes, and when you go over the border into Wales, it's mainly brown and green and it's got beautiful lyrical names like Abergavenny and and it's got mountains and mountains, when you've been brought up in Berkshire mountains are the height of exoticism. To live in a in a country that had mountains all of its own just struck me as being remarkable. I still, 15 years on, find it remarkable that I can I can get up at breakfast, not go terribly far, and climb a bona fide mountain. I love that. And that's what I love about Wales.
Adam: And and you've done more than, I mean, people might feel that and move to a beautiful part of the country and live there and more or less carry on with their ordinary life. But you've not done that. I mean, you're not just you don't just go for walks, the natural world is something you've created a a new career out of as well. Is that fair?
Kate: I wouldn't call it a career.
Adam: OK but you're very much well, but you make money from it and it fills your days.
Kate: Well, no, no, I don't think I don't know I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's true at all. I think you know I my working life is peculiar. I've I still am involved making television programmes, some of which involve the natural world. I still write, some of that's about the natural world, but not all of it. The natural world for me is nothing to do with making a living. Making a living. But it is about living. And it was one of the things that I was acutely aware of when I lived in London was I felt cut off from the seasons. This year you know, I know I can tell you that I didn't hear a skylark until the middle of March last year it was Valentine's Day. I can tell you that because that's what I'm experiencing. And I love feeling that instead of the natural world being something I watch on the television or I read about in a book that I am able to be part of it. And that's one of the big problems I think that we face now with trying to engage people with the importance of things like biodiversity, species loss, habitat loss. None of those things sound very sexy, and none of those things appear to matter to us because we as a species so weirdly and inexplicably view ourselves as a species separate from the natural world and the natural world has become something that we just watch for our entertainment. But we are just another mammal in this amazingly complex, beautiful, brilliant web that is the biodiversity web, where everything fits in and everything works together, and one thing feeds another thing and you know, until we feel properly part of that, immersed in it and and wrapped up in it, why are we ever going to worry about the fact that it is now a biodiversity net that's full of holes, and those holes mean that the net becomes less and less effective and the less effective that net becomes, the more it affects us, but we see ourselves as somehow immune from that process and we're not. And what I love about living here, what I love about walking in this area every day, twice a day, is the fact that I feel that I can, I'm I'm more in tune with our natural world and that is sadly, it shouldn't feel a it shouldn't be a privilege, but it is.
Adam: And do you feel, I mean, you're you feel passionate about it. Do you feel evangelical about it?
Kate: Yes.
Adam: So what do you, do you have a prescription to help to bring others on side?
Kate: I wish it didn't, I wish you didn't have to ask me that question. I wish it didn't have to be an on side.
Adam: Do you do you feel that's an unfair question? Or do you think there's?
Kate: No, I don't. I think it's a very fair question because lots of people don't feel or don't perhaps don't experience it experience the advantages of the natural world, or they haven't been they haven't been given the opportunities to properly understand the impact that it can have on us and all those impacts are positive. I mean, there's loads of science. And you know, it was talked about endlessly during the pandemic about how green spaces are good for our mental health, blue spaces are good for our mental health, being outdoors, being in nature, listening to birdsong, sing plants grow, all those things are good for us. But we've got to a place where we've been so divorced from it, where we look for our pleasures in shopping malls and online and and we forget that actually all we need is right here. And, you know, it's a hard sell for some to to somebody who's never experienced this, who hasn't had the privileges I've undoubtedly had, you know who have not grown up in the countryside, who find it fearful or boring or inexplicable, don't understand where they fit in.
Adam: And I think one of the perhaps growing debates, I think or interesting ones anyway for me is is the balance between trying to either scare people or make them aware of the environmental challenges and potential for disaster. And then so to sort of go engage with the subject it's really it's really newsworthy, it's it's it's imperative people do things and actually turning people off going well we're we're all going to literally burn, enjoy the party whilst it lasts. So what what do you feel about that?
Kate: Yeah, yeah. I mean, all all, all you have to do, all you have to do is watch Don’t Look Up. Have you seen that film?
Adam: Yes.
Kate: And and and that, you know, absolutely embodies what you have just said.
Adam: So what do you think about that? Because I think there's a balance between going, offering hope, the power or audacity of hope is a phrase one hears as opposed to the sort of potential to frighten people into action. Actually the opposite, don't frighten them into action. Offer them hope of change. And I wonder where you feel that, if we've got that balance right, or whether,
Kate: No, we haven't got it right and I, but I don't know what the balance is because I think there's a real, I think that a lot of programmes that are made about natural history now have become so glossy and so beautiful and and so almost otherworldly that they don't actually reflect the reality of the natural world. And a lot of them again show the natural world without the context of people. And of course, that's sort of how we want to see it, we don't want people muddying those pictures. We don't want, as you say, the kind of the awful stories of the litter and the, you know, the the, the, the negative impact that human have humans have had on the natural environment. So we kind of don't want to see it, but equally if we don't see it, we don't engage with it and we kind of can watch one of those documentaries and even if David Attenborough is telling you that, you know, this is a habitat that's in peril or this is the last animal of its type that you will ever see, you don't really take that in because you're looking at these really stunning pictures and you think it's kind of OK. But I don't know what the answer is because I also know that as you say, if all you peddle is hopelessness and helplessness, no one's going to engage, they're going to stick their heads in the sand and just hope that it all goes away and pass it on to the next generation. So somehow we as communicators need to find a way that really does cut through. That really does make people feel, genuinely feel part of the natural world, that it isn't just another thing. I had the great joy of interviewing Tim Peake not that long ago, and I was interviewing him for a book that I'm writing about the concept of home. And I thought he would have, of anybody, a really unique idea of home having not just left home but left the planet. And he told me that he did a spacewalk, he was out in space for over four hours, and he said the blackness is like a blackness you cannot imagine. But he said, you know, you see Mars and Jupiter and Venus and you see Earth. And he said, when you're there, amongst the planets in that way you see that Earth is, as far as anyone’s experience, and any telescope has been able to tell us, unique. You look at it and he said there it is, this colour, this blue and green planet, whereas everything else is, you know silver and and ghostly, ours is a living planet and he said he had this, he had this sort of feeling when he was there looking at Earth and imagining somebody, some other being coming up and tapping him on the shoulder and saying hey, hi, who are you? I’m Tim. And he’d say oh hello so where are you from then? And Tim said I felt this enormous swell of pride to be able to point to our planet and say I'm from that planet there. I'm from Earth. I'm an earthling and I thought if all of us had that experience, could understand what it was like, how special our planet is in a universe that is infinite as far as we know and that we have, we have no idea what's out there, but what we do know at the moment is that our planet is unique and I think we would treasure it that much more and have moments like this of just standing amongst the trees and midges coming out, the drizzle, the mud and go, this is our home, this is where we live. It's really special. Aren't we lucky?
Adam: You're taking me uphill again aren’t you.
Kate: I am taking uphill, but you've done the worst bit and you and and actually you marched. I was impressed!
Adam: Oh OK good. You know I’ll fall apart after, I’m just doing it so I don’t embarrass myself too badly.
Kate: *laughs* I'm afraid it is going to get very, very muddy, so you're going to have wet socks, mud up to your knees, you know, that's why I spend six months of the year in wellies.
Adam: Right OK. But you know, that is the privilege of being an earthling, isn't it?
Kate: It is it is.
Adam: So you've been you've got involved with the Woodland Trust.
Kate: I've been involved with the Woodland Trust for quite a long time, but it really started when we took on a farm near here.
Adam: What’s this an arable farm?
Kate: No, it was a small council farm. It belonged to the council and people are not really aware that there are such a thing.
Adam: I've never heard this one.
Kate: No, but there used to be about 16,000 council farms throughout Britain and they were set up as part of the 1906 Smallholdings and Allotments Act and they were there, low rent, small areas, usually 30, 40 acres that sort of size and they would be available to rent for farmers who for whatever reason, didn't have a farm of their own. And over the years, as farming practices have changed as economic models have driven farmers to need to to produce things on a bigger scale, small farms have been basically relegated to either hobby farms or they've been broken up and sold to land that's been added to bigger farms. So we've lost an enormous number of these small farms and with them an enormous opportunity for people with farming skills to stay on the land and produce as food. And that's what was going to happen to this farm. And for whatever reason, I just felt this was not the thing to do and to cut a very, very, very long story short, we ended up taking over the farm and setting up a rural skills centre o prove that a small farm, ours is just over 100 acres, could still be viable. It supports itself and that's really important. But one of the things that we wanted to do, we were really interested to do when we took it over was to add more trees. It's it's got some wonderful ancient trees. There's an oak tree on the farm that we call Old Man Oak, as did the tenants before us. They introduced us to him and we think he's about 600 years old. And but we wanted to plant more trees. But we had this conundrum of how do we increase the tree cover on the farm without taking away the pasture because obviously we needed the pasture for the livestock and it was the Woodland Trust that helped us with that conundrum. So they looked, together we walked round the farm and we identified either areas where there were small copses or where there was a bit of a hedge. So what we did with the Woodland Trust’s advice and input was to put in trees as shelter breaks, so not actually impinging on the pasture, just or very much, but adding a kind of a thicker bit of hedge if you like, or making a copse a little bit bigger and in that way we've planted over 1,000 trees on the farm in the last decade that we've had it. And then at home we have a four acre small holding and and so at the beginning of last year I started thinking maybe it's an age thing, you start thinking about legacy and when you when you take over a piece of land, what you start to understand actually very quickly is that you will never own it, that you are simply the caretaker of it for the time that you are around. And I think we've got cleverer now. Our knowledge has become greater. We understand that just planting trees isn't the answer. We need to think about we need to think of landscape as a mosaic and so what we wanted to do was to create a little mosaic. Plant trees, create water or make a space for water, make sure that there was going to be areas that had glade that was good for insects, that was good for wild flowers. And so I talked to the Woodland Trust and said, are you going to be into this idea, because it's not just planting trees and they went, that's exactly what we're into. That's exactly what we want to do. We want to create habitat. It's not about blanketing a landscape with trees. It's about planting the right trees in the right places at the right density to create something that you know, in a generation’s time will have real lasting value, and that's what's been so wonderful about working with, you know, an organisation like that that sees big picture, sees longevity as as an advantage rather than as a disadvantage. And and that's what's been so lovely is that, you know, I can go to them and say so I've got this plan. I mean, I'm not even going to be alive to see it kind of come to fruition but do you care? And they went, we don't care, do you care? No. Let's do it. And that’s wonderful.
Adam: Wonderful. OK sorry, this is a bit, this is the bit where I'm going ohh well, I'm swimming effectively swimming now.
Kate: Sorry. This is a very wet bit.
Adam: Hold on a second. OK. Right. That's a very Norman Wisdom walk I seem to have. OK. Yeah. OK, so ohh sorry, hold on.
Kate: It gets, that's the that's the wettest bit now, now we're now we're more or less home and dry.
Adam: Oh well you know what we we might be home, but we are not dry. That would be inaccurate at this point. So well, that's a neat story to bring us back to home with isn't it. So you know things are looking good. It's all hopeful. A a long journey and a long one ahead, you know, not just for you, but for that natural world you're creating.
Kate: Well, I hope that you know the the I I think going back to to what you said about how we can, we can help us all feel that we are actually, you know part and parcel of the natural world rather than observers of it or visitors of it and things like planting trees or being aware of the seasonal joys of the bluebells coming through, or, you know the leaf fall in the autumn and the colour, all those things if if i you know if we can build that awareness that brings with it huge joy and reward, then maybe we'll start to cut through again and people will start to feel more like the natural world is their world and not just another part of the planet that they live on.
Adam: Well having arrived back at Kate's home, let me just say there are lots more woodland walk podcasts for you to enjoy wherever you get your podcasts from. And indeed, if you want to find an actual wood near you well, you can go to the Woodland Trust website www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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I met the Yonder Oak Wood team back in March to discover how this landscape will be transformed for people and wildlife, and what designing a new wood involves. The vision is to attract plentiful wildlife with healthy habitat that offers refuge from weather extremes and fights climate change. The local community has been involved from the off - volunteer Sally Burton joins us to explain what she gets up to, how excited everyone is about the future and what volunteering means to her. We also hear of efforts to make the site more sustainable, from re-usable fences to tree guard trials, and I get my hands dirty planting a tree.
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Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Well, today I'm off to, well, the wonderfully named Yonder Oak Wood. And although it's called a wood, it's not really a wood yet. This is a very exciting project, but it's in the very early stages of creation. It's near Exmouth in Devon. The Woodland Trust plans on planting, I think something like 13,000 trees there, creating a new environment for nature and wildlife to bounce back. Sounds a great place to go, I'm going to meet a few people there. First off, though, is my contact at the Woodland Trust today, Rachel Harries.
Rachel: So this site is Yonder Oak Wood, it's not quite a wood yet, as you can see, but the Woodland Trust bought it in March last year with the aim of creating, creating a new wooded landscape here. So it's 54 hectares, we think it is the biggest woodland creation site that the Trust has done in the South West in in 20 years, so 54 hectares, that's equivalent to about 100 football pitches, and it sits on the sort of two sides of a hidden valley, just a couple of miles inland from the South Coast of Devon. So where we're stood, we can actually see out to the mouth of the Exe estuary, to Dawlish and and possibly to Torquay there as well.
Adam: I I think you can just see the estuary over there can't you, just beyond that last bunch of trees is that right?
Rachel: You absolutely can, yeah, you absolutely can. And actually the other day when I was here, I saw a white bird fly over that was an egret that was obviously based in the estuary, so really exciting.
Adam: And why, now this site, I happen to know is, it it's quite important because of the anniversary and just explain to me, explain to me a little bit about that.
Rachel: That's right. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Woodland Trust and the first site that our founder Ken Watkins ever bought was in Devon. So it's really emblematic that we are now creating a new woodland, probably I think it's about 30 miles away as the crow flies from the Avon Valley Woods where we were started. But we're now creating a new woodland in the county of our birthplace, which is incredibly exciting, and we wanted to create something that would have meaning for local people and it would like, it would be tied into the local environment, so we did things like we looked at the name of the stream, we looked at old field names and we came up with a shortlist of names that we could then offer out to the local community and ask them which one, which one they wanted and what they wanted to call this new site. And one of the field names was Yonder Oak Park. And that's really quite special because as you look across the site, you can see all these incredible old oak trees over yonder, off in the distance. So I have to admit that was my favourite but we let the community choose and they voted for Yonder Oak Wood.
Adam: Right well you're gonna take me on a little walk around here, so just explain to me a little bit about what we're gonna see.
Rachel: OK. Well, we're starting here on a sloping field that has old oak trees dotted about the landscape. Some of these are a couple of hundred years old and there's one in particular which we can see just off in the distance, which is one of my, one of my favourites that is standing almost on on stilts. And the stilts are actually its roots that would have once been embedded in a Devon bank, which is a sort of a solid hedgerow that we find in Devon that has trees planted on the top and the hedgerow and the bank has been taken away. So the tree now kind of stands about a metre above the height that it would have once been.
Adam: Which one, I can't tell which one that is?
Rachel: So can you see there’s two in that field over there, we'll walk past it so we can have another look at it.
Adam: Yes, I see that, I see that. OK, maybe my eyesight's not very good. So and this goes, these are currently separate fields and there's what a field and then a hedgerow, another field, then another hedgerow, then the tree supposedly on stilts and beyond that what looks like a solar panel farm. So is this the, what will be the new woodland all the way up to the solar panels?
Rachel: We've worked to design a mixture of of habitats here, so we have about 5 different fields where we're doing much more intensive planting and that's what people would kind of imagine that would grow into what people would imagine a woodland would look like, but then in some of these other fields, so the field that we're stood in and a couple of other fields that you can kind of see off in the distance there, we're going to do a mix of open space, glades and groves. We'll plant some more of these kind of trees that will be allowed to to thrive and to spread on their own, but we'll also plant a mixture of of scrub and shrubs, so that's more lower growing trees, things like blackthorn, hawthorn dogrose, spindle, just to create a really good mix of habitats for all the birds and insects and bats that we, you know, we know are going to thrive here.
Adam: And you, you've arranged for us to meet a a couple of people, haven't you?
Rachel: Yeah. So we're going to be walking around with Paul Allen, he's our site manager and we're going to meet Sally Burton, who is one of our volunteers here.
Adam: The weather's been kind to us so far, but it is a little nippy so we shouldn't keep them waiting. So do you wanna lead on and we'll go meet them.
Rachel: Yes, let’s go.
Adam: And I'm told there there was some sea shantying going on here, which strikes me as odd because we're not, we're not in the middle of the sea or anything. So what's the story behind that?
Rachel: Well, we're not far from the sea. We can see, we can see the, we can see the sea here. But we were contacted by a a group of local acapella singers who were inspired by what we're doing here and had decided to take some modern folk songs and to rewrite them to to reference the wood. So they came out one weekend and they sang to our to all of our planters, but we also talked a little bit about sea shanties, which I like the idea of becoming tree shanties. So they took a traditional sea shanty and they changed the lyrics. So we now have a song all about Yonder Oak Wood that we could sing along to.
Adam: Great. And that we're going to hear that now from from you. So here's Rachel with her tree shanty. Is that right? No?
Rachel *laughs* I don't think so.
Adam: Do you have a recording of it?
Rachel: I we do have a recording of it actually, yes.
Adam: You never know. I don't know. Maybe a couple of teas or beers later, I might persuade you to sing. Alright. Brilliant, Rachel. Thank you very much.
Rachel: Thank you. That's great. So here's Paul. He's the site manager and he's going to take us on a little walk down through Yonder Oak Wood.
Adam: Paul, thank you very much. Nice to see you. So you are the site manager.
Paul: Hello there. I am. Yes, I'm responsible for turning these fields into a wild, wildlife rich area.
Adam: OK. Well, go on. Let's lead on. We can have a chat about that. Brilliant. So yeah. So these are early days, Paul. I understand you you are responsible for designing the woodland. What does that actually involve?
Paul: So really, I mean the the the first place you you start is is kind of kind of getting a sense of where the place is and what the place is and the the key bit here as we walk through it is you can see these big old oak trees and so we've based a lot of the design on that. So you can picture in the future lots more of these big old trees that will have lots of deadwood, lots of rot holes where birds can nest, and invertebrates burrow in. And the way we're kind of going to maintain it is we're we're going to put animals in and have low intensity grazing and then you kind of build in where the views are.
Adam: I mean it must be really exciting because it can't be that often that you you get actually a green field or literally a greenfield site. But it's more or less bare. It's a plain piece of paper for you to design. That's quite, I mean, it's exciting, quite an honour, perhaps a little daunting?
Paul: I've I've done probably 30 years of nature conservation and most of what you do is you take bits of habitat and you try and restore them, you try and protect them. You very rarely get a chance to actually create something brand spanking new. It is really phenomenally exciting for all of us, because if you think about it in the future, 100 years time, this place will be on maps. It will be on aerial photographs, you know so not only are we doing stuff that's great for wildlife and great for climate, we're effectively creating history as well, which is an awesome thing to be a part of.
Adam: Yeah, so on the map it should say Yonder Oak Wood, brackets Paul Allen. *both laugh* Rachel’s in the background going it's my wood, it's my wood. There might be a battle for the name.
Paul: I'm I'm doing the design that says it from the sky it’ll say Paul was here. *both laugh*
Adam: Yes, yes very good, on Google Maps you can, you know, in 100 years time they’ll go well how did those trees get planted in the shape of Paul? *laughs* So, OK, look, we're, we're, I've paused because we're at the we're at the top of the hill, almost. So what will happen around us? At the moment there are three or four trees in a line and not much else. So what will be here?
Paul: So if you if you picture it in the future, what we'll have is we'll have a a, a a scattering of big old oak trees like we can see across the site and if you look over to our left, you can see an area that actually was the former quarry on the site. But if you look at it, you can see gorse that’s currently in flower, even though we're in a freezing day at the beginning of March. And all of that is really good for wildlife. It's got lots of pollen and and nectar and lots of edge that birds and insects really like. And essentially what we're gonna get in the future is a combination of these big old oak trees and that lovely scrubby stuff that's great for wildlife.
Adam: So here not too dense?
Paul: Not too dense here no, not at all.
Adam: So you get the view, you get a nice view and it's a mixed habitat.
Paul: You, you, you, you get a view, it's it's very, we've we've constantly said we're creating a kind of a wooded landscape not a wood.
Adam: Right. Well, we should carry on walking out, I have a tendency, just not to walk. I can see right over there some white poles which look like tree guards. Which does raise this issue I mean of how you're going to protect the trees because plastic tree guards have become quite controversial. Do you have a plan around that?
Paul: Yeah, so we've got we've got, last year the the Woodland Trust decided that it would stop using the virgin plastic tree guards on its sites, which is actually a bit problematic because there aren't really any other types of tree guard that are commercially available at scale, so we're doing a combination of things here. The the main way is we're going to deer fence the site to stop the deer coming in and then we're also in some places we're trialling different types of tree tubes, so we're looking at one at the moment that bizarrely, has been made of sugar beet so it smells like golden syrup when you walk up to it, which is quite weird, and the ones you can see over there are actually recycled from another site. So we're, we're still, we're still using the tree guards that are effectively usable.
Adam: Right. You talk about trying to protect the trees from deer. Which does raise the issue of other wildlife. I mean, clearly, we're gonna be hoping that wildlife get attracted into the area once this starts growing. At the moment though, have you have you seen much evidence of sort of new wildlife or any wildlife?
Paul: It's still very early days yet. But we've seen lots of buzzards there's there's actually quite a lot of hornets nests in, in the existing oak trees.
Adam: Is that a good thing? That sounds terrifying.
Paul: *laughs* I I I personally I quite like it.
Adam: You're pleased about that, OK. I think a lot of people always feel it takes generations and generations to plant trees. I know I have been at planting events where some young people have planted and said, oh, I think my children and my grandchildren might come to see this tree and then are surprised, actually, they come back to see their own tree and it grows quicker than they might expect. How quickly is this going to develop into anything recognisable as woodland?
Paul: So I mean, with within 10 years, it will absolutely look like a woodland, although obviously still a young woodland and different tree species grow at different rates. So the silver birches and the rowans will actually be 6 foot high within two or three years potentially, whereas the the oak trees clearly will grow a lot slower.
Adam: Wow, silver birch and rowan, 6 foot high in how long?
Paul: Two or three years, if they if they take well. I mean it it it it varies depending on the soil type and all that sort of stuff, but they do grow very, very quickly.
Adam: Blimey. And tell me a bit about how you got into all of this. I mean, I know you say you've been doing this a while.
Paul: I started well I started off volunteering actually with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers a long time ago, and I got known by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and rather randomly, I was having a beer in a pub and they went, do you fancy a job, and I went, alright then.
Adam: Very good. So you've learnt on the job about trees?
Paul: I I reeducated a few, some time ago but yeah a lot of it was learned as I went along.
Adam: I’ve been very insulting, you've you've probably got a PhD in trees or something. But I do like the idea of, I got my job from a pub, I think I think that's always, I remember a story, so I don’t know if you remember a film critic called Barry Norman, he always used to say, I I remember him telling a story, there's a pub around the BBC called, I think it's the White, White Horse or something like that. And he went when he was unemployed, he used to sit there pretending he was writing scripts so that BBC producers would come in for a lunchtime beer, which they don't do anymore, but they used to and they would go, oh, Barry, yeah there's a job we have and he wasn't working at all, he was just trying to be in the pub around and that's how he got his work, so that's clearly not just media, it's it's the tree world as well.
Paul: It's it's it's very much very very clearly, a lot harder now than it was, because at that point in time, I guess nature conservation really wasn't a career.
Adam: Yeah. We've come across a locked fence, but Paul has a key, there we are. There we are. Into the next next field. Ah, right away. Here's a very different type of fence, and I presume this is to keep the deer out. So first of all, massive fence, is this to keep the deer out?
Paul: This is to keep the deer out. Yes, absolutely. And what will happen where we're standing, the hedgerow will creep out into the fence and obviously the wood that we're planting inside will also start to hide the fence. So the fence over time will disappear apart from the gateways.
Adam: So I mean, there's a good 7 odd foot here between the hedgerow and the fence. You're saying that that hedgerow will naturally grow another 7 foot?
Paul: Yep. So what what what we've got in this hedgerow, actually it's it's it's quite specific to this area is we've got a lot of a lot of small leaved elm and we've also got a lot of blackthorn in it and both of those sucker. So as as we've taken the the the intensive farming off the land the the shrubs will just sucker out and gradually spread into the field.
Adam: And look, and we're standing by the main gate and there's a huge tree trunk here, which is holding the post. And I can see the bark coming off. Now is that is that deer trying to get in there do you think?
Paul: No, that that's actually that's just part of the process of actually creating the post.
Adam: Ohh, that's just that's just me being an idiot. OK, I thought I was being a clever nature detective *laughs*
Paul: I mean what one of the one of the key bits about this fence though, is that that the Woodland Trust is now focusing very heavily on sustainability with everything it does. The, the, the reduction in use of plastic is one of those key bits. But these are sweet chestnut posts, so they there's no chemical preservatives in them or anything like that, and they're kind of the the the main posts at the corners, if you like, of the fence. And then we're using a metal fence with metal posts and and the idea is that when the trees have grown up after 20 years and they're no longer a threat from the deer, we can take this and reuse it elsewhere, so we're constantly thinking about that sustainability stuff all the time.
Adam: Right. So we're in this more protected field. Which I can see has been laid out actually. Is this for the planting scheme, little posts and sort of lines of rope?
Paul: Yeah. So one of the issues with going plastic free is it becomes very difficult to actually see what you've planted. Because if you look at here it just still looks like a field but actually there's somewhere in the region of well around 2 to 3000 trees already in there.
Adam: Oh gosh, I didn't realise that. So yes, with the plastic safe, plastic guards on a tree you see these white telescopes sticking up all over the field, so there's thousands of trees here, we just can't see them. Right and a a lot of that has been planted by volunteers?
Paul: We’ve had somewhere in the region of 400-500 members of the public come over four days, so we've got a a set of volunteers who have who've have have they’ve been brilliant actually, they've come and they've helped kind of manage all the public and they've helped work with the schools, they've helped us set out where the trees are going, we couldn’t have done it without them at all. And here is one of our volunteers now, here's Sally.
Adam: Brilliant. Alright, well, let's go over and chat to Sally. So Sally. Sally Burton. Hello. So I've heard lots of lovely things about you. So just tell me you're a volunteer, which in this context means what?
Sally: Hello. That’s nice. All sorts of things. I've helped this in during February with the public planting days and with the school planting days, helped children dig holes, some of the children are too small to get the spade in the ground very easily. I've planted quite a lot of trees myself.
Adam: And why why did you get involved?
Sally: I’d been looking for a while to volunteer for an organisation that does things outdoors and something a bit physical and so when the Woodland Trust appeared in the village hall I just went up and said do you need volunteers and they said yes please so I signed up straight away.
Adam: And I mean, what does it offer you? Why is it a fun thing to do?
Sally: I enjoy working with the other people. The staff are great and the other volunteers have been great fun. In fact, I've reconnected with someone I knew a few years ago and she's been helping up here as well, so that's been great. I like being outside, I love being outdoors. I don't mind about the weather. I like doing physical things and it's it's great to see, to make a difference.
Adam: So yeah, so what what sort of difference do you feel you're making then?
Sally: Well contributing to turning this basically what looks like an empty field into a forest. That's really amazing. People have been very excited about it. Lots of local people came up and planted on the public open days. Everyone’s looking forward to being able to come up here and experience it themselves and enjoy the trees and the views obviously the views across the estuary and out to sea are beautiful. And there are lots of birds already. It's a very beautiful place.
Adam: And so how much of your time does it actually take up?
Sally: Well, during February and the beginning of March, quite a lot, I've been coming up for days, getting here about 8:15 and going home about 4 o'clock.
Adam: Right. So why is that, why is that the the busy period?
Sally: Because that's when the tree planting has been going on.
Adam: First time you’ve ever planted a tree?
Sally: I've planted a couple on my allotment, but certainly the first time I've planted on such a scale.
Adam: Right. Have you kept count, how many trees are you in?
Sally: No. Well, on one of the public planting days, I'd finished registering people and I planted 25 I kept count of those and on Wednesday this week, a school was in and when they cleared off, I finished planting the trees in their little area. And I think there was about 30 there. I'm not sure I lost count after about 12.
Adam: There should be scouts or sort of brownie badges, shouldn't there, I'm I'm 100 tree-er, you know. Very good. Fantastic. Well, look, thank you very much. I can't believe this is the the the the field in which you've planted.
Sally: It is, you can't see many of the trees.
Adam: I I can't see any of the trees, what do you mean many of them. Ohh a couple yes.
Sally: Across there you can see some with leaves on those are sessile oaks which were planted a little while ago, and they show up.
Adam: Any of those yours?
Sally: Possibly *laughs* They show up because of the leaves. But over there, most of the area there is planted.
Adam: OK, brilliant. You're talking about planting, Rachel has appeared over the hill. She's brandishing a erm
Sally: A spade.
Adam: A spade *laughs* I forgot the name. You can see how ill equipped I am to do this. I forgot the name of what she's, so I think she's tempting us to go plant so let’s go off.
Adam: *coughs* Sorry, I’m already having a heart attack from the idea of physical exercise, I haven't done anything yet. OK, so we we have a spade and this is a virgin bit of land, no, no trees planted yet?
Sally: No trees in this section yet.
Adam: So I get the honour of planting the first tree.
Sally: The first one.
Adam: So you're gonna talk me through this and I'm gonna.
Sally: So the first job...
Adam: Oh yes alright, I'm already jumping ahead of myself.
Sally: The first job is to screef? To screef the area...
Adam: What what is what is screefing?
Sally: ...which is where you do this to kick away the grass with your shoe to make a square or an area to get rid of the grass, doesn't have to be too big, not much wider than the blade of the spade, put the spade in there, and then don't lift it yet come round that side and make a square on that side. Yeah, cut it down. Then on that side...
Adam: I feel I've hit the...
Sally: One of the pebbles. And then the final side and then you could probably lever out a lump of turf.
Adam: Then I can lift it out.
Sally: OK, here's a tree. And we need to make sure when it's in the hole, the soil covers up to just above the top of the the highest root. So if we test that, that's not deep enough, so need to go deeper.
Adam: It's not deep enough. Overall, I’m not doing particularly well I have to say.
Sally: Let's have a look. That's looking good there.
Adam: You think that's all right?
Sally: Yeah, that's OK. So the next job is to crumble the soil.
Adam: With our hands?
Sally: With our hands, back into the hole, loose bits first.
Adam: They didn't say I was actually gonna get my hands dirty.
Sally: *laughs* And then if you've got any clods that have got grass on them make sure they go in with the grass facing down.
Adam: Ok do you know why?
Sally: So that the grass will die and then it won't be in competition with the tree as the grass uses a lot of the water.
Adam: It's a bit leaning a bit, isn't it?
Sally: It is a bit, let’s push some more soil in.
Adam: You see, it's fine now, in 20 years time, someone will come and go, who the hell planted that tree, it’s at 45 degrees!
Sally: Then the last job is you stand up.
Adam: Yeah, stand up.
Sally: And use your heel to press the soil down to push out all the gaps so that it doesn't dry out if it's sunny.
Adam: And how compact, we don’t want to make it too compact.
Sally: Quite firm, quite firm.
Adam: Yeah? Do you know what I don't, I feel that's leaning, that's no good.
Sally: Don't worry, it'll straighten itself up. And the final thing is you do the tug test. Where you just get hold of it and just pull it gently. And if it stays where it is, then it's planted properly.
Adam: I name this tree, well and truly planted.
Sally: Congratulations.
Adam: Thank you very much. Very good. That's brilliant. Well, I have to say although me and Sally were planting, Rachel and Paul were looking were looking on. So Paul’s still here, how did I do?
Paul: Well, let me just check, shall I?
Adam: *laughs* You're doing the tug test.
Paul: It's it's been really fun actually with with, with the the the public when you come and kind of just check it, you can see them all hold their breath to make sure they're doing it right.
Adam: And it comes out *laughs* Is it alright?
Paul: No, it's grand. Absolutely brilliant. Dog rose it, it's a little bit crooked, but you know dog rose will naturally straighten itself up.
Adam: Will it correct itself?
Paul: Yeah and it's kind of you can already see it's a bit of a straggly thing and it'll do its thing and it’ll be fine.
Adam: Fantastic. What is your sense, really, of of what this might be in the future and how exciting is that for you?
Paul: I think in the future, you know, we're we're we're we've got something here that at the very beginning that is gonna be hopefully really important for wildlife and that most of the design is about trying to get as much wildlife here as possible because we're close to the pebblebed heaths it will it will act as a little bit of a refuge in the heat as potentially the climate heats up in the future and that's all really brilliant. And then the other exciting bit is the fact that we've started from the beginning with people involved. That, that, that scenario, but when you look in the future, the you know the the trees that we're planting today are going to be like these big old oak trees in 3-4 hundred years time that when you get your head around it is really quite amazing. And these trees and this wood will be on maps in in the future, and you know, we're creating history, we're changing landscapes and it's all such a a positive thing to be involved in.
Adam: That is amazing that in 3-4 hundred years there'll be a woodland here, the history of who planted it, the history of us being here today will be lost. They won't know who planted these trees perhaps, they won't know the story, but the trees will be here. They'll be there, they'll tell their own story in the future. It's an amazing thing to be part of isn’t it.
Paul: Yeah and you know if if you think about how many times do you get to do something that will still be here in three, four, 500 years time? That's just incredible.
Adam: Well, if you want to find a wood near you and don't have any idea of where to look, do go to the Woodland Trust website and its woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood, so that's woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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You'll never look at a tree in the same way again after this episode. Our guest, Tristan Gooley, is known as the natural navigator and gives us fascinating insight into the stories nature is telling us and how they can help us find our way. At Eartham Wood, West Sussex, he teaches us how each part of a tree can tell us about the land, water and animals around us. I put his skills to the test as we read the captivating clues of brown leaves, leaning trunks, lichens, yew, blackthorn and more. Find out how to determine which way is south, why thorny branches could indicate small animals and if he ever gets lost!
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.
Adam: Well, today I'm off to meet a writer, navigator and explorer who has led expeditions in five continents and I'm told is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic. He’s known as the natural navigator because he has learned how to find your way through the natural world really by looking at the clues that nature provides us and although he has travelled the world doing some extraordinary adventures, I’m meeting him much closer to home in a forest near Chichester. And that's important because he says, actually, the globetrotting is, in a sense a diversion. And, and the lessons about the natural world and practical things we can take from that can be found actually so much closer to home. His book, How to read a tree, has just come out, which tells you a lot about how to read the natural world around you, and I'll definitely be talking to him about that. Anyway, I'm off to meet him, which is a bit of a joke because I am the world's worst navigator and my first problem, as ever, is of course he is not where I think he is, but I've called him and he's going to come out of the forest and wave, so I'm off to look for a man who's waving.
Tristan: My name is Tristan Gooley, also known as the natural navigator, because of my lifelong passion in the the wonderful art of natural navigation, finding our way using nature and I'm gonna lead you into my local woods, Eartham Woods to have a look at some of the clues and signs we can find in trees.
Adam: And how did you get into all of this?
Tristan: Well, I I loved, I was pretty restless as as a youngster and I loved putting little journeys together. And then the the little journeys became bigger journeys and and through that I I developed, it started as a practical thing. I needed to know how to find my way. And then what happened was as the journeys became bigger and bigger, I had to become a proficient navigator. And there came a point quite a few years ago now, where I realised the scale of the journeys wasn't wasn't making them more interesting. So I turned everything on its head and learned to to find my way using nature and it, and it started with very, very small journeys. Just, you know, using the the sun, the the flowers, the trees and the weather generally as as my guide and just trying to cross a a mile or two of English countryside.
Adam: I mean, I know, you’re concentrating on the UK at the moment. But you have done some amazing foreign trips as well?
Tristan: Yes, and that was that was the the my school, if you like. And it was very much a a self-imposed thing. I loved learning about how to shape these journeys. But as I say it it got to the point where I was staring at kit the whole time I was I was literally staring at screens which had robbed all of the fun. I'd, it I I wasn't a I wasn't the sort of fidgety, 10 year old feeling the wind on my face and crossing, crossing little lakes or or scrambling up hills. I was, I was effectively managing systems and so that's when I when I decided to turn it on its head and and go for much smaller journeys. But try and understand how how nature is making a map and quite often a compass for us.
Adam: That itself surely has its own contradictions, because it seems to me what you're talking about is relearning some lost arts. The very nature of the fact that they are lost arts makes them hard to relearn. So how did you do that?
Tristan: Yes, it's it's a really interesting area because the, the, we we lost our connection with land based natural navigation in in a time when there was no writing. So there are very, very few written records. But the good news is navigation is something, and I feel really passionate about this, it is, it is one of the few fundamental skills. If I'm if I'm talking to a group or leading a group, I sometimes say to them, I don't know you, but I'm pretty confident in the last 24 hours you've eaten something, you've drunk something, you've slept, and you've navigated. Those are some of the things that all human beings do by and large. And so what we find is with fundamental things they pop up in in stories. So another another thing is if if you or anyone listening thinks of their favourite story in the world, it can be a blockbuster movie that came out a week ago or it can be an ancient myth, it really doesn't matter, you'll find navigation features in it, so the clues the clues are there. So I combined that with looking at all sorts of accounts of journeys, combined that with my own observations and combined it with research into some quite recent botanical research, for example, and and piecing all those bits together that allow me to to rediscover the art.
Adam: Do you bemoan the fact that we're now so dependent on satnavs? We don't use any of those skills and perhaps don't even see the need for them.
Tristan: No, I see it as a potential win win, but I think it's about an awareness of how the I have this weird thought experiment, I imagine that we each day we wake up with 1,000 units of attention and then it's it's up to us how we spend them. Now work might take 600 or 700 of them and sometimes we have no choice about that. But the question then is what do we do with the ones leftover. There's, there's lots of options there and understanding the clues and signs in nature is not something I expect to, you know, fill fill the available units for everyone. But it is something where we can, we can say, well, actually I'm just going to, I'm just going to give 10 minutes of this day to trying to understand, you know what that insect is telling me, what is that butterfly telling me about what the weather has just done, for example. And then through that it becomes quite a moreish subject because our brain has evolved to do it.
Adam: Yes, I mean, I agree. I mean, I think you know, wandering through the forest as we are now, it's it's not a lesson, it's not like I'll get extra points for knowing this tree is X tree, but it helps you engage with it, it's quite interesting to go, oh, there's a there's another narrative being told to me that I'm I'm not listening to, I'm not tuned to, but I could tune into that story actually makes the walk a richer walk, doesn't it?
Tristan: Yeah. I I really agree with that and I I'm I'm a bit of a poacher turned gamekeeper in the sense that I wasn't one of those kids crawling around with a magnifying glass looking for beetles, I I discovered it through what started as a fairly pragmatic practical need through through the natural navigation journeys. But what what I have discovered since for myself and others is that there's a there's a very widespread feeling that we ought to connect with nature, that we should feel something, that if we just go and stand in a in a wood that it should somehow magically make us feel something. But actually, our brains have evolved to to be doing things and to be understanding things. And if we think about the animal kingdom, which which we're obviously part of, we're we're not the fastest by a long way. We're not the strongest by a long way. We we don't have the best senses. But the one thing we do really, really well, our one trump card is an ability to to take in a landscape and and understand the patterns and build a more interesting and meaningful picture from what we see than any other creature can. So whether you're talking about a dolphin, a chimpanzee, any any creature you want to name it can probably beat us in some areas, but it can't do what we can do, which is look at look at a, a, a picture or a tree or or or any organism and and derive a more interesting picture and more meaning from it.
Adam: So look, I I feel like I'm aimlessly wandering through the wood here. Are we heading off somewhere specific or we just, we’re just rambling?
Tristan: We're we're going for a bit of a a a bit of a wander there's no no sort of fixed destination but that again is quite I I think it's quite nice I I often like to go for walk and just the sole aim instead of, you know, many, many years ago, the aim would have been perhaps to cross, you know, 30, 30 kilometres of woodland. But now the aim is to perhaps notice a a clue or a sign that that that is is new to me or that I can share. I mean the the view I often take is every single thing we see outdoors is a clue or a sign. And when we take that that perspective instead of sort of thinking, well, maybe there's something interesting out there and if I'm lucky, I'll spot it, if we if we just pause, let's let's pause by this yew tree for example...
Adam: OK.
Tristan: So every every single organism, including every single tree, is is full of meaning, which is another way of saying nothing is random. And if we just come round the side of this one, I'll be able to show you, hopefully this one will be a good one to, so a nice a nice introduction to the idea that that nothing is random is that if you ask anybody to draw a tree, you'll get a symmetrical tree. Symmetrical trees, of course, don't exist when we think about it, we know that. Every single tree appears as a unique individual, and that means that there's a reason for all the the asymmetries and the differences we find, I mean, as we look at this one here, we can see it's not symmetrical. There's more tree on the left side as we look at it, pretty, pretty sort of pretty clear asymmetry. So noticing that it's not symmetrical on its own is not is not fascinating, but knowing that we get most of our light from the southern side, and that that every tree is harvesting light, we put those two pieces together and and that tree is clearly showing us that south is out this way.
Adam: Is that true?
Tristan: *laughs* It is, it is. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty confident on that one.
Adam: OK, I tell you what. It's not, we've only just met, it's not that I don't believe you, but I'm just going to, let me just go get my, my, yes and I I can confirm, I can confirm the tree is correct. That is the south. OK, very good. *Both laugh*
Tristan: And and actually there there are lots and lots of other clues within that individual tree. The the angle of the branches, they're closer to vertical on the the right northern side and close to horizontal on the left southern side. And this is something I call the tick effect from this perspective, it's a reverse tick. But again, it's just a reflection of of the fact that it is it is, it is reflecting back to us, its little patch of the world. So if you get more light out to that side on the southern side, the branches are going to grow out towards the southern sky. On the north side, fewer branches and they're growing up towards the only light they can get up in the sky there.
Adam: Very good. So and that's, I mean it tells its story, but it's also if you were lost and needed to go south you have a ready made compass.
Tristan: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think that I was talking about how we're sometimes we feel we ought to feel something and actually natural navigation is is a sort of fun, simple way of turning on its head and saying instead of nature magically sort of plugging me into a different sensation, let me come at this a different way and say I'm going to ask this tree to to make a compass for me or I'm going to ask this tree to make a map for me. Or I'm going to try and discover the story of this tree. What has it been through? And if we we wander on our our, you know, I mean I mean you at any point you want, you can pick any tree you like and sort of say let's let's find the story in that and I will I will, have fun.
Adam: No, it's it's alright, I’m not testing you, I I believe you. No, I mean that's that's amazing. I mean I was, I know your book is only just coming out April this year, so just hitting the bookshelves. But I've sort of had a sneak peek at some some of the elements in it and I think one of the things I saw quite quickly was about knowing when water is close by. Well today that's not a problem because water is everywhere but it, you know, it might be a problem and then and indeed, with climate change, that might be a very significant thing. What tell tell me about that, how do you, what are the clues from looking at a tree to know that water is close or where water is?
Tristan: Yes, every every tree is is reflecting back to us through through its niche. So every single organism has a niche. Nature's ultra competitive, there is, there are no organisms that can kind of survive by waking up in the morning saying, well, I'll just kind of do a bit of everything. So what we find is it doesn't matter whether we're talking about animals or plants, they all have a a niche they they all have a habitat that they are better suited to so that they can outcompete other, in this case, trees. So for example, you'll notice if you if you walk by a river, for example, you'll start to notice willows, perhaps alder trees, and then if you walk up a hill nearby, all the trees will change. Here, although it feels very wet at the moment, we're actually in dry country, we're on chalk here and the the water tends to disappear quite quickly, which is why we see many more beech trees. Beech trees thrive on relatively dry soil on on chalk in particular.
Adam: But also I think you were you were talking about the the leaf structure and that when you look at a leaf which is near water, it has this sort of white vein in it? But I think that's really a neat trick if I was out with my family to go, I'm looking at this leaf, there is a river nearby and that's gonna get me huge nature points. So explain that.
Tristan: Yes. Yeah, and that's that's taking a a visual cue in the case of the willow trees. One of the one of the sort of telltales for willows, I mean willows, a hugely diverse family with with you know, tens of thousands of species, conceivably and and I don't think we'll ever exactly know how many species, which is why going down to species level isn't isn't super helpful, but a lot of the willows that thrive right next to water have long, relatively thin leaves. and they have a a pale rib down the middle. And what I've learned over the years is there's so many clues and signs and there's so much so many sort of things that nature is trying to whisper to us that having the odd visual cue can really help us remember it. So if if I, you know, just wrote that willows are next to water, that's quite an easy thing to sort of forget. But when you think there's what looks like a stream down the middle of the leaf is telling you that you might be near a stream, the brain quite likes that pairing, it makes it more memorable, and that's that's how a lot of lore, as in folk lore survives is because it's memorable, either in an oral or a visual sense. It's entirely up to us whether we want to do the the stepping stone of thinking well that white vein and the shape of that leaf is telling me it's a willow tree and the willow tree is telling me I'm probably near water, or if we just want to skip that like I'm convinced our ancestors, quite often they weren't doing the the identification they were, they were just they just knew, for example, from the sense of a tree shape or or its leaves, that was telling them that there was water nearby because we we still find that in indigenous communities.
Adam: Well, you you just you said I should test you at some point. So look this is a really interesting shape tree, tell tell me a bit about describe it for us first of all and then, does it, does it tell us a story?
Tristan: Yes. So one of the first, the first things I'm noticing on here are the these thorns here and we're looking looking at a blackthorn and it's it's giving me two messages, quite, quite sort of quickly. The first, the first one is thorns make me look for animals. It's it's a tiny bit counterintuitive, but because because thorns are not the sort of things you want to fly through very quickly, you don't, you don't find the the the fast birds of prey zooming in and out of this, which means that small animals actually are quite comfortable in here. So this is the sort of place where if for any reason you wanted to get closer to to small small animals quite often little birds, in there, they've, they've they've learned over the years that that's a pretty friendly place to sort of go. You're not going to find a a raptor zooming in out of nowhere and making life uncomfortable because it's just too dangerous to come in here sort of 50 miles an hour. The other thing is that it's its size is is telling me it's quite likely that we're not in the heart of a mature woodland. So what what we find is that there are, generally speaking, there are large trees and small trees, and the reason is because being a medium tree is not a great strategy. The reason for that is that if you grow up to be a medium tree, you've needed all the water and all the minerals and all the energy to get halfway towards loads of light. But you don't get loads of light cause the tall trees steal it all. So the reason we mainly have is, we look around here we can see there are mainly small trees and then there are tall trees. We've got, we've got spruces and we've got, we've got back back in that direction we've got beeches and an oak there. And then we've got the thorns here, a mixture of blackthorn and and hawthorn and and this is this is the smaller trees are much more common at the edges of woodland or in clearings. You know, if we were trying to find our way out of these woods, you'd generally go from tall trees to small trees on the way out.
Adam: We’d be near home. We’d go, this is the right way, this is going. And that's, I mean, that's a fascinating story, this, is it, I'm just trying to make this understand the logic of it, is that can you not be put off track by the fact that it's not a mature small tree, it's just a small tree, cause it hasn't got big yet. I mean, so all large trees were small once, so doesn't that rather make it rather confusing?
Tristan: Yes, yes. No, it's it's a, it's a valid point and I do I do put that in in the book that, you know, the the there is a look to to a mature tree. So you can generally tell when a tree is young and the the bark is quite a good clue. I mean, if we if we look at this bark on the on the thorn here, it's that's quite gnarly and you can just tell that that's that's not been you know that's not a 10 year old is it, that's that's something that's that's seen a few seasons. We're we're always building a jigsaw here. If if a place looks like it's it's established and there hasn't been much disturbance, recently, we're going to find mature species. If if you're surrounded by a load of young trees, that's telling you a totally different story, it’s telling you that something major has happened. Now, there may have been a there could have been a landslide, there could have been a fire, there could have been human clearance or something like that. It's pretty rare we're going to look at a single branch of a single tree and say that tells me the whole story. But but here we can see the combination of human activity, the size of the tree that this is this is a fairly classic, the trees trying to reclaim the land, so what, what happens is that these pioneer species get in here, I'd expect us to be able to see some birches. Yeah, there are a couple just there. Can you see just the the silvery bark on there. So birches are another pioneer species. So the story here is humans have done their best to clear a track that we're walking along and the trees through the pioneer species are saying we're going to have that back. You know, if you drop your guard, this this land will be ours again. And that's that's part of the map.
Adam: And one of the things I always love about trees is the, well, we've got lots of little bits of mosses and lichens growing on them. Is there anything that that tells us a story? I mean on on that on that branch, there's a lot more moss on one side of the branch than the other. Is that just because just is that random or is there a story there?
Tristan: When when people are new to natural navigation, they often often sort of they're they're familiar with the idea that moss grows on the north side of trees. But moss is really hard to use. It's it's not one of my top 20 techniques for the simple reason that it's it's not fussy enough. Moss will grow anywhere there's moisture, so all moss is telling you is that there's a surface that stays moist. The reason we're seeing moss on the on the side of that tree is nothing to do with aspect. It's nothing to do with north or south. It's because that tree has has come off the vertical, but it's what whatever we notice is a key and a and a way into into noticing other things. So if you hadn't noticed that moss, we might not be standing here noticing that that tree has come off vertical, so why does has it come off vertical? Well, this this tree to one side of it is bigger, therefore most likely older, which means this one has had to grow in the shade of it, which was why its trunks leaning away. So the trunks leaning away to get more light that leads to a gradient in the trunk. That means one side is is is not vertical, so the water is slowing down there and the moss is thriving. I I find lichens on trees much more much more instructive and the more the more filamentous, more hair like they are the the stronger the sign that you're in an area with fresh air.
Adam: Yes, they're they're generally a sign of of good air quality, is that right?
Tristan: Yes. Yeah, yeah. The more lichen species you see, it's it's a fairly strong sort of correlation.
Adam: So, but these aren't so so fine are they?
Tristan: No, no, we've got they're not they're not the Usnea family, which, which is the the ones who are most fussy about fresh air. But we have got a good mix here. I mean I would say it's a very specialist area, but if we had a lichenologist here with their magnifying glass and their way of testing pHs and all sorts of other wonderful things, I wouldn't be surprised if they found dozens just there. Whereas if we were much closer to a town centre that that number would come right down. I say here we've got a a hawthorn and as as we've sort of seen, one of the the smaller trees, but what's rather wonderful is this is very clearly bursting into leaf right now. And one of the most fun things to look for in in spring is small means early. And it doesn't actually matter whether it's a slightly taller tree with low branches or a small tree as we've got here. The lower down we look the earlier spring comes. And it's a simple race, because once the canopy leaves are out and it's sealed out the light there is there is no light here. So, so so bluebells will will be out here in a few weeks, and they're just trying to beat the the canopy. So. So what we find is that spring at head level comes you know, typically a couple of weeks before spring higher up in the trees. We've got a slightly different thing which is quite fun here as well. Which is we're just seeing a few few brown leaves low down on on this oak here and I don't know if you've come across that before, but that's it's a it's an odd word to write and say, it's marcescence is is the word, but it all it all it means is that quite a few broadleaf trees, but notably beeches, oaks, hornbeams do it, and and a few others will hold on to a few of their lower leaves all through winter, and then they start to typically lose quite a few of them just before spring. And the fascinating thing is, there's no agreement amongst the scientific community about why it happens, which I find, you know, such it is such when you when you know to look for it. And it's one of the reasons, for example, beech hedges are very popular because they hold on to that brown leaf covering all through winter. But it only happens in the in the low parts of the trees, which when you find things that only happen in the lowest parts of trees, it sometimes has a relationship with with animals and and the idea there is that you know the the grazing animals that could otherwise nibble off the buds, which which the tree obviously doesn't want find the the brown leaves from the last season less palatable and another theory is that if they're, if they're shedding them about now, it's a way of adding those nutrients as a as a fertiliser for the roots when the growing season’s about to start. So instead of dropping all the leaves in autumn when when the minerals aren't going to be needed for quite a while, the trees wait until this time of year and and then drop some more leaves like like sort of putting feed on the ground because it's it's very near the the the edge of the canopy, the area that's known as the the drip line, where where water and minerals are taken up. But yeah, I I like the fact that the, you know, there are still, there are still mysteries, the scientists need to, yeah.
Adam: So, I mean, you're known as the natural navigator, have you, have you ever been lost terribly, I mean on your travels? I mean it's there's a limit to the amount of danger we're going to get in today even if we did get lost, but in some of the more wilder places you've been?
Tristan: I certainly overrated my abilities and and underplanned and underprepared when I was when I was a young man, I when I was nineteen, I led a friend up a an active volcano in Indonesia and got us horribly lost and we we had to walk for three days without food, which was, yeah, I mean, I really thought it was the end. I thought that was a a mistake too far I didn't I didn't think we'd get out of that, but in the end it was a it was just trying to hold a hold a straight line, and then we saw these trails that we thought were animal trails and then we noticed there were parallel and it was the very end of a four by four track and it was it was it was a pretty harrowing experience.
Adam: My goodness. It's, you talk about this, it reminds me I was doing some filming many years ago with the Surui tribe in the Amazon and we got lost and were abandoned a bit and at the, initially we did think oh this is quite funny because it's a good story and then it, you go, we're very close to this being exceptionally serious. And there's this odd, sort of emotions are partly going, well this is all a big adventure and quite interesting, and yet I was also thinking one more thing goes wrong and we are never getting out of here. And that's a sort of curious sort of tension, isn't there when those things happen. And you get lost.
Tristan: It is interesting with the, when I when I've met indigenous people and walked with them in in remote areas, there's a a western view of being lost, which is quite a binary view. The idea is that we either know exactly where we are or we're 100% lost. The the indigenous view of navigating in in wild regions is is a little bit more, what we might almost call sort of fuzzy logic in the sense that they don't necessarily always know exactly where they are, but they know where they are relative to landscape features, landmarks and and things like rivers and ridgelines, so, and this is one of the things that I, one of the ways I sort of teach people to not feel, natural navigation is not about, you know, knowing how to get from A to B absolutely perfectly and efficiently. It's about exploring, taking in signs and if needs be keeping things unbelievably simple. So we we I could sort of show you show you an example now we could do which which might work quite well with the, if we pick up the sounds. If we come off the track just here just head into a little bit of, in amongst the trees here. Now, if we just stop and have a listen. Are you picking up that we're getting slightly more birdsong behind us and the sound of some wind out this way? It's quite faint. A buzzard in the distance, I think there, but we could just take a very sort of simple idea, which is that if I if I held out a an Ordnance Survey map and said to you point to exactly where we are, you might find that exercise quite tricky. But, but if I said to you, can you find the track we've just been on, you'd look back and you'd find it. But if having tuned into where the bird song is coming from, we took a few more steps over there, you can you can, I'm sure imagine a situation where you could neither point to exactly where you are on a map, nor see the track, and yet you've picked up just enough awareness to get back to the track. And having found the track, you could then work out how to get home. So if you'd noticed that we'd walked very slightly uphill, then we could bring start to bring all the pieces together. If we headed into the more mature trees over there, away from the shorter trees, you could you could have a map in front of you and think I'm completely lost, I have no idea where I am. But then if you just bring those pieces back from your memory, you say to yourself, well, I think if I head towards the birdsong, there tends to be more birdsong nearer, nearer the opening of of the track. And I'm going to put the sound of the wind, which is catching the taller canopy trees behind me. And then ooh, I'm just starting to lose confidence, ahh but the the taller trees have got smaller now, and I know that means I'm getting near the edge. I'm getting near the clearing. Then you found the the linear feature, the track, and you just remember you just go downhill from there and then you start to recognise where you are again. So it's this, as I say the the sort of developed world way of thinking navigation is you know exactly where you are and you know exactly the right track or path to take to where you want to get to. The the more indigenous natural navigation way of thinking of it is absolutely everything is a clue, and if I've tuned into enough of them, you'd have to tune into everything, but if I've tuned into the fact that I'll head towards the birdsong, I'll keep the wind on the top of the canopy behind me, I'll notice how the the tall trees become smaller trees just before I hit the linear feature and I I remember from there how to get back. You can see how you're you're not you're no longer feeling 100% loss, but at the same time you couldn't say exactly where you are.
Adam: Yes. Yeah. No. How interesting. That's amazing. And I mean, we've gone through a very interesting year or two. I mean, there's been chaos and tragedy around covid. There's been cost of living crises, there's been all sorts of political upheaval. It feels more tumultuous than normal. Has that you think changed peoples reaction to the natural world, desire to get something from it and desire to engage with it. Or am I reading too much into that?
Tristan: I definitely saw in in the lockdowns I saw what started as a necessary, you know, we were literally forced to find the same short walks interesting because we had no other legal choice. And so what started as a a a negative requirement, I think I I'm I'm a bit biased, but I think it was sincere. I I detected people actually starting to have quite a lot of fun saying well I, this 10 minute walk that I've done perhaps 100 times before I’m suddenly realising that there are perhaps 1000 things I've never noticed and that that I think is philosophically, I sometimes think of it like a a pension in the sense that the early, earlier any of us start to realise that there is this richness of meaning in everything around us, that the more we develop it and it, and it really is moreish, the brain loves doing it, it's, it's what we've evolved to do and so the earlier we we start doing it, it it sort of nurtures itself and then you find it's actually quite hard to go on really long walks because there's too many fun things to notice *both laugh* I'm I'm an optimist at heart. I'm of the view that if there's, if there are positive ways to get people to care about things we should, we should we should throw everything at those because it comes back to the the sort of psychologists, as far as I'm aware have have done quite a lot of research in this area, and it doesn't matter what area you look at if you if you try and change behaviour purely by alarmism, it doesn't actually have the same effect as if you give the brain a genuine reward for for for changing. But a good example is we we only we can only care about things we see and notice. And even the word sort of trees can seem very abstract. Whereas if we get to know individual trees and woodland better, then we start to start to take a real interest in in what people are doing to them and around them. And that's why I do sort of feel positive is that, our ancestors and indigenous people, you, you can barely you know, you can barely bend a leaf without them sort of noticing because they've, they've, you know, invested in this practical awareness of what things are telling us.
Adam: I think Obama called one of his books the audacity of hope, I I agree, I think, hope is often underplayed. The power of hope. And it is audacious. It is bold to go, there is hope, but I think it's also powerful. It is powerful.
Tristan: Yes. Yeah.
Adam: Well, I met Tristan at Eartham Woods in West Sussex which is a fantastic place which I'd highly recommend, but if you want to find any wood near you do go to the Woodland Trust website which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Did you know we have rainforest right here in the UK? Visit magical Bovey Valley Woods in Devon with us as we walk alongside a babbling brook and over a Tolkien-esque stone bridge among trees dripping with lichens and mosses and learn all about it. Site manager David Rickwood describes the features of UK rainforest, some of the fantastic species that live here and why this habitat is so important as he takes us on a lichen hunt, shows us an otter holt and much more. Find out what a rapid rainforest assessment involves with Tom, and meet Eleanor who is working hard to create a powerful alliance to protect rainforest in the South West.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees, for people, for wildlife.
Adam: When most people think about rainforests, they're imagining the tropical, densely overgrown jungles of, well, mainly of our imagination, because so few of us have actually been there. But what they don't think about is the rainforests of places as close to home as a Devonshire cream tea. And that's what's so shocking because Devon and some other parts of the UK have in fact some of the most important temperate rainforests the world knows. And it's shocking not only because it's a bit of a surprise that we have these rainforests, but we've not really been taking much care of them. The ecologist Dominic DellaSala said that today's European rainforests are mere fragments, a reminder of a bygone era when rainforests flourished and they're now barely hanging on as contemporary rainforest relics. Well, I'm off to see, well, I hate to describe it as one of those relics, but one of those jewels that remains with us in Devon to see what a British rainforest looks like, why it's important, and what's fun about it.
Well, I've come to Bovey Valley Woods, which, unsurprisingly, I suppose, lies in the valley of the River Bovey on the South East side of Dartmoor National Park, and rather close to Newton Abbot. You might have heard of that. There are lots of trees and there are lots of wildlife here, brimming with spring migrant birds, so we might come across the Dartford warbler, the brightly coloured kingfisher or the pied flycatcher, which arrives from Africa each spring to breed. We might come across some rather tiny hazel dormice, which I understand are here as well. I'm not here at night, but apparently if you are, there are lots of bats which hunt on the wing. And of course there's the Dartmoor ponies, which graze in the wildflower meadows around here, but we are planning on heading into the wood itself.
David: My name is David Rickwood and I work for the Woodland Trust and I'm a site manager here at Bovey Valley Woods.
Adam: Well, just describe to me sort of what we're looking out at now. We can, I can hear a stream somewhere nearby. So there's clearly that down in the valley, but describe what, what's going on around us.
David: Yeah. So we're on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. There are 9 river systems that rise on, on Dartmoor. They carve these kind of deep valley systems off the edge of the moor. So a lot of people, when they imagine Dartmoor, they're thinking about the big open expanses of the moorland, but actually all of these river valley systems are where the concentrations of ancient woodland and temperate rainforests sit. You know, they have this kind of ambient temperature all year round, so we don't have these extremes of heat and cold. And they provide those kind of perfect conditions really.
Adam: Yeah. I mean, when one thinks of Dartmoor, it is those, those bare sort of rather dramatic landscapes. But you were saying hidden in the creases around those are these, these rich temperate rainforest environments.
David: Absolutely. You see so although people think of the open moorland of Dartmoor and the high moor, actually, a lot of that biodiversity and a lot of the diversity is around the edges in these wooded valleys. So woodland bird assemblages is particularly important in this part of the world, so species like pied flycatcher, wood warbler, invertebrates like blue ground beetle, and, of course, all of these lichens, mosses and liverworts that are, you know, in these sort of niches in these temperate rainforests.
Adam: Right, so we've jumped into this discussion about rainforests. And we're in a temperate rainforest, but I'm still not sure what a temperate rainforest is, because it conjures up this image, sort of, of jungle, doesn't it, of hacking back dense forestry, of the Amazon, of sort of Victorian explorers, that's not the environment we're in, which leads, I think, me to a confusion, I think lots of people are confused about what it is we're talking about. How would you define a a rainforest?
David: OK, so in visual terms, a lot of the trees around here have what they call epiphytic plants. There's things growing on the trees, there's things growing on the rocks. There's things growing on other plants and you get this lush abundance of particularly mosses.
Adam: Yeah. So sorry, the epiphytic, it means it's living on it, but it's not actually taking its energy from that. It's quite a beneficial relationship?
David: Yeah. So if you were to go and look at a tree branch in, say, central London, you're not going to see it carpeted in mosses and lichen. So here the air quality is very high and so you get this abundance of of plants growing on other plants. And because it's so wet, moist and damp throughout the year, those plants can survive actually quite high in the canopy.
Adam: So the sorts of things that you're seeing in a rainforest are lichens. The trees aren't particularly different from trees you'd see elsewhere are they? The oaks and all of that. So it is, lichens are a big identifier and the amount of rain presumably?
David: Absolutely yeah. So we're we're talking about sort of 200 days a year where rainfall is occurring in some form that might actually be cloud, just wet mist, not necessarily pouring down with rain. And we're also talking about rainfall in excess of say 12 to 1400 millimetres a year.
Adam: And we're very lucky that we're in a rainforest and it's not raining. Well, it's lucky for me. So now this is a tell me about this piece of woodland itself.
David: And we're right on the edge of the moorland. And so the woodland here is gradually creeping out onto the edge of the moor, and it's spread out from these kind of core areas in the valley. Now, that's brilliant in terms of renaturalising the landscape. But actually it can be quite problematic for some of the species in temperate rainforests, so in particular on this site here we've got lots of very old veteran trees and ancient trees that grew in a landscape that was a bit more open, had a lot more light. And it's those trees that often have some of these really key species assemblages on base rich bark or what they call dry bark communities. So it's all quite niche in terms of the conversation. But those trees are really the stars in this valley and so whilst we're kind of managing the woodland here, we need to give, you know, conscious effort to kind of manage around some of those key areas.
Adam: So look, let's go off into the woodland, but just to tell tell me a bit about what we're gonna see the plan for the day.
David: OK. So the plan for the day is we're going to just walk down this track here and we're going to drop down to a place called Hisley Bridge and that crosses the River Bovey. And that in itself is a very enchanting and beautiful place, and I think probably some of this mystery around temperate rainforest will start to fall into place when you see that.
Adam: Well I tell you what, let's go, let's go off before we, before we go off on that adventure just, just pause for a moment to listen to that babbling brook. So we're talking about this rainforest in recovery or trying to build a rainforest here almost. How delicate is this environment?
David: It's interesting, I think probably in the past five or ten years, I think we've become increasingly aware, particularly through working with partners like Plantlife, actually how vulnerable these sites are and, and how the changing climate is going to be a real threat to sites like this. And whilst we're doing our best in terms of managing the site and trying to restore it and trying to create the right kind of conditions, there are some aspects about climate that we cannot manage. And so resilience is really this much sought after objective and I think on a site like this, it provides an interesting template because over the past 100 years this site has kind of spread out into the wider landscape. That expansion has created an element of resilience for us.
Adam: I’m not sure I fully understand, you're saying there is some resilience because of the expansion of it, but well, how does that create resilience?
David: So things like lichens, so so this, this site in particular is really important for lichens and Hisley Wood on the other side of the river is probably one of a handful of sites in England. As this woodland has expanded, it's allowed some of those species to actually move into the wider landscape. So instead of there maybe being 3 or 4 oak trees with a particular species here, there might be 100 oak trees with those species.
Adam: So the fact you've got more of them makes the whole thing more resilient, if something happens to one, it's not a disaster. Understood. So given, my feet are very wet, I I need new boots. Just just tell you if I'm grimacing, it's nothing to do with you. Oh, I was going to talk to you, but look at this. That is a bridge straight out of The Hobbit! Just, this is extraordinary! Tell me about that.
David: So this here is a historic bridge that would have provided the access to Boveycombe farmstead. So Boveycombe farmstead probably is mediaeval in origin, but the the structure that there's now is abandoned.
Adam: This is I mean just describe it, it's it's made of rocks and it looks so haphazardly done. It's straight out of, you do it in a film, isn't it? It's very high up, very slumped down. It is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to insist I take a photo of you on it. And and it's a lovely flowing river right underneath it as well.
David: Yeah so this is the River Bovey and about 200, 300 hundred metres upstream there's a confluence of the River Bovey and the Becka Brook. And these are sort of torrent rivers so they go up and down really quickly with the rainfall. So this area here and the bridge, in fact, at times becomes an island because the river comes up so high.
Adam: What where we are now, underwater?
David: Yeah so if you look at all of these stones, they're all water washed and you can see the sand from the riverbed that's been washed out here.
Adam: Oh, I can. Yeah, I can over there. It's amazing.
David: So coming here, you know, particularly in the autumn last year, November, December or the late autumn when we had a lot of rain yeah this was kind of underwater at this point. But these rivers are really important, or really important for things like salmon, spawning salmon, sea trout, yeah. So these, it's these kind of rivers that really would have had an abundance of salmon and sea trout in the past.
Adam: Do you still get some?
David: Yeah, we still get some now. And interestingly, even though it was super dry last July, the salmon numbers were the best they've been for probably 5 or 10 years.
Adam: I have many things to ask you, but we are gonna have to take a pause here as I take a photo. OK. Yeah. So the salmon, what other sort of wildlife have we got here?
David: So I don't if you can just look across the river there, but there's an oak tree and underneath the oak tree, the root plate has been hollowed out by the river.
Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah, it almost looks like there's, it's nothing supporting that tree.
David: Well, interestingly it does flex up and down, but that actually is an otter holt. So the otters move through this area on a regular basis and we've got a great little bit of footage actually of a mother with two kits in there and they're in there for a brief while. But these rivers are really good and things like otters are a really good sign that the fish population’s good. So there'll be dippers on the river here, kingfishers, grey wagtails...
Adam: I, I got distracted by the beautiful bridge, but it's all, what I wanted to ask you about, this is such a sort of, environment on the edge that you're trying to protect, but at the same time it's Woodland Trust policy to encourage engagement, people to visit. In this particular area and this particular circumstance, is that a very difficult decision because actually you're going, hold on a second, you do want people to engage. On the other hand, this is an environment which really needs to be left alone for a while. Do you feel that tension at all?
David: Yeah, that's, that is an ongoing issue and so, for example here, one of the things we try to discourage, and we do that by just felling trees or putting in what you might describe as natural barriers, is we try and discourage some access to the river in certain areas. For example, like dogs, so dogs and the otter holt etc is not a great mix. And then you've got species like dipper that are nesting in these tiny little, really, balls of fern and grass along the edges here. And it's very, very easy for both a person, let alone a dog, to just flip those chicks out of that nest.
Adam: A black Labrador just dipping into the river there. I mean there, there's this sense of, you know, sort of called honey pot, sort of attractions and that was an issue I think, particularly in Dartmoor, over lockdown, wasn't it, where it's, sort of places became overwhelmed and I suppose again there's a tension, isn't there on the one hand, they can get overwhelmed. On the other hand, if you manage that well it drags people to the big, famous place and leaves the quieter places on their own. So it's a 2 sided coin. Do you think that's a, a good argument or not? You're smiling at me, almost going, no, no, it's, talking rubbish, no.
David: No, on the contrary, I think we have got to learn to manage it. And I think there's a number of aspects to that. I think we can try and draw people away from areas that we consider to be more sensitive. I think we need to engage people and try and broaden everybody's understanding of what's important about these places because the more people that appreciate them, love them and understand some of the nuance, and it is nuance, the more likely you are to be able to protect these places in the future and you know, for them to be sustained.
Adam: We’ve got a lot of travelling to do and not much time, so let's cross the bridge and you're taking me to some, some lichen. Oh, God, I'm just tripping over there, OK, right. We're we're we're going lichen hunting.
David: We are going to go lichen hunting. Although this isn't actually the best example, but there you go. Can you see these? There are these little teeth.
Adam: Little teeth underneath the lichen, and so that's why that's called dog lichen.
David: Yeah, and that's, it's part of a group of lichens that that behave in that way and they use those to actually attach itself to the moss or the rock.
Adam: That's not the nicest lichen I've seen, it looks very crumbly to me.
David: It looks a bit dry
Adam: It does look a bit dry, is that how it’s meant to look?
David: Well you know, obviously we've had a very long dry spell.
Adam: Now I've just picked up a stick and this is covered in the lichen I love, but what is that? Do you know what, do you know what that's called? Now you see, I'm sorry I've embarrassed you.
David: No, no.
Adam: No don't worry about it, you don't have to know every bit of lichen.
David: No, it's palma... something or other, parmelia that's it.
Adam: It’s parmelia, parmelia you see the noises are from his lichen advisors. Parmelia, I think it's so pretty. It's nicer than jewellery or something, you know, I think that's very nice. So OK. So we're heading down the other bank of the river and where are you taking me Dave?
David: Well, we're going to head down to a meadow that was cleared of conifer about 20 years ago, and so that's where part of this site has been restored. But on the way, we're going to have a look at a big ash tree and an oak tree that overhangs the river and that has a particular type of lichen called the lungwort growing on it.
Adam: Horrible name the lungwort. And was that, tell me if this is true, that, was it the Victorians who gave them these names, oh no actually it would have been before that, wouldn't it? Because it looked like an organ and they thought it, therefore, it was medicinal. Oh, well, it looks like a lung, therefore, if you've got a lung disease, you should eat that.
David: Yeah so that's exactly what, what it was. So this one looks like the inside of the lung, so it looks almost like the alveoli of the inside and people thought it was some kind of medicinal kind of treatment for any kind of ailment.
Adam: We should tell people don't eat this stuff.
David: No, don't eat it and certainly don't cut it or pick it, because it really is quite a rare species.
Adam: And that's this?
David: Yeah so there's, there's, there's several little pieces on this tree here.
Adam: I must be careful because I'm right by the river holding my phone, my recorder and if you hear a big splash, that'll be me going into the river, right? Yeah. Also I don't want to tread on all the lichens. Yeah, go on.
David: It's this one here. Which is looking a bit dry and crusty at the moment. So this is the, this is the lungwort. But if you look carefully this is an ash tree and this ash tree actually is dying.
Adam: I was going to say is this ash dieback?
David: Yeah so this is one of the trees that really will probably succumb to ash dieback in due course, but this one, thankfully, is leaning into this really big oak tree next door and the lungwort has managed actually to migrate across onto the oak. Can you see there's some small fragments here? And further up there's more fragments. So this is where potentially the loss of 1 species may be quite significant for the for the lichens that are growing on it.
Adam: And do you get involved? Do you give it a bit of a helping hand and sort of pick one up and put it over on the oak? Does, is that a thing that happens?
David: So we haven't done here, but that kind of translocation approach is being practised in some areas, particularly where the sites are almost pure ash. So this site here, we've got a range of species that lungwort can probably actually grow on. So we probably don't need to go down that route yet, but on some sites it's really critical. So they are translocating it.
Adam: I love that, I go ‘pick it up and put it down’ and you very neatly go ‘that's called translocation’, but you did it politely, so you didn't make me sound an idiot, and I tell you what I can't, I can't, I want a photo of the lungwort, but I'm, I can't come over that close. I'm going to fall in, so I'll give you my phone, and you can take a picture. That way I won't be climbing all over the place. Well, joining us with our band of merry men and women is actually someone who's responsible for a lot of work behind the scenes and actually bringing people together to make projects like this, this rejuvenation of this temperate rainforest possible.
Eleanor: So I'm Eleanor Lewis and I am the South West partnership lead for the Woodland Trust.
Adam: I know one of the big problems with these projects is that the Woodland Trust can't, perhaps doesn't even want to do them by themselves, so actually bringing in local communities, other organisations is super important.
Eleanor: Yeah, absolutely. I think the enormity of the kind of crises we face in terms of kind of climate change and biodiversity and nature just mean that no single organisation can do it on their own. And we can be so much more powerful and have far greater impact if we join together and create kind of partnerships and work at a landscape scale. So that's a fundamental part of my role really is identifying those kind of opportunities and working with other organisations to basically amplify all of our kind of organisational objectives. So at the moment we're seeking to kind of establish an alliance for the South West rainforest, so that's everyone from kind of Devon Wildlife Trust, Somerset Wildlife Trust, the National Trust and then you've got kind of Plantlife, RSPB, there's too many kind of to name, but a really kind of good mix of environmental kind of charities, but also those kind of policy makers. So we've been having conversations with Natural England and the Forestry Commission.
Adam: So what are you trying to get out of that association?
Eleanor: I think there's a number of different things, so there is already an existing alliance in Scotland, the Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest and I think one of the key things that has demonstrated is actually the power of having a kind of a coherent communications plan and therefore having a kind of 1 voice that is coming from all of these organisations saying this is important, this is under threat and this is what we need to do is a really kind of key aim of the alliance.
Adam: Well Eleanor, thank you very much indeed. I do, I mean, I really do understand that sort of better together spirit really does help to achieve amazing things, so best of luck with that. I'm going to go off, Dave is down there and I can see he's he's joined by a colleague I think there, so I'm going to go back and join them. But for the moment, thanks, thanks very much indeed.
Tom: So my name's Tom, Tom Pinches and we're contractors and consultants who work in the countryside.
Adam: And you're brought in to sort of identify trees that, it's called what this rapid, it sounds very flashy, so it's like you're the SAS of tree men, rapid reaction force. What is it called?
Tom: It’s called the rapid rainforest assessment
Adam: Right and what is the rapid rainforest assessment?
Tom: The assessment formerly known as the rapid woodland assessment, it went through a little bit of a rebranding exercise.
Adam: Right, so what is it?
Tom: So the keyword there is rapid, so it's basically a toolkit which was developed by Plantlife to to easily identify temperate rainforests. I mean, my role as as a consultant really was to work with the volunteers.
Adam: Right. So showing them how to use this toolkit.
Tom: Yeah. So in theory it can be used by people with with less experience of ecological surveys. But there is some nuance there which requires a little bit of, a little bit of knowledge.
Adam: And so what sort of things are you testing? What, what are the the characteristics you're trying to find to identify this, this temperate rainforest?
Tom: So it it can be quite difficult to identify habitats and and that's something which ecologists have been struggling with for a while because there's no single identifying feature. So historically it was done by identifying indicator species. In certain habitats you tend to get communities of of species which which you find in that habitat. The problem with temperate rainforest is that those indicator species are plants like bryophytes, lichens, liverworts, mosses, which are very specialist, not not that many people can identify them, but the other things you can do are identify characteristics of the habitat. So these communities of species tend to be found in certain certain types of places. So one of the things we were looking at was was the structure of the woodland. We were looking at the age structure. We were looking at the amount of canopy cover, so those things are really important in temperate rainforest.
Adam: OK, so that's really critical, so this isn't Amazon rainforest transplanted to Devon tea land. This is, it does look different from a a jungle type Amazon.
Tom: So absolutely so the similarity is that they both require high rainfall, which is why you find them on the on the western edge of the UK where there's a lot of rainfall.
Adam: OK. And I don't wanna get obsessed by this, but why is it important that we identify this as rainforest, it looks just a very nice forest to me. The fact whether we call it temperate rainforest or just a bit of forest, doesn't seem to me to be that important. Why is it?
Tom: I mean, so temperate rainforest is is an incredibly rare habitat. So you could ask, why should we be conserving any incredibly rare habitats, I think, as a as a society, as an as a, as a, as a population, we all agree that that rare plants and rare habitats should be conserved, and so it's really important to identify them in order that we can conserve them. You know, we talk about diversity, we talk about diversity of species, biological diversity, diversity of habitats. And each of those sub habitats have their own biological diversity, biological uniqueness, and it's really important that we that we can identify as much nuance within those habitats and within that biological complexity as we can. So we can kind of save as much as we can, that's sort of under threat.
Adam: And it's beautiful as well as isnt it.
Tom: It is, yeah, it's really beautiful. They're some of the, I think some of the most beautiful habitats in the country, certainly in the country, maybe even the world. Very Tolkienesque, you know.
Adam: It is, as we crossed that bridge, I said if you're making a film of The Hobbit, that's what you put in The Hobbit.
Tom: Absolutely. And and and and you know these are habitats that inspired people like Tolkien to write about woodlands.
Adam: There is something mystical about them, isn't it? They do feel sort of magical places, little weird stuff could happen like stories.
Tom: They feel they feel timeless and ancient, and that's because they are ancient right and that's why they’re so important because they're so old and they're so ancient. You know these really valuable habitats they're there because they've had so long such a long amount of time undisturbed to develop the diversity that they have.
Adam: Well, that is a fantastic point to end on Tom. And we are right in the middle of the woods right now and I have a train to catch, so I've got to make my way out to this place. So Tom, thank you very much, of course, my thanks to Eleanor and Dave and even the birds, the trees, the muds and the rivers which have given us our wonderful soundtrack for today. Thank you for listening. If you want to find a wood near you be it a temperate rainforest or something a little less exotic even, you can find a wood near you by going to woodlandtrust.org.uk forward stroke find a wood that's woodlandtrust.org.uk forward stroke find a wood. Until next time, happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Londonthorpe Wood has been a haven for wildlife and people for 30 years. Colourful meadows and lush grassland open out amidst trees both old and new, where butterflies, grass snakes, wildflowers and woodpeckers all live. Now the Woodland Trust and National Trust are working together to make it even more appealing and accessible. Project manager Heather Cook tells us all about it, including what’s been achieved so far, how local people have been involved, prioritising nature, history and visitors’ wellbeing, and plans for the future.
We also hear from Edd, a volunteer wildlife monitor, on what surveying involves, which species he’s spotted and the excitement of seeing hundreds of butterflies in a single day.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well today I'm going off to Londonthorpe Wood. And the clue is in the name, it is a hop skip and a jump from London. In fact, well it's very close to Grantham. In fact, I think it's the closest woodland to the Woodland Trust headquarters in Grantham.
Now the woodland is about 190 acres big. It's got wildflower meadows, broadleaf and mature woodland. It's got a whole bunch of wildlife and lush open grassland as well. So, it's a very mixed site indeed. And part of the purpose of this site is that the Woodland Trust has been working with the National Trust, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to link Londonthorpe Wood and a place called Bellmount, which is the eastern part of the Belton House estate, which is rather grand and very nice. And it really gives a lot more accessible green space on the edge of Grantham to help people experience nature right on their doorstep.
And what I'm really looking forward to – look – the place is filled with an abundance of butterflies. There's grassland areas, you might even see a grass snake. There's the great spotted woodpecker and even, you might see, a kestrel. Interestingly, also cattle are also put to work on the site as part of a program of conservation grazing.
Of course, you don't see all of that at this time of year, but you never know what I might find. There's ash, there's oak, there's horse chestnut, there's beech, there's rowan, there's… oh I don't know!... sycamore, there's a whole bunch of stuff and I'm going to meet one of the Woodland Trust staff who's responsible for really bringing the site together.
Heather: So, my name is Heather Cook and I am the project manager on this, reconnecting Grantham to its historic landscape project.
Adam: Right, so, Heather I have to say, I left London, it was pouring down, I’m wearing my warmest clothes and get to Grantham and the weather is lovely. So, I apologise if I'm going to be very sweaty during this walk [Laughter], I’ve come overly dressed, overly dressed. Anyway, we are in Grantham very near the Woodland Trust headquarters, so this must be the nearest woodland to the Woodland Trust.
Heather: It is.
Adam: Why is this so important?
Heather: So, well, because Londonthorpe Wood, as you say, is closest to our head office, but it's also situated right next to a beautiful historic landscape at Belton House. And erm so, the project that we're working on here is really about reconnecting the landscape. So…
Adam: So, what does reconnecting the landscape actually mean?
Heather: So, Londonthorpe Wood, Londonthorpe the site was originally part of the original Brownlow estate. I mean it was sold off years ago, Woodland Trust planted it up as a woodland, but it was very separate then from the Belton Estate.
Adam: Right.
Heather: So, we are now working in partnership with the National Trust on this project and opening up access for the people of Grantham. So, they've now got access to the entire landscape to the east of Belton House and Londonthorpe Wood.
Adam: And when you talk about reconnecting the landscape then, is that reconnecting pockets of ecology so that nature has a bigger place to thrive? Or is it about sort of connecting a lovely house with a lovely bit of greenery so people can wander around?
Heather: It's a bit of both. So, it's mostly to do with the physically reconnecting the two sites, so it's not actually connecting to the Belton House park, it's a section of Belton House that sits to the east of their estate where the Bellmount Tower is. It's freely accessible, there's no paved area. People can come in. So, it's a physical connection – we've opened up kissing gates and put in a bridge and all of that between the two sites. But then also very much around improving biodiversity, opening access from a wildlife point of view as well.
Adam: And how long has that project been going on for then?
Heather: So, the development phase was a few years, but the actual delivery of the project started just over two years ago.
Adam: And what have you managed to achieve then?
Heather: [Laughter]
Adam: Sorry, that wasn't my inner Jeremy Paxman [laughter] ‘come on and justify what you've done!’ No, no, so what has actually happened there?
Heather: So, I think one of the biggest things you can see physically on the site is that we have majorly upgraded the car park. It was a small, very wobbly, difficult-to-get-around, little car park and we have upgraded that with a beautiful, big overflow space for when we have events. But I think the most exciting part for me is that we've been able to put the surface path in. So that has opened up the site to a much bigger group of people. It used to be that people would drive in, park their car, 20 minutes around the park with their dogs, back in the car and off they went. Whereas now we've got people in mobility scooters, baby buggies, wheelchairs coming to the site because it’s surfaced and relatively level. It makes, that obviously makes it a lot easier. And also, in the winter this section that we're in now, it can get incredibly muddy and that puts off a lot of new users who aren't used to that. So, it makes it very much more accessible.
Adam: I mean, it's interesting. I mean, this is a very, you know, well-kept path, a lovely path which we don't often see or don't always see in woodlands and you've clearly gone to a lot of effort to improve access. Is there a sort of tension between your duty to safeguard the natural world and your duty to allow access, to encourage people to engage with it?
Heather: Absolutely. It's, one of our big sort of priorities for the project is to create, to find that balance.
Adam: Is there a trade-off? I mean, I mean, I just wonder whether that's an easy balance to achieve or do you have to lose on one side to gain on the other?
Heather: I don't think so. You know, Londonthorpe is not an ancient woodland, it's… this we're walking through now was planted in the early 1990s, so it's about 30 years old. So, it hasn't, you know, we weren't doing any damage necessarily to anything. I can't say it wasn't of value, it is of value, but it's not, we weren't losing anything dramatic. It was… we were quite careful when we put the paths in, they were all… these, you know, through the woodland sections were no dig, so, it's not disturbing any of the tree roots, you can see them right up against the path. So no, I don't think it has been too much of a battle.
Adam: and encouraging people to engage in woodlands and places like this – what is your hope? I mean, I mean, it's a very nice sort of thing for people to do to wander around. There's no charge, especially in these days – that's a lovely free thing for the family to do… go in, you know, investigate a Woodland Trust wood. But do you think there's a greater purpose in trying to encourage that engagement?
Heather: I think so, I think one of the things that we found so interesting was that, you know, our project actually got off the ground right as the pandemic started. But during the development phase we had done some number count… you know, some people counters on the site counting how many people are coming through and during the pandemic, those numbers more than doubled. And I think that what we have found… you hear it all over the show… the value and the benefit of wildlife to people's mental health and I think that that has, that's a very big deal for us, is that, there's not a lot of green space available in Grantham and it's, a big part of our project is trying to tell people that we’re here, that it's free to visit and that it's a huge benefit to them in so many ways.
Adam: Well, we've just come out of this woodland area very densely packed woodland area to a lovely sort of open, open bit, which is fantastic. I mean, tell me a bit about the landscape here and the sort of different varieties we're seeing.
Heather: So, it's one of the things that I love so much about the site is that every 10 minutes you walk into a different landscape [laughter] it changes all the time. But just to our right on that side of the site is where the Belton estate is and when we get around the corner, you'll see that this landscape is very similar to that and it was actually planted, as I mentioned in the 1990s, to reflect that landscape. So that's why we've got these big open grassland areas, some more densely packed woodland. Further on in the south, there's a lot of scrubland. So very much trying to keep it in keeping with the Belton estate.
Adam: And how important, you talked about trying to offer this as a facility for the local community. How, how engaged are they?
Heather: Very much more since we've done the… made the changes to the site. As I said, we've seen the numbers go up a lot. We've had a really, really positive response to the changes. And our project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, so we've got two full-time staff on the project, me being one of them. And we've got a community development officer on the site as well. And a large part of his job is to promote the project in the town, engage with community groups, invite them out to show them what we've got and so that, that's making a big difference, that people, more people know about it.
Adam: And in terms of local volunteers, is there a sort of army of people willing to come and help or is that is that just a hope at the moment?
Heather: No, we've got a group, a couple of groups are really, really engaged fantastic volunteers. So, we've got a group that do guided walks for us. So, they do different themed walks. We do walk from the Belton House to Bellmount Tower on a regular basis and we do military history walks. And then we've also got a really active group of wildlife monitor volunteers. So, they've been monitoring birds, butterflies, doing transects all over the site.
Adam: And are we meeting someone who's one of those volunteers?
Heather: Yes, that's Edd! Edd Cullen. He's been with us now, I think he'll probably have to tell you, but about a few months now.
Adam: Right. So early start. [laughter] Early start. Fresh blood, fresh blood. Well, look and to the left, well, that looks like a golf course or something. It's a very well-manicured bit of land… maybe not a golf course, is that just someone’s private garden?
Heather: No, that's also part of the Belton House estate. It is a golf course. They’re on a long-term lease.
Adam: Right, okay. Fantastic. Well, I'm gonna go off and meet Edd who is just lurching. He's not lurching. He's lurking. That was the word I was looking for. He's lurking. He's lurking by a tree down the path here. Edd, who is one of the volunteers. I’m going to talk to him about the work that they do here.
Pause
Hi. So, you're one of the volunteers. Is that right?
Edd: I am yeah.
Adam: So, what do you volunteer with? What, what do you do?
Edd: Well so, currently this year we've been doing weekly butterfly surveys and monthly bird surveys. So, each, each week we come to do a butterfly survey. It's just the end of the season now that's finished. But we carry on with the monthly bird surveys throughout the year. Hopefully in the future when we get more volunteers, we’ll look to expand that to dragonfly surveys or nesting birds, breeding territories, and that sort of thing.
Adam: And how do you do those surveys? I mean, is it literally just wandering around going oh that’s a nice butterfly? [Laughter]
Edd: For the butterfly survey we follow a set route around the… transect around the site, made up of several legs, and we walk along, and we observe 2.5 metres either side of us and monitor and note any butterflies we see as we go along the, along, along the transect. We walk at a steady pace and go all the way around and see what we find in each leg.
Adam: Butterflies are quite small. I mean, how difficult is it [Laughter] I mean I do see a butterfly, but I think if I went out looking for one, I probably wouldn't find one. How hard is it actually?
Edd: It's quite tricky to begin with. But then you sort of after a while, you know what to look for certain flowers they like to be around and certain movements you see near the vegetation. So, after a while, you do sort of get the hang of it.
Adam: And did you know this site before the Woodland Trust sort of got heavily involved.
Edd: I've been here quite a lot before, before I became a volunteer, and I really liked to, enjoyed walking around it. So now I'm a volunteer here. It's quite good to be able to have a reason to visit every week. And even if we don't see many butterflies, it's still a nice walk.
Adam: Have you noticed much of a change in the landscape here in the past few years or indeed how many butterflies and birds you've managed to see?
Edd: Well, I've just been doing it, this is my first year volunteering. Volunteers tell me this year butterfly numbers were lower than they had been in previous years. So, I'm not quite sure if that's due to the climate or, or something like that, but in peak season, when we were doing the surveys, I think the most we saw was a couple of hundred on the transect, but it can be much more than that.
Adam: Wow, sorry, I thought you were going to go, oh I saw ten! Over a couple of hundred butterflies!
Edd: Yeah, we can do on the busiest days. Yeah.
Adam: Okay. That's very cool. Why did you get involved as a volunteer? What attracted you to that?
Edd: Well, my goal is to work in the conservation sector, and I recently graduated from doing a master’s degree in biodiversity conservation. So, I was looking to get some more experience doing some sort of hands-on survey work.
Adam: What would you say to other people who are listening to this and say oh I quite fancy spotting butterflies? I mean, what would you say about the joys of doing that or whether that's something you'd recommend?
Edd: Oh yeah, I definitely recommend it! It's really, really enjoyable, and it's always exciting when you see a species you haven't seen before. There's quite a few different ones. Yeah, it's always really exciting.
Adam: And how did you apply then? You just went to the website, or you stood outside headquarters?
Edd: Well, I saw information about the reconnecting project on social media. So, I emailed to find out more, see if there's any volunteering going on. And I got an email back saying that there's a wildlife monitoring team and I thought that sounds great. It sounds just like I want to do. So yeah, I got, I got involved.
Adam: So, if you're interested, have a look at the website and follow them on Twitter and…
Edd: Yeah, absolutely
Adam: Brilliant. But in terms of butterflies then are there any, any special to this site, or do you have favourites?
Edd: I'm not sure there's any that's special to this site, but my favourite I've seen is the painted lady. I've seen quite a few of those this year. They're really really, really vibrant. Really really nice to see. I saw quite a few species though… about… I think about a dozen species I’ve seen so far. We’ve had small and Essex skippers and common butterflies, red admiral, common blue. So, lots of different kinds.
Adam: Did you have to learn what those butterflies were? Did you come fully armed with butterfly knowledge?
Edd: Well, my butterfly knowledge… didn't have… wasn't extensive when I started. But luckily I'm paired up with a more experienced volunteer and was able to learn a lot from them and learn more as I go as I spot them, and doing it every week you see the same butterflies every week, and you sort of pick up what species they are.
Adam: Brilliant. Well Edd, thank you very much. I'm gonna leave Edd there and go back to Heather for, sort of, a final word really on what she hopes the future for this site will hold.
Heather: So, the project runs for four… is gonna run for four years. We've got another two years left on the project and we hope that by the time we get to the end of the National Lottery Heritage Fund funding that that will, we will have engaged really successfully with a number of community groups in the town. So, my hope really is that that will continue indefinitely after the life of the project and that this will become a really special valued place for the people of Grantham.
Adam: Well, it's lovely, lovely. And lovely weather as ever on these walks. I'm always blessed with good weather… shouldn't jinx it. But thank you Heather, that's brilliant. Thank you Heather, thank you very much.
Heather: Thank you.
Adam: Do remember you can find a wood near you by looking at the Woodland Trust website, which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood, or indeed you can just type in find a wood into your search engine of choice and it will direct you to that Woodland Trust page. But until next time and another wood somewhere in the country I look forward to walking with you then. Until then, happy wandering.Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners, and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating.
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Join us for an episode of virtual time travel to visit Hatfield Forest, Essex and explore over 2,000 years of rich history. As we journey through this outdoor museum, we chat to Tom Reed, a Woodland Trust ancient tree expert, and Ian Pease, a National Trust ranger, who explain why the wildlife and cultural value of these trees makes them irreplaceable. Discover why ancient trees are so important, what makes a tree ancient, how people have lived and worked with them through the centuries and the urgent need to better protect them.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, today I am off to Hatfield Forest, which is the best-preserved medieval hunting forest in Europe, which has a very rich history stretching back, well, a very long time, some 2,000 years or so.
Now, the forest itself is actually managed by the National Trust, but the Woodland Trust works very closely with them. In particular, the reason I'm going there is to look at and talk about ancient trees, their importance to people and landscape, and of course, how old you have to be to be ancient.
Ian: My name is Ian Pease, and I’m one of the rangers here for the National Trust at Hatfield Forest.
Adam: And so how long has your association been with this forest then?
Ian: Well, it's getting on for 30 years.
Adam: You're looking good on it.
Ian: Thank you. Thank you. [Laughter]
Adam: That’s very cool. Now look I have met you by this extraordinary, well, is it a tree or is it two trees? Inaudible just describe where we are standing.
Ian: So, we are standing just to the left of the entrance road as you come into the forest and this is a magnificent hornbeam, er and although, like you say Adam, it looks like it's two trees it is actually one.
Adam: How do you, how do you know?
Ian: Well, it's done what's called compartmentalise. So, what happens when trees get to this age –and this tree is without a doubt probably around 700 years old – is the heartwood falls away and you're left…
Adam: The heartwood’s in the middle?
Ian: The heartwood, the heartwood in the centre falls away, and what you’re left with is the living part of the tree, which is the sapwood and what you can see there is that what trees do, trees are very good at adapting when they get older. And they are generally very good at adapting throughout their lives. So, what has happened here is this tree has stabilised itself by compartmentalising, so sealed off these two halves to stabilise itself and you can also see what we call aerial roots starting to come down from the canopy which gives the tree the rigidity and strength.
Adam: So, where is that? I can’t see, let’s have a look, what do you mean?
Ian: Yeah, so let’s have a closer look.
Adam: I’ve never heard of aerial roots.
Ian: You can see these structures…
Adam: Yes, I see.
Ian: …these structures are what we call aerial roots.
Adam: Yeah, they do look like… but they're not in the ground, they’re in the air. So where are they...? What function are they serving?
Ian: Well, they’re basically supporting the tree and what's happened here, this is an old pollard, so originally, they’d have been what we call bowling in the top there, and the roots would have gone down into that sort of composted material that was captured in the bowling, and as that’s gradually fallen away that's what you're left with at the top there.
Adam: So, these roots are supporting the tree as opposed to bringing it nutrients or anything?
Ian: Well, they are supplying nutrients for it from this compost material…
Adam: Oh, I see, which is still there.
Ian: You can still see some of it there. What's happened obviously is as the trees aged, it's fallen through. Um and you can see the compartmentalisation on the edges there. A sort of almost callous effect.
Adam: Well, amazing, well look I gotta get a photo of you by this which I will put on my Twitter account. Do you have a Twitter account?
Ian: I haven't, but I’ve got Instagram and Facebook.
Adam: I’m sure we’ll put it on all of those things so you can see what Ian is talking about. Fantastic, well look, this is just the beginning. And you said it was the ancient way, the ancient tree way? The road?
Ian: Er no this isn’t the ancient way. This is, this is the vehicle accessway into the forest. But having said that Adam, there is stagecoaches who used to travel from the east heading to Bishop… sorry, heading down to London, would cut through Hatfield Forest to cut out Bishop Stortford.
Adam: [laughter] Okay right. An ancient cut-through. There we are.
Ian: That's it.
Adam: There we are. Not quite up-to-date traffic news, [laughter] but if you're a time traveller, that's a bit of traffic news for you. Look, my first visit here, we've come on an amazing day, I'm very, very lucky. What would you suggest I look out for here?
Ian: Well certainly if you go for a walk through… what I, what I sort of advise people to do is to go for a walk around the lake area to start with because that way as you go down to the lake area you go through the medieval landscape. And what’s nice about the lake area is you’ve got the 1740s landscape, so that's the Capability Brown heart to the forest. He was employed here in the 1740s before the National Trust had the forest. It was owned by the Houblon family, and he developed, formed the lake down there and built a shell house next to the lake. So, you could almost go on a bit of a time travel, you know virtual time travel, by walking through this wood pasture where we are now amongst these stunning ancient trees. Take yourself into the 1740s and walk around the lake and then and then go from there.
Adam: Brilliant. I'm heading off to the 1740s, what a fantastic bit of map reading that will be. Thank you very much, Ian. Really, really nice to see you.
Ian: You’re welcome, you’re welcome.
[Walking noise]
Adam: Well, I'm just walking out actually, into a bit of open field here. Ooh look wild mushrooms… must avoid that. Don’t want to trample on those. And beneath one of these trees is Tom from the Woodland Trust, and he is going to be my guide to the rest of this amazing forest.
[Walking noise]
Adam: So, Tom, I assume? Hi! What an amazing place, amazing place isn’t it?
Tom: An amazing place Adam, hi, nice to meet you.
Adam: First of all, this is an unusual forest in terms of the Woodland Trust because it's actually the National Trust, but you sort of… this is a joint project or, explain the relationship? Why this is different?
Tom: So, the National Trust and the Woodland Trust are both really passionate about seeing the protection of ancient and veteran trees, are interested in studying them and knowing where they are.
So, when… we’re here today because the National Trust and the Woodland Trust have been working together, well, for quite a few years actually, we've been working together to map ancient and veteran trees to our Ancient Tree Inventory.
And also, in the past year and a half, we've also been working with the National Trust on a project called the Green Recovery Project, which was a Challenge Fund that we, both organisations, were working on. This was actually one of the sites, in fact, I was here just six months ago where I got to see first-hand some of the restoration work that was being done to some of these trees, some of the historic pollarded hornbeams for example. We got to see how they are now being managed and cared for here by the Trusts.
Adam: And it is an amazing place. I mean we're lucky to be here on a great day. Oh! You can hear… we’re near Stansted, so you might hear an airplane in the background there. Oh, but we've come out of this lovely, sort of, bit of woodland into this amazing open area here and it's, it does feel a very mixed sort of landscape doesn't it?
Tom: Absolutely, I think if, if you're walking here with your dog or just on a fun day out, you might just think to yourself ‘ah this is a field or some nice trees here’. But actually, when you stop and look around you can see these living links to the past, and what we, walking through here is a medieval landscape where you've got a mixture of ancient trees, we can see some decaying oaks in the background over there. We’ve actually just walked past some large hornbeam pollards. So, these are trees that were working trees, hundreds of years ago that were managed as part of this landscape to provide timber for those who manage them, worked and lived in the area. So, to be able to walk past trees like that and, you know, to touch them – these living monuments – is just a real privilege.
Well, we've got a mix here, we've got a mix of young trees, mature trees, ancient trees, and this area that we're stood on now is called, referred to as wood pasture because it was historically a wood landscape, where you had both a mix of livestock agriculture and also tree management as well.
Adam: Well look, it's amazing just to our left there's two lovely trees, and I… I don't know what they are… but they're so lovely two people have stopped to take photos of them and I mean just a measure of how beautiful some of these, this landscape is. What… just a quick test… do you happen to know what that tree is?
Tom: Yeah. So, we've got two, sort of, mature hawthorns there, so erm elsewhere in the forest there are actually some much older hawthorns… we have some ancient hawthorns here that would be several hundred years old. These are probably mature, probably over 100–150 years old…
Adam: And they got lovely sort of red, red splattering over them. It just looks like someone's painted that, it's quite, quite an amazing sight. So, you talk about ancient trees. So what? What classifies a tree as ancient then? Because if [laugh] these were young and they’re like 100 or something. So, what’s ancient exactly?
Tom: So, it's a great question. So ancient trees are those that are in their third and final life stage essentially. So, the sort of, the age at which we call different species ancient is different because different species have different life expectancies, and they have different growth rates.
So, for example, if we look at yew trees, we make all those ancient from around about 400 to 500 years plus. If we look at hawthorn, for example, we would say they’re probably ancient from around about 200 years of age. So, it does vary depending on which species you are referring to, but essentially the ancient phases, the third and final life stage… and very few trees actually live old enough to become ancient.
It's only sites like this where the trees have been retained where, you know, these trees not been disturbed, they've not been felled, there's been no development here. So, these trees have survived in the landscape and been allowed to survive and that's why we can enjoy them today. So yeah, that's what an ancient tree is.
Adam: And I mean, obviously there's almost a sentimental reason you, you don't want to destroy something which is 700 years old. But from an environmental perspective, do ancient trees offer the environment, do they offer animals something more than a younger tree does?
Tom: Absolutely. I mean, I like to think of ancient trees as being like a living oasis for wildlife essentially. So, these are areas where you've got a huge variety of habitats both, you know, within like the tree structure, in the roots, in the canopy, even within like the heartwood and the hollows. So, ancient trees offer huge benefits for wildlife.
Adam: But sorry, you're saying that's more… a 700-year-old tree would offer more environmental benefits than a 100-year-old tree. Is that what you're saying?
Tom: Yeah, if you are comparing trees of the same species.
Adam: So why is that? What is happening in that period that offers that benefit then?
Tom: So, the reason really is owed to the decaying wood habitat. So as a tree ages, you get natural decay that's often caused by special heart rot fungi that can decay the tree. So, as it’s standing it’s decaying slowly over time, and by – that decaying wood – it kind of creates a load of microhabitats, so you get huge benefits for invertebrates. In fact, the site we’re on today is one of the top ten sites in the UK for rare invertebrates because of the decaying wood habitats that are here.
If you imagine a decaying tree with hollows and cavities and water pockets… imagine if you're an invertebrate, you know, you’re such a small organism and you've got this huge ancient tree with all this variety of habitats. I mean you've essentially got… your whole world is in this tree, it's a whole universe of habitats. So, that’s why they’re important.
Adam: So, it’s quite poetic, isn't it? In its decay… the very fact it’s decaying offers new life.
Tom: Absolutely, exactly. So, they become, you know, just… they just transform into these oases for wildlife and it’s owing to the decaying habitats that they have.
Adam: And what's the oldest trees that you've got around here then?
Tom: Yeah. Well, so some of these trees may well be in excess of 700 to 800 years of age.
Adam: And are they yew? Because yew trees tend to last the longest don’t they?
Tom: Yeah. So, a lot of the oldest trees on this site will be pollards. So pollarding is where you cut the branches of a tree above head height. This was a historic, sort of, tree management practice – essentially the people who used to live and work here wanted to farm their livestock, and in order to make sure that they didn't, sort of, graze on the trees that they also used to harvest timber from, they were able to cut the tree above head height, typically above two metres in height. And what that does is quite two things. For the people managing these trees, it means that they can easily harvest the timber because in absence of power tools… imagine they were using hand tools and as the tree gets cut back it regrows into sort of finer, smaller stems that can be more easily harvested.
Adam: And that’s the sign of pollarding, isn’t it? If you're a tree detective and you see these, sort of, small stems all coming up it’s a sign it’s been a pollarded tree.
Tom: Absolutely, typically it will have, like, a fluted form cut around about two metres at head height and you'll see like a typical pollard knuckle, which is where you see all of these stems converging on the same point.
But pollarding does actually bring some benefits to the tree as well and that's why some of the oldest trees here will be pollards because it has the effect of almost stabilising the tree. It means that the tree doesn't get too top-heavy and then collapses and dies. Instead, it keeps the trees more typically smaller and if they’re regularly cut that keeps the tree in that stable form.
So even the sort of the trees here which are, you know, extremely hollow, they look like, you know, how are they even still standing, because, like, what’s supporting them? Because they're being managed as pollards.
And then, you know, there are some sites where pollarding has stopped, you know, for example at Burnham Beeches is a site where you can see a lot of the pollards have not been pollarded for a long time and they’ve started to become top-heavy now, so and that presents a risk that you get greater wind loading and then they fall.
So going back to what we were talking about the Green Recovery project that we are working on with the National Trust. And like I said, I was here six months ago, and we got to see some of the tree management here and we got to see some pollarding essentially. So, they were sort of cutting back the… some branches in the canopy to basically continue the pollarding management to try and replicate what was being done hundreds of years ago to make sure that these trees can survive for many years to come.
Adam: Amazing that. Ian. Ian promised me some time travel. He pointed me towards the Capability Brown landscape. Do you know which way that is?
Tom: Yeah, that would be straight back down the track.
Adam: I was going to say, it’s going the other way. Okay, but do you think we should head this way first?
Tom: Yeah. Well, I mean, we can. We can go.
Adam: I'm going with you. I'm going with you and will… I'm definitely going to see the Capability Brown later, but you lead me on.
Tom: We can certainly make our way back there.
Adam: So, tell me about where we're heading.
Tom: So now we're just, we're walking through a sort of former medieval landscape. So, we've got a variety of trees here, we've got some oaks, we've got hawthorns, we've got field maples, we’ve got hornbeams. And if we’re walking here, we can just see the sheer variety of trees in the landscape.
So, when I'm walking through this landscape and I can't help but think about, you know, the people who were working here and living here and the way that this, the site, was managed. We can hear overhead planes are leaving Stansted Airport and I can only imagine what those people would have thought about that [laugh]. And it just, it just makes you think about the changes that this landscape has seen. And erm obviously the reason that we have ancient trees here is because this part of the landscape has remained unchanged. So, whilst there's been a lot of change around this site, this area has survived and that's ultimately enabled these trees to survive as well.
Adam: Now you look after a lot of woodland. What separates this from lots of the other things that you've got an association with?
Tom: So, I suppose what's really interesting about this site is that it's a former forest and then when we think about forests, people typically think about trees and they probably picture woodland, but actually…
Adam: That’s fair enough, isn’t it?
Tom: It’s fair enough, but forest actually has a very different meaning in terms of the medieval sense. So, a forest was essentially an area of land that was subject to special hunting laws and these new areas were preserved really for the royals and, well, the royals and their sort of associates to hunt deer and enjoy riding through the landscape and they liked this kind of open landscape where the trees were kind of scattered. So, when you think of forests, like people typically think of dense woodland, but actually, it's more like this. It’s big trees in a sort of sparse landscape where deer are allowed to run around, and the royals could be… were there on horseback sort of chasing them and hunting them. It was sort of a sport for them. And in a lot of sense, the commoners, if you like, were kept away from sites like this. An erm, but then the kind of, the legacy has been preserved.
Adam: And it's interesting, isn't it, that because we think of these as natural places, they are natural places, that's what's important about them. But they're not unmanaged. It's not like the hand of man has not had a role in shaping this has very much been a man-made, a man-shaped environment. Is that fair?
Tom: That's absolutely fair, yes. If I was… what’s interesting when we look at ancient tree distribution more generally, there is a clear link between humans and where ancient trees are. So, for example, you might find ancient yew trees often in a churchyard setting, coz often…, well, ancient yews were respected by sort of earlier civilizations, the early Christians, even before that, the Druids respected ancient yews, which is why they've kind of been retained and associated with places of religious worship, you know, so there's always those kind of links between where humans have been and where ancient trees are now. And it just shows that really throughout history we’ve respected our trees, you know, other civilizations and cultures have respected these trees and you know, now we need to respect them too and continue their legacy.
Adam: And I suppose one of the things that’s striking for me is that although we are near Stansted, although it hasn't taken me long to drive from London, as far as you can see, you can't see anything. It's sort of trees for as far as you can see. It’s a remarkable oasis in a rather heavily developed part of the UK.
Tom: Absolutely. You know, to be able to come to this site only like an hour away from London is quite remarkable really, that places like this have survived. It's like a living outdoor museum almost. You know, you can go up to some of these trees, put your hand on them and these were the same trees that were being worked on over 500 years ago. You know… how many elements of nature can you say that about? You know, it’s a remarkable privilege to be able to go and visit trees like that. That were managed hundreds of years ago.
Adam: OK, now there is a suitable bench almost shaped fallen branch, so maybe we can head over there for a sit down and a chat.
Tom: Sounds good. Hey, got some good sort of… at the top of the tree there, you’ve got something called retrenchment which is basically where the tree is dying back essentially.
Adam: Right.
Tom: So, over time like the canopy sort of reorganises itself. And then the tree kind of grows downward eventually. So, trees don't grow infinitely up and up and up, they tend to get… they die down and they get broader over time.
Adam: So that's the sign of a change in its lifestyle… life stage sorry?
Tom: Absolutely.
Adam: So, we can see some sort of dead branches at the top that means it's coming into another stage, it's probably going to thicken out a bit.
Tom: Exactly. Yeah. So, what I mean… what's happening essentially as the tree reaches a sort of theoretical maximum size… eventually, the tree can't transport that water from the roots. That kind of hydraulic action becomes limited. It can't pump water to the very top of the tree and so it, kind of, stops investing in those branches. It’s grown to a good height, it doesn't need to compete with other trees around it, so it starts to reorganise itself. And those branches at the top start to die back and instead the tree invests in some of those like low… what were lower branches and they become more dominant, and the tree becomes broader in profile. The trunk becomes much wider as well. So, it’s a typical sign of an ancient tree that they will typically have a large girth for their species. Like the trunk will have a large circumference for its species. That’s like a key sign.
Adam: Alright, look, this isn't… I can't quite sit on this one, but this is a very very pleasant place to stop. So, one of the big projects from the Woodland Trust is this Ancient Tree Inventory and I think you’re sort of… you're in charge of that. So, what is that? Why is it important?
Tom: So, the Ancient Tree Inventory is a citizen science project. So it’s something that anyone can take part in and essentially what it seeks to do is to map ancient, veteran and notable trees across the UK to an online interactive map that everyone can, sort of, see, use, and enjoy. It started as a project called the Ancient Tree Hunt and essentially it was just to get ancient trees on the radar really, to get people inspired by them, to get people out there recording them. And in that project alone they mapped over 100,000 trees.
But since then, it continued under the name of the Ancient Tree Inventory, and we're continuing to map trees on a daily basis. So, we have a network of volunteers around the UK who are more expert volunteers who are called verifiers, and what they are doing is going out and checking trees that members of the public have added. So, if people have been on a walk and have seen a big tree or a tree that looks like it's old – might be ancient, might be veteran – they add it to the map, that gets recorded as an unverified tree and then one of our volunteer verifiers comes along, they’ll visit the tree and they’ll assess whether they think it’s an ancient tree or a veteran or a notable. They'll also maybe take some extra measurements of the tree, they’ll check that it's been recorded in the right place and that the species has been identified correctly, things like that.
Essentially what we're trying to do with the Ancient Tree Inventory, as well as raising awareness about ancient and veteran trees, is also, erm, our role in terms of research and understanding their current distribution. But also, from their protection point of view, the Ancient Tree Inventory is actually a really useful resource for the likes of people doing environmental impact assessments. So, we get a lot of requests for data from ecological consultants, from arboriculture consultants, even the local authorities that want to know where are the most significant ancient and veteran trees in their county or on a particular site, so that that can then be used to help inform, you know, planning decisions and, you know, we'd like to think that that is going to grow more that when, for example, there's a development or, you know, some sort of proposed change to an area that people will consult the Ancient Tree Inventory and they'll consider, sort of, changing plans if ancient or veteran trees are going to be harmed. We really just want to make sure that there is no loss… further loss of ancient and veteran trees essentially.
Adam: And what sort of protection do ancient trees have? Do they have… like a listed building you get listed protection so you can't mess around with it. You can't knock it down, can't alter it. Does a 700-year-old tree get the same protection as a 700-year-old piece of brick?
Tom: Well, I'm afraid to say the answer to that is no. So, none of the ancient trees, don't have any legal protection in the UK. As you say, some of our most treasured monuments and buildings benefit from scheduled monument status, but for ancient trees which may be of, at least the same age if not older, they don't have any protection.
In fact, I remember on a recent visit to a churchyard where we went to see a really remarkable ancient yew tree, I think someone jokingly said at the time that the wood in the beams of that church are probably more protected than the wood in the trunk of that ancient yew tree. And that, kind of, really opened my mind to that whole debate on making that comparison between built heritage monuments and ancient trees. And we really want to see ancient trees be more considered as features of our cultural heritage, archaeological heritage, you know, they really are these living monuments and we need to look after them.
Adam: Do you get a sense that public opinion is swinging in that direction to support ancient trees?
Tom: Yeah, I think it is. I mean, you know, based on my role of working on the Ancient Tree Inventory, I've the fortune of speaking to members of the public about their ancient trees. And we do get lots of concern expressed to the Woodland Trust about, you know, what's happening to ancient and veteran trees in their area.
But there is actually something that we're doing at the moment at the Trust which is our Living Legends campaign that launched earlier this year. So, we're actually making an attempt to gain stronger protection for ancient and veteran trees. We have a petition that's live at the moment and the campaign has a lot of different activities happening at the moment, but one of the headline things anyone can do is sign our petition where we're calling for stronger legal protection, for that to be reflected in policy so that there is basically legal protection to stop any harm to the trees.
Adam: Okay. So, if someone's interested in being a volunteer and, sort of, adding to that inventory, how do they go about it?
Tom: Yeah, so anyone can take part in the Ancient Tree Inventory. All they need to do is go to the Ancient Tree Inventory website where they’ll be able to register, and they'll be able to create a free account. Essentially that means that when you sign into your account, you can just record the trees. The main things that you'll need to record are things like, you know, where the tree is so you take like a grid reference. Erm, if you can record the girth of the tree – so, this is the circumference of the tree – of the trunk itself…
Adam: So, you need a long tape measure?
Tom: Yeah, we typically suggest having a tape measure around about 10 metres where you can often get like a surveyor’s tape from your local hardware store for example. And you can measure the trunk, normally about one and a half metres from ground level for consistency. You’re really looking for the narrowest girth of this trunk. So, if the tree has like a big, sort of, burr, or if there's like a low hanging branch, then just record underneath it to try and get the narrowest measurement. So that… and that's essentially the most technical elements. If you can just record as well the species of the tree, whether it's on public or private land, do make sure to record some photos as well.
The key things that we’re really interested in looking at with a tree when we’re assessing whether it’s ancient or veteran is our veteran features or decay features. So, these are the kind of decaying wood habitats, for example, if the tree is hollowing, if the tree has decaying branches… so the tree behind me here has some deadwood in the top of the crown – this is what we call retrenchment. And any other kind of deadwood cavities, water pockets, holes, that sort of thing is all great to capture, both in the record itself, but also in the images too.
Obviously, the more that people can tell us about trees, the more we know. And then it makes it a much more valuable resource. So, we always encourage people to submit as much information as they can.
Adam: And if I mean like me, I'm very bad at spotting tree types. If you don't, if you see an old tree and you think I wanna record that, but I don't know what sort of tree it is, is that a problem or can you just go look, here's a photo, you’ll probably know better than I do?
Tom: Yeah. So, it is possible to record the species as unsure. It might be that you know that it's an oak, but you're not sure if it’s pedunculate or sessile, so you can just record it as oak. We have a network of volunteer verifiers who are sort of ancient tree experts who will check…
Adam: Check your homework for you.
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
Adam: And if you can't spot the tree type, there is actually a Woodland Trust app, isn't there?
Tom: Yeah, that's right Adam, we have a… the Woodland Trust has a species identification app that you can use as well. The good thing is that for our ancient trees, most of the time they are actually native. So, the common native species are typically going to be, you know, oaks, beech, ash, hornbeam, yew trees. So, you know, these are species that most people are quite familiar with cause they tend to be native.
Adam: We should do a podcast on that, sort of, how to spot the top five native UK trees. An idea for another podcast… you may be dragged back into this. Fantastic.
Tom: Sounds good.
[Pause]
Adam: So, we've been walking through a beautiful sort of woodland glade, a very covered area. And what is typical of this particular site is that you do come out into so many different landscapes and so we've come out into this very open area, all of a sudden with this extraordinarily large lake. I think there's something suspiciously like a tearoom next door which might attract my attention in a moment… and a couple of seats finally to sit down.
So, Tom, now… It's a beautiful place. I mean we’re, we’re... The weeds rustling in the wind, framing the lake in front of us… There’s some ducks and some rowing boats and this is a wonderful place. But I… the feature here is ancient woodland, so is there a way of sort of measuring the value of a particular tree? Do you… is it very just sort of thumb in the air, sort of thing, in the wind… or is there a more scientific approach you can take?
Tom: Yeah, I think there are lots of ways in which different people value their ancient trees and so one acronym we tend to use to capture, sort of, the main themes of why we value our ancient trees, can be thought of as ABC. So that stands for aesthetic value, biological value and cultural value.
There is also historical value, which I'll talk about in a moment, but think about, sort of, aesthetic value and why our ancient trees are important, you know, can you imagine, sort of, walking through the landscape that we're walking today without the ancient trees? They do provide, like the character of this site, you know, walking and seeing these big hollowing living monuments – they’re almost like sculptures. And, you know, not just on these sorts of sites, but if you think of what would our churchyards look like without our ancient yews? Or what would our hedgerows look like without those old hawthorn trees? Or what would our, sort of, the Highlands of Scotland look like without those, kind of remarkable lone standing-proud alders, and rowans and hollies that are like really typical of that landscape? So, because ancient trees form, like, a really important part of the overall character of our landscape that's one way in which we value them.
The other way, of course, is biologically, so they provide immense habitat variety for wildlife and a single tree can support thousands of species and that’s owing to the decaying wood habitats that they have. So as a tree ages it naturally hollows, starts to break down, you get hollowing in the branches, in the trunk, you get hollowing around the base of the tree – what we call buttressing. All of these create pockets and habitats and even microhabitats for wildlife, so it can be used by a range of organisms from birds to reptiles, to mammals like squirrels, badgers. For example, with birds, as well, owls will use them, they will actually use the cavities found in the canopies of ancient trees, they make their nests. Same for woodpeckers, which will use decaying wood to make their nests and bore for invertebrates. And of course, the invertebrates themselves – the opportunities provided to invertebrates by ancient trees is remarkable. There’s a special term to describe invertebrates that depend on decaying wood, and that word is saproxylic. So, saproxylic invertebrates are those which depend on this decaying wood for a part of their life cycle.
And then there is also the cultural value that we place on our ancient trees.
Adam: So, that’s the C.
Tom: That’s the C in our ABC.
Adam: So, tell me about the cultural values. Now actually… that must be a hard thing to measure?
Tom: Absolutely so, it’s not always clear, in fact, that some trees you may walk past and not know that that tree has been, or you know what it's seen in its life and how other people in the past have interacted with it. For example, ancient trees in the churchyards, so it is often that you find ancient yew trees linked with former sites of religious worship because the… our early ancestors, the druids, and the sort of, early Christians had a… they saw, essentially, ancient yew trees as a deity, they worshipped them, they respected them. And as a result, those ancient yews persisted in that landscape.
Adam: The cultural aspect, there's a cultural aspect, but there is also, it doesn't run from the alphabet [inaudible] ABC H, there’s an H isn’t there? A historical reference here, because these trees have been around for 700 years, 1000 years – kings and queens will have wandered under these trees, important decisions would have been made. Historic really, really historic decisions would be made. And under the boughs of these trees.
Tom: Absolutely. And so, there are some trees around UK which we refer to as heritage trees that have… that we know have bared witness to some important historical moments. Or that well-known historical figures that visited those trees. For example, we have the Queen Elizabeth Oak or we have the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Tree which is thought to bear witness to the start of the trade union movement in the 1800s, and we have the Ankerwycke Yew that bared witness to the signing of the Magna Carta by King John, under that very tree. And it’s still there today, a tree that is over 2,000 years old has, you know, such important historical values – irreplaceable in fact. That is probably the one word that we would like people to associate with trees – is the word irreplaceable. Because if that tree was to be lost, you would lose all of that historical reference.
Adam: Fantastic. You know this site well, I mean you've come a long way to see me today, so I'm super pleased and very grateful for the guide. But I know you love this place, don’t you?
Tom: Absolutely. I need no excuse to come here. I think it just feels like walking back in history essentially. And there’s just an amazing variety of trees. Yeah, I could just spend the whole week here.
Adam: I think my family might miss me in a week, but who knows? They might not… they might not notice. But they’re certainly not going to notice for the rest of day, so I'm going to take the rest of the day here. Thank you very much.
Well, my thanks to Ian from the National Trust and Tom from the Woodland Trust but most of all, I suppose, thanks to you for listening. Now do remember if you want to find a wood near you, well, the Woodland Trust has a website to help. Just go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Now you can find a wood near you. Well, until next time, happy wandering.Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners, and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating.
And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walks special. Or send an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you.
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Much as I love a woodland walk, my tree identification skills leave a lot to be desired, so I travelled to Londonthorpe Wood, Grantham for a lesson from the experts. We join tree ID guru Sally to learn how to recognise common trees from their leaves, catkins, bark and berries. From apple and ash to hawthorn and hazel, she also tells us more about the trees’ value for wildlife. I learned so much during this episode, and I hope you do too.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Do you know what? I have been wandering around woods for many years and I've been doing so rather ignorantly. I mean, I like it and everything, but I actually don't know the names, or the histories, or the importance of a lot of the trees I am passing. So, I’ve tried to correct that, and to do that I'm taking a little lesson. I’m going back to school, and I'm doing that with the assistance of Sally Bavin, who is the assistant conservation evidence officer at the Woodland Trust. And we’re going to Londonthorpe Wood, which is near Grantham, which is in fact near the headquarters of the Woodland Trust. And she's going to run me through some of the key things to look out for in trees.
Now, of course, we're coming to the end of the easy season to identify trees because leaves are a big clue. Leaves are falling off the trees, as is their wont at this time of year. But nonetheless, there are still enough of them around for me to make a good guess and I thought it was high time I learn something and hopefully have a bit of fun and share that insight with you.
So, off to Londonthorpe Wood, it is! And I'm gonna meet Sally Bavin from the Woodland Trust.
So, Sally, hi! We’ve met under a tree. Look at… I can tell straight away it’s an apple tree because it has apples on it! [Laugh]
Sally: Yes!
Adam: But I come for some lessons – gone back to school. You know, how to identify trees when they don't have apples on them, so they are not as easily identifiable. So, is this what you do at the Trust? Go around identifying trees? Is this what you do normally?
Sally: [Laugh] Not all the time, but a small part of my role is, erm I lead a tree ID course. So, it's just an afternoon, we run it about every six months.
Adam: Yes, I have to say, I mean I was very keen to do this, well, because I’ve gone to lots of woodlands, I am very ignorant about identifying trees. And I was thinking, we’ve gotta rush before all the leaves fall off, because then it's a lot harder, but they're still, there are trees that have got lots of leaves.
So, before we start the course. Why is it important to know what a tree is – what species of tree you're looking at?
Sally: Yeah, well, I think it depends. It depends on who you are as to what your interest is in the trees. I think generally for just the public it's a nice thing to note, help you understand your surroundings of a lot better and it's a sort of the first step into connecting with nature, at a bit of a deeper level than just enjoying the greenery. Because you can then look for the specific things about different species that changed throughout the seasons, and you can be expecting the apples and looking out for them in summer when they're only just appearing. That sort of thing.
So, it's good for helping people to connect with nature on a more personal level. Because the type of trees in a woodland can tell you a lot about the sort of story of the woodland. So, it could help indicate whether it’s ancient woodland. It could tell you about what sort of soil types underlying the sites are and that kind of thing. What ground flora, therefore, you’re likely to sort of expect and indicate the condition of the woodland in terms of ecological health. So, if you've got lots of non-native tree species there that could tell you that the woodland’s perhaps degraded and in need of restoration, that kind of thing.
Adam: Okay, fantastic, and you’re going to take me on a little journey and we're going to identify some trees. Now, I have to say first of all, about me personally, and I think others as well might find this whole thing rather daunting because there are probably thousands of tree types, and you think how on earth am I going to get to know any trees? Really as I’d have to go back to university really. Is it as daunting as it sort of first sounds?
Sally: No, definitely not. There's only a handful really of really common species. So, for example, maybe sort of ten of the most common would be oak, ash, hawthorn, birch, beech, Scots pine, rowan, hazel, blackthorn and willow. And then you get to know those and then you sort of gradually pepper some more interesting species in between.
Adam: Right, so that's very manageable. Super! There are sort of 10 of some of the most popular, well-known, widely dispersed UK native trees, the list of which I've already forgotten. But if you know those ten you can sort of work your way around the woodland fairly well.
Sally: Yeah. And it depends on where you are coz you won't necessarily see all of those even.
Adam: No, okay, very good. Well, let's not where we are. This is clearly an apple tree because it's got nice… got a very good harvest of apples on it. If it didn't, how do you spot an apple tree?
Sally: Okay, so yeah, so first of all it is important to note that this is an apple tree, it is a domesticated apple variety of some description, this one, and the reason why it's here at Londonthorpe, though it's not a wild tree, is to help with the sort of engagement with visitors.
So, I think the idea when this wood was planted back in the 90s, was for it to, be very much, to engage people. That people could have a snack as they went around and have that sort of engagement with nature. If you wanted to have a taste of one, although they are a bit higher up [laugh], you’d know that it tastes a lot different to the crab apple that we’ll see later on, which is very much…
Adam: The crab apples are tiny, aren’t they?
Sally: mmmm.
Adam: I didn't think they were edible?
Sally: Well, the wild ones are, yeah, I think that they’re edible, they’re just not very palatable…
Adam: Not very nice, okay.
Sally: So, our ancestors bred them to be different [laugh].
Adam: Okay, alright. So, but anything about the sort of branches or leaves one could look out for.
Sally: So, yes, so. A lot of fruit trees are members of the Rosaceae family, so the Rose family. And quite a feature of those is that they tend to grow these sort of short woody spurs from the twig, which then have a spray of leaves all emerging from a kind of cluster.
Adam: Right, right. Yep.
Sally: Which is one characteristic of an apple tree. The leaves are simple leaves that are oval, and they have some tooth edges as well. So, they’re generally kind of slightly glossy and darker on the top than they are on the bottom.
Adam: Right.
Sally: So, in the spring, obviously you wouldn't have the apples on there.
Adam: No.
Sally: You’d have the blossom which is a white, with a slight…
Adam: It’s beautiful isn’t it, apple blossom, it’s beautiful.
Sally: Yeah. A slight tinge of pink to the petals.
Adam: Okay, well, wonderful. And [inaudible] to be honest, I never eat anything in the wild because I'm terrified of killing myself and I don't think I should. Because I'm with an expert, I feel much safer, so is it okay if I grab…
Sally: You can grab…
Adam: I mean neither of us are particularly tall, but there are a couple in about stretching height here, so hang on a second…
Sally: Yep, go for it.
Adam: I’m getting stuck on this already.
Sally: I have to say, I definitely agree that if you're not 100% confident, definitely don't eat anything. But this is definitely okay. This is definitely an apple tree.
Adam: Oh ooo look I’ve got one, I’ve got one.
Sally: [laugh] Go on.
Adam: Okay.
Sally: Not the biggest.
[Laughter]
Adam: It’s not, it’s, I haven’t had breakfast. And I don’t think lunch is on the menu, so this might be it, okay, hold on a second, you'll hear this. [Chomp]
Sally: Fresh as anything!
Adam: Mmmm [chomping] – I can tell you it's lovely. Mmmm okay that was very good, very good. Okay. So, that's our first tree, lead on and we shall find our second!
Sally: Let’s go this way So yeah, you’re tasting the sweetness that our ancestors bred into it.
[Chomping]
Adam: Do you know what type of apple this is?
Sally: [Laughing] I’ve no idea.
Adam: No idea.
Sally: No. [laugh]
Adam: It’s a tasty one that’s all. Mmmm very nice!
Sally: Okay, we’ve come to a… Adam: Well hold on hold on a second, I’ve gotta finish this mouthful. [Laughter] Sally: We’ll see lots more, so carry on chewing.
Adam: Okay, Let me just finish this before – I’ll spit apple all over you otherwise. [Chomping]
Sally: So, we’re reaching another tree here, that’s again one of the really common ones that you'll see in lots of woodlands across the UK. So, this is an ash tree.
Adam: Okay. So first, well can you describe it for us?
Sally: So, this one's a fairly young tree. It's only maybe seven centimetres in diameter on the trunk. It's got really quite pale bark, which I would say is quite characteristic of ash, a sort of ashen colour.
Adam: Also, as opposed to the apple tree, which is really broad, had lots of leaves. It was really sort of dense-like bush-like.
Sally: Yeah.
Adam: This one, you see the main trunk, which is very thin and only a few branches and a few leaves. It's much more minimalist.
Sally: Yes. So, these, so, ash trees are one of the most common trees in this area that you find in hedgerows. When they’re mature, they can be, you know, really have a good size trunk on them…
Adam: Right…
Sally: and a real spreading crown. But this one’s young, it's not reached that size yet, but the main ID feature at this time of year I'd say is the leaf, which is very characteristic. So, experts describe it as a compound. They’re a bit far away, but we can get the idea from here. So, it's a compound leaf because each of those leafstalks has pairs of leaves coming off it.
Adam: Right. One to the left, one to the right.
Sally: So those, what look like small leaves, are actually leaflets and the whole thing is a leaf. So each thing is um, each whole leaf emerges from the stem and has a green leafstalk. The whole thing is shed in the autumn and then comes back.
Adam: Right, we’ve gotta go back over this. So, what I think is a leaf, you're telling me is not a leaf, it's a leaflet. Leaflet, have I said that right?
Sally: A leaflet, yep. So, you’ve got pairs of leaflets.
Adam: So actually, there’s sort of one, two, three, four… four pairs and one at the end. So, there’s eight, nine leaves, what I think of as leaves. You're saying technically that's one leaf actually.
Sally: Exactly. And that's because the whole thing emerges from one bud. And is shed as a whole thing in the autumn.
Adam: I see. Now, the ash, obviously one hears a lot about this, ash dieback. So, this tree looks quite healthy though.
Sally: Oooer
Adam: No, well okay, it doesn’t look healthy.
Sally: No, if you look at the top you can see the leaves the left on it are only really in a sort of central area. All of these branches which are extending to the edge, to the extremity, of the tree are bare already.
Adam: Yes, so it’s not healthy. I’m a complete idiot. It doesn’t look healthy at all. It looks very sick.
Sally: Sadly, the fact that it has dieback is now one of the key, sort of, features to ID ash, which is very sad. [Adam: right] If you see a tree that looks like, you know even in the height of summer, that it’s lost quite a lot of its leaves, quite often that will be an ash tree with ash dieback.
[Break]
Adam: So, you’ve stopped underneath, this tree, much darker bark. So, what is it?
Sally: So, this is a wild cherry.
Adam: Okay, so, no cherries on it. So, before you sort of explain the defining feature, can you just describe the tree generally?
Sally: Yes. So, it's another member of the rose family. So, leaves are kind of similar to the apple in that their ovals and they sort of emerge in these sprays, but they're a lot more pointed. And the teeth around the edge, I would say, are a lot more defined. And this one's sort of a medium-aged tree, I would say – like many in Londonthorpe as they were planted in about the 90s, so. Um, the bark has these, sort of, horizontal lines across it which are very characteristic of cherry. And as you say, it's a dark colour. This one's not as red as they come – they sometimes look a bit redder than this.
Adam: Right. You can see, I think some of the branches have been cut off, haven’t they? And there it looks red.
Sally: Yeah, yes, you can see the sort of red tinge to the wood inside there. So, you mentioned it doesn't have any cherries on it – we’re a bit late for cherries, ‘cause they’re something that’s in season in the midsummer. That time of year, and the birds absolutely love them, so they get hoovered up as soon as they’re on the tree, basically as soon as they’re ripe. And that’s reflected in the name, the scientific name of the trees. Prunus – so that means they’re part of the plum and cherry family – and then avium is the species name, obviously referring to birds there – so how much they love the cherries.
Adam: So, so it's a good thing for the wildlife.
Sally: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Adam: Very nice. And then, so the leaves now. So, I know that you were previously telling me what I thought was a leaf was a leaflet – these, each individual one here is a leaf?
Sally: Yeah, these are simple leaves. So, yeah as you’d expect the stalk joins directly to the woody stem and the whole leaf beyond that is one single leaf.
Adam: So, the definition of a leaf is something that, sort of, sprouts from a bud? [Sally: Yes, yeah] So each leaf will come from its own individual bud on this cherry. Brilliant!
Sally: Let’s head on. [laugh]
[Walking, crunching of twigs under foot]
Sally: We’re coming up to the crab apple here.
Adam: Oh, oh, ok. So, this is a tree loaded with fruit – these tiny, tiny, mini apples. So, this is, this is [Sally: this is a crab apple] a crab apple.
Sally: So, if you look at the leaves again, they’re very similar to the apple tree that we saw before, not much difference in the leaf. Pale on the underside, and glossy on the top [Adam: right] and arising in these little sprigs, but the apples are tiny. Um, and if we try one [laughter] they’re… I’ll try one, I'll take one for the team.
Adam: yeah, you take one for the team [laughs]
Sally: and you’ll tell by my reaction…
Adam: Oh okay, go on then…
[Laughter, inaudible]
Adam: It’s a lifetime of going ‘never eat anything’, well together. Sally: Together.
Adam and Sally: Okay. One, two, three…
[Crunch, chomping]
Adam: Urgh, not keen on, I dunno its unusual.
Sally: It’s the aftertaste.
Adam: It’s unusual. It… hmmm.
Sally: It gets more sour, I think, the more you chew it.
Adam: It does. It does a bit.
Sally: Not as nice as the one that has been bred.
Adam: It’s not as nice. It’s a bit odd in a sense that no one ever sells crab apples. You know, I mean.
Sally: Yeah. You can make this jelly.
Adam: crab apple jelly, I've heard of that.
Sally: Anything tastes nice when you bung a load of sugar on top.
Adam: Yes, that’s true, that’s true.
[Laughter]
Adam: [joking] You could just eat the leaves, take the leaves and chuck a load of sugar on, I don't know why. Now, I think I've had my fill…
Sally: Strangely morish.
Adam: No, not for me. I'll stay with my apple.
[Laughter]
Sally: They’ve definitely got a bitter sour kick, haven’t they?
Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sally: Not as sweet.
Adam: Is it okay if I just throw this into the verge for the animals?
Sally: There’s lots of windfall ones down there anyway.
Adam: I can see. Yeah, you don't have a cup of tea to take away the taste, do you? [Laughter] No, no. So, there we are.
Sally: So, that was to demonstrate the difference between a domestic apple and the crab apple. Which of course, is one of the ancestors of the domestic apple.
Adam: Is it? [Laugh] I’ve been offered a polo to take away some of the taste. Oh, go on, go on, I will have one. I said no, I will have one. That’s very kind, thank you.
[Unwrapping a polo, laughter]
[Walking]
Adam: Right, we’ve come up to a very different looking one, which has got very particular leaves and tiny little red berries. I know that you don’t like to reveal the tree at the beginning because we love the drama of it! Go on then, you talk me through this tree.
Sally: Okay, so this one’s hawthorn. [Adam: Ahh right.] A common component of hedgerows up and down the country. Also known as quickthorn, sometimes, because it does grow very quickly. This shows an example of how they can grow if they're not kept trim into a hedgerow. So yes, there's that shrubby growth habit, even though it's not being cut. And the leaves are very small. Yet another member of the rose family and the leaves are, we describe as lobed, so it has these, sort of, sticking out sections.
Adam: They’re much smaller. How ignorant a statement is it that there's a similarity between this and an oak leaf?
Sally: Yeah, not too ignorant.
Adam: Not too ignorant.
Sally: Not too ignorant because they’re both lobed, both lobed leaves, but the size is very different.
Adam: This is much smaller.
Sally: Um. So lovely autumn colour as you can see, they’re going yellow in colour. So, if you're thinking about managing a hedgerow for wildlife. You want to make sure that the tree is allowed to produce its flowers and then later in the year produce berries. And hawthorn and another hedgerow species in the UK, like blackthorn, which we might see some later, they produce their flowers only on the previous year's growth of wood. Which means if they’re flailed annually – every year that new bit of growth gets chopped back to where it was at the beginning of the year, and therefore it’s never allowed to flower and therefore set berries. So, the pollinators suffer from that, and the birds suffer because they don't have the berries. The berries are a really important winter food.
Adam: So, it’s important actually, from a nature point of view, for this to be a bit untidy. If you keep it too manicured, it'll never flower, it will never have berries.
Sally: Yeah, and you can. The advice is that hedgerows – if you cut them every three years, but you don't have to let them go out of control, you can cut one side one year, and then the top and then the next side, so that every year there's always some availability for wildlife.
Adam: Okay that’s a good idea.
[Voices]
Adam: I think there’s a dog called Ian that’s got lost [Laughter]. So, if you’ve just heard that? Come here, Ian. Either it’s a wayward husband or a wayward dog [Laughter]. Either of which we’re going to pass them shortly… Ian, Ian looks like a dog! What an unusual name for a dog… Hello Ian! [Laughter] No, Ian’s not interested, he’s off!
[Laughter, voices, walking]
Adam: So, we’ve made another stop. So again, very different look. So, do you want to describe it before we get to what it is?
Sally: Okay, yeah, this might be one. This is a very common one. I'd say this is in the top two, top three.
Adam: It’s so embarrassing, I don’t even know what it is.
Sally: You haven’t got a clue, no?
Adam: I’m an idiot, so no…
Sally: So, if I if I say it's silver does that give you an idea?
Adam: Birch!
Sally: It’s a silver birch!
Adam: Aww, yes, that helps me along, if only you were there during my O levels.
[Laughter]
Adam: So yes, so it's got a very, it's got this very slender, it’s got one very small, sort of, main trunk, which is silver. It's got, are they called catskills?
Sally: Catkins!
Adam: Catkins! Sorry! Catkins, how would you describe these then?
Sally: Yeah, I guess it's like a little sausage shape hanging down. The ones that we’re looking at are from the previous year so they’re very, sort of, dried up.
Adam: And these are the seeds are they or…
Sally: Yes, yes. So, they’re the flowering part. In the spring they look, sort of, yellow and fresh. They release their pollen, so we’ve got a little gust of wind to demonstrate how the seeds disperse, and how the pollen is dispersed as well in this species. So, a wood that is dominated by a lot of young, densely populated birch trees - you can kind of get the idea that's probably a naturally regenerated woodland because it's a good pioneer at covering new ground.
Adam: And again, does it fruit or anything? Is it good for wildlife if there’s something for birds and wildlife to eat off this?
Sally: It's a really popular one with blue tits because… not because of the fruit, but because it's really popular with insects. So, after oak, birch supports lots and lots of different insect species. Oak supports the most, and ash as well, and birch is definitely up there.
Adam: But why? Why is it? Why is it so supportive if there…? I mean, if there’s no fruit on the thing? Surely something like cherry or apple – that would support most because it’s easy to eat?
Sally: Yeah. Well, the insects are after the leaves and the sap and that sort of thing. So like aphids, caterpillars… [Adam: They like this.] So, for the birds that eat aphids, caterpillars – like blue tits – especially in the spring when they’re feeding their chicks it’s a really important species.
Adam: Okay, onward.
[Walking]
Sally: Hello again, so you can’t see a huge amount of acorns on this one.
Adam: Oh well, you’ve given it away! You always like keeping us in suspense, but I know therefore we are looking at an oak. So, the oak leaf is, sort of, our national symbol. I mean it's a symbol of Woodland Trust anyway. [Sally: Exactly] You might as well describe them though, for those that don’t know much about the oak.
Sally: So, in this part of the country, we’re in the East Midlands, you’re likely to see English oak, and that's characterised by a leaf, which goes all the way up to the woody stem. There isn't any exposed bare leafstalk in between. And on the acorns – the acorn comes with a stem. Which is, that is the peduncle. Hence peduncular oak. [Laughter]
Adam: That just reminded me of my French and German lessons. I’m feeling a bit lost, but okay, but lots of other people won’t be lost.
[Walking]
Adam: So, we’ve come across a clump of trees that are very similar. Ah, they’ve all got little red berries on. An erm, I’m trying to see. Ah, lovely little leaves. Now! Hold on a second. Hold on a second here, see I am already learning. I would say this was ten leaves, but actually, this is one leaf, and these are leaflets, aren’t they?
Sally: Indeed, yep, you got it!
Adam: I’ve jumped to the top of the class! Okay, so that's very good. So, there's a, there's a stem leading from the main woody, woody branch and on that has a little collection of little leaves, which are called leaflets. So what tree is this?
Sally: So, as you really correctly described that it's very similar in leaf shape to the ash that we saw before. Which gives rise to one of the common names of this species, which is mountain ash, sometimes people describe it. But the most commonly used name is rowan. [Adam: Right] So, it's a small tree. As we looking around here, it's kind of, it's really standing out as part of the understory here, under these taller ash and birch trees, because they’ve all gone this really lovely orangey russet colour in their autumn glory. [Inaudible]
Adam: Yes, they’re turning quicker than the other trees, aren’t they?
Sally: Mmm. And their really bright berries stand out as well in these lovely clusters of red…
Adam: I’ve seen, I’ve seen rowans that looks a lot nicer. These look a bit bedraggled. Is that part of this particular tree or is that the nature of the rowan?
Sally: I think it's because of the situation they’ve grown in here. They’re under quite a bit of shade under other trees.
Adam: So, we've got these leaves, they have little red berries on them and the main trunk thin, and well here, it’s sort of, a rusty green colour. Is that fairly typical?
Sally: Mmm. Quite a pale, sort of, colour, and quite smooth. Erm but, they never grow into a big tree I would say, is one of the key features of them.
Adam: And er, good for nature?
Sally: Yeah, so we can see all the berries here, loved by blackbirds. They are quite a common tree for people to plant in their garden coz they don't grow too big. So yeah, lovely for attracting the birds.
Adam: Very good. [Gap] OK, so we’ve come to another oak – very low. Now, this is interesting, isn’t it? So, you can tell it’s an oak – very big substantial leaves.
Sally: Mmm, it looks very healthy, doesn’t it?
Adam: It does, except what's odd is that all the branches start really low down. [Sally: yeah] It feels like, I dunno, has man got involved here, so has it been cut back? This is odd!
Sally: Yeah, well, it's a really interesting point that you make because it shows how the situation that tree is growing in really affects its growth habit. So, the oak that we saw before was growing in woodland in dense situation with other trees in.
Adam: So, you have four, five foot at least of tree trunk before you got any branches?
Sally: Yep.
Adam: This branch starts about ten centimetres off the ground.
Sally: Yeah. So, because that one that we saw before was growing in the woodlands. It's grown competing for light. So, it's put all its energy into growing upwards – tall and thin – which is good for timber. That's what a forester would appreciate in a tree.
Adam: This has grown out.
Sally: Whereas this one, because it's in an open space, it’s had space to spread its wings as it were, to spread its branches out and to really create this kind of bushy habit. And although this is, this one's quite young, this is almost, I would describe it as like a proto-ancient tree. It could, this one has the potential because it's grown in this open situation and with a real sort of broad base, stocky, stout growth habit, it has the potential to get a lot older.
Adam: This is gonna be very stable.
Sally: Yeah.
Adam: It’s also a fun tree, to go… I mean I could climb to the top of this tree, almost… just, because it’s about five foot high. [Laughter] This is sort of fun. I could imagine kids hiding in there, really lovely.
So, I didn’t realise, so, if you happen to be planting trees, you know, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden where you can plant trees, and you wanted this sort of thing, you’d put it in by itself. And it’d grow nice and short, big round and lots of bushy sort of stuff, because it's not competing, it’s putting its energy elsewhere.
Sally: That’s it. It’s, sort of, characteristic of a type of habitat that we call wood pasture, which is often… you'll see at stately homes like in the nearby Belton estate, you get a scattered collection of usually oak trees in an open grazed landscape, and they’re… usually, they’re very old because they were planted or established a long time ago. And because they grow in the open area, they've withstood the test of time, so if they’re tall and spindly they get blown over a lot more easily. But they last a lot longer when they’re grown in the open.
Adam: Fantastic, okay, I’ll… I’m just going to take a photo of this as well. [Gap] There we are. You’ve gotta stand there so I’ve got something to scale [laughter]. Otherwise, it could be thirty foot high! There we are, there we are, got it. [Laughter]
[Pause]
So, loads of trees, you’ve stopped by another one, which is very, I mean it's very low. I can't even see the trunk here because of the leaves. But it also stretches quite high, very bush-like, quite large leaves. I'll, I'll let you do the rest [laugh].
Sally: Mmm, do you have any clue on it?
Adam: It’s got these things that I’ll mispronounce, I’m going to mispronounce again. Catkills?
Sally: Catkins.
Adam: Catkins. So, these are the seeds, but these are much prettier. Very small, delicate ones, umm err, there are individual quite large hand-shaped leaves. [Sally: They’re broad.] Yes broad leaves.
Sally: Shall I put you out of your misery?
Adam: Yeah, go on then… [laughter]
Sally: It’s hazel, this one [Adam: Right] So, you’re very correct to observe that it's growing in, again, a shrublike habit.
Adam: That’s normal… that’s not just because of the way this tree is?
Sally: Yeah, they have the habit of growing in that, kind of, [Adam: Very low down] shape. They’re quite often coppiced and if you go to an ancient woodland the traditional management practice of managing a woodland would be coppicing the hazel.
Adam: Don’t you get hazel that you make fences out of and stuff?
Sally: Yes. Yeah, that’s it!
Adam: Is it very bendy, the wood?
Sally: Yes so, the young… the reason why they would coppice it is to get the regrowth that sprouts back. It’s then in narrow, sort of, poles [Adam: Right] and has that flexible property. Um, yeah, so also good for hazelnuts – your Ferrero Rocher [laugh]. I don’t know if we are allowed to advertise on this [laugh].
Adam: Yes, that’s fine… The ambassador likes them, and other nut-based chocolates are available, I suppose we should say. Okay no hazelnuts at the moment, too early for that, or too late?
Sally: I would say that it already is probably, you have to look on the bottom of the branches…
Adam: It’s the right time but someone has nicked them all.
Sally: It’s the right time but it could be the squirrels.
Adam: The squirrels have been here before us.
Sally: Yeah! Grey squirrels will take them even before they are ripe. They will take them when they are still green. So, it's quite often a bit of a challenge to actually find any nuts, but if you do, they’re in a little cluster, usually of three and they have a kind of, little frilly outer case to them and then a hazelnut, well you know what a hazelnut looks like?
Adam: I do know what a hazelnut looks like! Well look, I think you promised me ten trees, but we’re just not going to have time to do them all. So, we might have to do another podcast. We won't get another one in this year. We’ll have to wait until the next leaf season.
Sally: We could do a winter, a spring…
Adam: I’d have to say I’d love to do a winter one, but aren’t you just looking at bare trunks?
Sally: Winter is, yeah, next level up [laugh].
Adam: Could you identify the trees in winter?
Sally: Yeah, [inaudible]
Adam: Ah you see now; you see you shouldn’t have said that! [Laughter] You shouldn’t have said it, because I will come back then, and we’ll see how good you are at identifying completely bare trees. I’d think that’d be quite an interesting thing to do.
Sally: I’d have to brush up. There are keys and guide that can help you do it.
Adam: Well, and you say that, and of course the Woodland Trust has its own tree identifier app [Sally: it does] and there are others out there, there are books as well, you can use… as well as the blog that goes along with this – photos will be on there!
Sally: In fact, um, if you become a member of the Woodland Trust, you get a free little swatch book, which is like a pocket guide with the most common trees that you are likely to see on there, so you’ll be always armed, always armed!
Adam: Do you know I’m not sure I got that? Maybe, I don’t know! An outrage! [Laughter] I probably got it and lost it is the truth! Probably got it and lost it. [Laughter] Anyway, well look…
Sally: Perhaps we’ll try and find you a new one.
Adam: Okay, that will be very kind. Okay good, so look I have learned a properly enormous amount, I’m not just saying this, a properly enormous amount today. I’m gonna listen back to what you say and make some notes as well, because I don’t know, I don’t have a professional interest in this at all, but I think it’s quite nice not to wander around ignorantly, and just go ‘oh that’s a hazelnut, that’s ash and there were lots of things you were saying about why that’s good for birds’. And it’s, I mean your background is science and you work for the Woodland Trust, but how difficult is it for people to get a working knowledge of this stuff?
Sally: I don’t think it's too difficult to get to a point where you feel familiar with your local collection of trees that you see on a regular basis in your landscape and I think even if you take from this session that we’ve done – if you take a couple more that you knew before that’s getting you towards know a higher proportion of them and then you’ll know which ones you can rule out if you’re looking at something different, erm so yeah I think it’s very doable, and I agree that it makes it a lot more… your walks, they have an extra layer of meaning and you can read the landscape a bit more.
Adam: [inaudible] And of course, I mean if you are new to the Woodland Trust or not a member, new to woods, and you want to find a woodland near you, you can go to the Woodland Trust website, which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood, and you can find a wood. Thank you very much, it’s been a fantastic, fantastic day out.
Sally: You’re very welcome, Adam I’m pleased you’ve learned something.
Adam: Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners, and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating.
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Charity Wakefield’s passion for the natural world shone through when we caught up at her local green space. I met the actor, environmentalist and Woodland Trust ambassador at Peckham Rye Park to talk about trees, wildlife and acting.
Charity explains how nature has made her happy since the tree-climbing, den-building days of her childhood. She is concerned that people have lost their connection with the environment, but is hopeful for the future and encourages us to recognise that we can all make a difference. She believes in ‘people power’. We also talk eco-friendly fashion, filming comedy-drama The Great and climbing a tree to learn her lines in Lewisham!
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Charity Wakefield is an actor, environmentalist and Woodland Trust ambassador. She starred in BBC One’s production of Rapunzel, Constance in The Three Musketeers at the Bristol Old Vic, and Elaine in the Graduate at the New Vic. She had a lead role as Marianne Dashwood in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and has been in Doctor Who, the Halcyon, Bounty Hunters, amongst other productions. And she’s now starring in the TV series, The Great about Catherine the Great.
Well, I met her at her local park to talk about acting and the importance of the natural world.
Charity: So now we are at Peckham Ride Park, which has been my local park for most of my time in London. I now have a baby so there’s lots of kinds of mother and baby groups around the area. I have lots of friends here still.
Adam: Are you a country girl or did you grow up in the city, or?
Charity: Erm, I, I never thought of myself as a country girl. I did grow up though in and around East Sussex. I used to live in a couple of different places down there. We moved a bit as a kid.
Adam: Sorry, why don’t you, you grew up in the country, why did you not think of yourself as a…
Charity: I don’t know
Adam: You know you thought of yourself as you felt your inner urban woman early on?
Charity: I just don’t think I grew up with any sense of identity if I’m honest, because I also live a little bit in Spain when I was very small. And like I said we moved around quite a lot.
So actually I’m an actress and I trained at drama school and going to drama school at the time of going to university for most people if you do that, that was the first time I really had this interest to work out where I was from, or you know you kind of try to identify yourself by telling each other, and also drama school, in particular, you’re looking at different kind of life experiences and personality traits, because it’s material for you, right? So, you start kind of realising ‘oh I that this background or that background’.
Yeah, for me, being from the countryside just meant desperate driving as soon as I can. I could drive about a week after my birthday because I had secret driving lessons with friends and my dad and stuff. Yeah, I guess I have always loved the countryside and I sort of you know had friends you know the family were farmers and we used to go and make camps in the woods.
Adam: Well, that’s good, and talking of woods we seem to be, what’s down there? That’s a very wooded area, shall we go, you lead on, but shall we go down there? Or
Charity: This is the Common, this is Peckham Ride Common, and erm I think it was, has been around for at least a couple of hundred years and it’s a really big open space with some really huge trees in the middle. They’re probably like, lots of them are London planes and oak trees, and I think this section we’re about to walk into was actually sort of closed off at the beginning I think it was a big common and this was owned by an estate. A sort of family estate and then opened a bit later which is why as you can see it is much more formal
Adam: I was going to say, so we are leaving a sort of really a very large green area with the Shard poking its head above the trees, so your urban environment, but walking into this much more formal sculptured…
Charity: And actually you can walk the whole perimeter of this, and this is quite close to the road here but the other side is as you can see really big open and free, so it must have been quite weird at sort of the end of the 1800s, I suppose that kind of bridge between a really rich family that owned this huge part of the park in the middle, so this is yeah, now we are under these beautiful red-leaved trees, you probably know what that tree is? [Laugh]
Adam: No, no, no, no, let’s not embarrass each other by [Laugh]
Charity: [Laugh] Okay no tree testing
Adam: No tree testing [Laugh]
Charity: Okay
Adam: Well, this is, this is beautiful, so let’s… there’s a lovely, lovely bench with a dedication actually, some flowers connected to that. So why don’t we have a sit down here and just have a chat?
So, first of all, you mentioned you went to drama school, what drama school was it?
Charity: I went to the Oxford School of Drama, which was the smallest, most obscure place I could have probably have found [Laugh] but it probably was the best place for me actually. It’s funny, sometimes what’s for you won’t pass you as they say, erm a tiny drama school in the middle of the north of Oxfordshire. Acting is really hard and part of it is the marathon of it and the difficulties of getting jobs and everybody says this but failing continually and feeling like you haven’t actually achieved things perfectly. In the theatre that means doing a show and there being some moments during the night where you think ‘uh that didn’t work out right’ and you have to be that kind of person that is interested in those kinds of faults and failures and wants to try different things and fix things and part of gaining that resilience is what I think drama school is all about.
Adam: I mean apart from, I do want to talk to you more about your acting, but apart from that you do have what I see as quite a close connection to nature, reading a lot of your social media and learning about your activities, so tell me a bit about that, what is it? What is that connection and why do you feel it?
Charity: I think growing up, albeit in a kind of little village or a town, but kind of in the countryside it was quite… it was a bit freer back then, I think it was different days, the early 80s. being allowed to sort of wander off, with friends and go into kind of woodlands and stuff. I think, I just feel very happy when I am in nature and I am interested in the differences, everything is growing and changing all the time. And it was interesting I went to LA once, and I thought this is so strange to me because the seasons aren’t so apparent. Particularly when you live in the countryside your so kind of affected by those changes and erm I really love animals and I love knowing the circle of life, like where those animals came from, how they’re are fed, what they do naturally, and then getting older you start to understand a bit more about the history and human history and how we have you know got to where we are today the kind of beginnings of farming and how society functions and unfortunately we are at a point now where we’ve outgrown ourselves, and how do we kind of pair that back? How do we get back?
Adam: When you say we’ve outgrown ourselves what do you mean?
Charity: I think humans have outgrown ourselves in a sense I think
Adam: In what sense?
Charity: In the sense that we’ve lost track I think of the essence of how you, I think yeah, we’ve lost track of how life is interconnected with nature. Because we’re pushing technology further and further and some people are saying the answer is to eventually get into space rockets and go and start a new community on Mars and to me that’s mad because I feel like we have everything that we need on this planet. And we just need to reconnect everything.
Adam: Why do you think that disconnection has happened then
Charity: Yeah well, I think it’s a big question. Because I think it happens on so many levels. I think that there is a disconnect with people who are very very fortunate and have a hell of a lot of money, and in some ways don’t notice the effect that their companies or their personal lives might be having on the environment because they are so loaded that they get given their food people and they probably never see plastic packaging to know that it exists because they are just delivered things
Adam: Right
Charity: and they don’t really realise the impact that they’re having, they’re living kind of you know the high life
Adam: Sure, do you think we’re all living that sort of life?
Charity: No, I don’t
Adam: Or it’s just the 1%, or the quarter of the 1%?
Charity: No, I don’t, I think there are lots of people that are the absolute opposite. They haven’t got the time, the money and the education to be able to do anything about it even if they did notice that there is an issue.
Adam: And yet it is curious that isn’t it, because and yet David Attenborough the national hero, his television programmes are all watched, and you know
Charity: But they’re not watched by everybody.
Adam: They’re not watched by everybody but there seems… I mean I get the feeling that you know there’s this weird thing where everybody’s talking about the environment and very concerned about it, even if perhaps if we’re not changing our lifestyle, but my, my sort of view is that people do get it even if they’re not changing their behaviour. You, you feel differently, I think.
Charity: I think that there’s, I think there’s lots of people on those both extremes that don’t get it at all and I also see lots and lots of people living on the poverty line, particularly where I live in the Borough of Lewisham, who are, and I know some people are working crazy hours and don’t have time to think about it. About any kind of impact, and certainly don’t have time to do complicated recycling or and they don’t have the budget to be able to shop in a kind of, what we would probably on our middle-class wage perceive as a kind of eco conscious way. And because what’s difficult is even if you do do that it’s very hard to sort of balance what is the best consumer choice to make. As we all know, so we’re in a difficult way, but what I do believe is that I believe in people power, and I as you say David Attenborough has made a huge impact and it is much more in the mainstream, hugely so in the mainstream in the last couple of year, and I do think its down to kind of lockdown and people staying at home and having the chance to stop and think and reconnect with their immediate environment but whether that’s in a high-rise flat looking out listening to the lack of airplanes, being able to hear nature more, or somebody that’s got, you know, fifty acres and has decided to buy a diamond Jubilee woodland for the Woodland Trust, you know, that there, I think we are kind of you united as we are the people who had a chance to stop and listen and look and then it’s about people that are in positions of power and money to give us a direction to go in. to give us a positive idea
Adam: So, apart from being intellectually being engaged with this, you’re worried about it, you’re clearly worried about it, you do a lot of things.
Charity: mmm
Adam: actually, so tell me about the lots of things you do
Charity: err well I really love… I’ve always…So, fashion is a part of my job in the sense that I have to wear lots of different clothes, and um for my work
Adam: well then you were recently in The Great
Charity: That’s right so I do a TV show, period TV show, and so I
Adam: So, there’s lots of costumes
Charity: there’s lots of costumes, I don’t really have control over where those costumes are made and bought, but sometimes I do so, for example, if I’m producing a film or if I’m in a low-budget theatre production, I might provide my own clothes for that theatre production, and if producing then I am certainly in charge of deciding where we can get clothes, so for example, we go to charity shops and second-hand places because there is so much stuff in the world already. And I try to do that in my personal life.
Adam: But do you have a label, a fashion label?
Charity: No, nothing like that no
Adam: But you, but you talk a lot about conscientious fashion on social media
Charity: Yeh, I do because erm, …. Erm I am looking for the word, influencers! And stuff like that because I get approached for things like that and so I’m very conscious that If I am going to be in front of any kind of camera people are going to make a judgment or think that might be a good idea to wear, so I try to conscious about what I’m wearing if in the public in any way. And really that’s just an extension of my real life, I’ve always shopped in charity shops, when I was growing up that was because we didn’t have any money, so my clothes were given to me by other families, or when I first started to work, which was around fourteen, I worked in a strawberry farm – that was my first job! And my second job was in another strawberry farm, picking strawberries and my third job was the same strawberry farm but in the grocery shop.
Adam: Okay, you got promoted!
Charity: Promoted
Adam: Promoted out of the fields!
Charity: Absolutely, literally up the hill
Adam: and
Charity: I’ve become extremely aware of how difficult it is to manage woodland, and I didn’t even know that as a concept, I just thought that big areas or parkland or woodland or farmland, I had not concept really of how that was looked after, and that’s one thing that I think is I don’t know, its both inspired me and made me realise what a huge challenge it is to be able to reforest large areas and the other fact of everything being so slow – trees reaching their maturity at such a slow rate – and that being a very difficult kind of challenge to sort of ask people to become involved with because I think when you’re asking people to you know kind of sympathise with a charity or donate money to a charity in some ways its more difficult to say this is an extremely slow process but we need your help urgently… so it has been interesting to learn about that side of things. And I’ve also been deeply shocked and saddened about how many of our ancient woodlands and hedgerows and trees that are still being cut down in this country, partly for huge roadways but partly for new buildings and farmland and that does feel quite urgent to me. But yeah I’ve learnt a lot. I think one of my favourite things has been seeing the tree listening which I put on my Instagram if anyone wants to have a look
Adam: So, tell me about tree listening.
Charity: so, there’s a way to hear the water being filtered up and down trees and it’s the most beautiful sound and to me, it’s a sound that I could go to sleep to. I keep thinking, I must try and find if there’s a recording online that I can grab and put on my phone to listen to at night-time. And it gives you that sense of the tree being alive in the here and now. Trees grow so slowly it’s sometimes quite difficult to think if the as, as kind of, living in the same time zone as us. So, hearing that, that’s a very present sound really, I don’t know, it makes you… it makes you want to hug the tree even more [laugh]
Adam: Are you a bit of a tree hugger?
Charity: Yeah, yeah, I am!
Adam: Do people spot you in Peckham? Strange woman hugging trees?
Charity: I do sometimes do that, the weird thing is, this was, I was in a different park in Lewisham, and I’d actually climbed the tree because I just felt like it and I also had some lines to learn. And it was quite an empty park and I thought well this is fine, and I was in a tree learning my lines and a lady came and she saw my bags on the floor and she was so freaked out she just looked up and saw me in this tree, and I have to say it was a weird sight. I have to really say
Adam: [Laugh]
Charity: This is so weird, I’m an actress and I don’t know what I’m doing, sorry
Yeah, I just, yeah, I love…I think it was also, when I was growing up, a bit of a place to kind of go and hide, you know if you’re kind of stressed out or worried as a kid, and rather than run away, go and climb a tree and be up really high – it completely changes your perspective.
Adam: Has having a child changed your perspective at all?
Charity: I think it just strengthened my love of nature because it’s the first thing that you teach kids about. All of the books that people give you are all about spotting different animals and trees, and the sunshine and the bees, everything he loves is related to outdoors, I mean that’s, it’s his first summer, he’s fifteen months old and erm I’ve moved to a new house recently and been trying to work the garden a bit because it was very very overgrown. So, it’s been my great pleasure to be outside and doing lots of digging and his first proper words has been digging, dig, dig, because he heard me say digging and he just started saying dig, dig, dig. [Laugh]
Adam: Fantastic
Charity: He said that before mummy or daddy.
Adam: So, are you optimistic, I mean all those things you talked about erm are you optimistic that the world for your child will actually, things will get better during his early life? Or not?
Charity: I feel burdened with the worry of it, and I try to not think about it, because the world is huge and there’s only so much, I can do. I do feel optimistic in the human endeavour and human invention and ingenuity. But I am sad that it’s going to get to a point of huge environmental catastrophe before real change is made by our governing bodies. But then if you look back at the pictures just pre-industrial revolution of these thousands and thousands of huge billowing chimney pots in London and you know, they’re not there now, and the world is a lot greener than it was then, at least in cities. So, I kind of, yeah, I have hope otherwise you know… what’s the point?
Adam: I mean it’s interesting isn’t it, there’s… I often think about how to shape the narrative here because I think often the narrative of ecology and the environment is one of ‘there’s an impending disaster’ you know ‘it’s all terrible’ and I’m not saying that’s not true, but I think it’s hard for people to engage with because it’s like ‘well what, what can I do about that?’ and I think it was, hopefully, I got this right, I think it was Barrack Obama who wrote a book on it called the Audacity of Hope and you talked about hope and it is this sort of weird thing, actually to be hopeful is an extraordinary thing, it is audacious to be hopeful and that might be, might be a better message actually, that there is this big challenge and actually the audacity of hope in what can, can we do, individually? Individuals can make a difference. You know yes joining the Trust and what have you, and doing other things, and planting a single tree
Charity: I think you also have to look after yourself as a human in the world. Try to give yourself time and love and energy. Then you’ll be in a really good spot to be able to help other things and other people and the environment. It’s very difficult like I say if you’re on the breadline and you’re exhausted to actually have the headspace and the energy to do stuff. And you know, and so those people that are unable to do that we need to, I do believe, socially we need to enable people to be able to care for the environment. If you’re in a position where you do have enough money, and you do have enough time, and you still feel worried, then there’s tons you can do on a day-to-day level. And I actually think that action is much more infectious than talking. I know we’re talking here today, but the best thing that I have probably ever done is about two or three years ago I just wrote on Twitter I’m giving up plastic for the month of January, this was before it was kind of fashionable to that and rather than saying everyone should do this, everyone should do that, I just said ‘this is what I’m doing’. I didn’t even talk about it. I just said ‘I’m gonna do this’ and so many of my friend’s a couple of months later said ‘oo you said that and actually, I tried it as well’, they didn’t even talk to me about it they just kind of tried it. They started, whenever they came over, they said ‘we I didn’t bring, I didn’t buy any plastic because I knew you weren’t interested’ I thought wow! You just actually have to put a stick in the mud sometimes and say this is what I’m doing, and try to have the energy to stick to it, and of course, we have… we can’t be perfect… the world is set up in a certain way at the moment as consumers, as everything is wrapped in plastic, it’s very difficult to get around without, you know in lots of places, without a car because public transport has a lot to be desired and it’s expensive, but if you can try to support things that are doing the right thing, that will slowly, slowly build, and if you can have joy in that, that builds as well.
Adam: It is interesting to me, we tend to do what our friends do, or people we know do, so, and that’s why a single person can make a difference isn’t it because, a friend will copy you. And suddenly what you do isn’t a single thing, it’s a big thing.
That’s, that’s amazing.
So, look we’re in this park which is very nice. I’m not sure I’ve met one leaf yet; we’re meant to be walking around and I lazily dragged you to this chair! But, have you, I mean there’s lots of Woodland Trust places outside of London, they are quite close but also quite far. Have you been to many? Are there any that stick in your mind?
Charity: I’ve been to Hainault, and I’ve been to Langley Vale. What I would love to do is go to Scotland, I know there’s lots of work happening there at the moment and I’d really like to visit, it’s really interesting to see the difference between a very very ancient woodland and something that’s quite newly developed, and I know that there are some places that the Woodland Trust are trying to connect two different forests, and I think, is it the pine martin (?) that they are trying to get to, sort of, repopulate? And it’s very difficult to do that because they like travelling and so you have to have a long distance in between, you know, one dense forest and another dense forest for them to actually want to stick around. So, I would kinda like to see that in action.
Adam: Well, the Langley Vale Forest, I have just been to, and it features in our previous podcast. All the commemoration of the First World War. Which I think was one of the most interesting and sort of, I don’t know, shocking, I don’t know, because there’s a lot of… it commemorates really terrible events, but in a sort of, living memory, which I thought was really forceful. And that’s I think one of the more interesting podcasts so if you listen to this one, but also that one, I also thought that one was great.
So, it’s amazing to sort of talk to you about this, but as you were saying, you are an exceptionally busy actor as well, so you’re doing… is The Great still in production?
Charity: It is, we’re filming season three at the moment.
Adam: Wow, so how many programmes in a season?
Charity: so, there’s ten episodes in each season, and the first two have come out via Hulu, and, in America and STARZPLAY, the first season was out on Channel 4 a couple of years ago and the second season is coming out this summer, on Channel 4, and we’re filming season three. So, um, it’s a lot of fun, it’s very silly and it was lovely to be doing something, I was so lucky to be working during the last lockdown, albeit with really rigorous Covid protocols in place, we managed to get it done.
Adam: Well fantastic, I will watch out for the next season! And all of your stuff on social media and everything. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you Charity, thank you very much!
Charity: Thanks.
Well thanks to Charity for taking me on a tour of her local small, wooded area in South London, and do remember if you want to find a wood near you, well the Woodland Trust has a website to help. Just go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time happy wandering.
Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners, and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating.
And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walks special. Or send an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you. -
Langley Vale Wood is a really special place. Created as part of the Trust’s First World War Centenary Woods project, it’s a natural living legacy for the fallen that symbolises peace and hope. Memorials offer space to remember in an evocative and moving tribute. As well as these important reflections on the past, the site has a bright future. Previously an arable farm that became non-viable, nature is now thriving, with butterfly, bird and rare plant numbers all up.
Join site manager Guy Kent and volunteer David Hatcher to explore the ‘Regiment of Trees’, the ‘Witness’ memorial and Jutland Wood. Discover too how the site is being transformed into a peaceful oasis for people and nature and why some of these fields are internationally important.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Hello! I've got to start by telling you this. I have driven to Langley Vale today and I've been driving through suburban London, really not very much aware of my surroundings, and you come up this hill and suddenly everything falls away and you burst out onto the top of the hill and it's all sky and Epsom Downs. And the racecourse is just ahead of you! And it dramatically changes. So, it's quite, it's quite an entrance into the Langley Vale forest area.
I've come to meet, well, a couple of people here. I’ve drawn up next to a farm, I don’t really know where they are, but it gives me a moment to tell you a little bit about the Langley Vale project which is amazing.
It's a lovely thought behind it, because it is about honouring those who died in the First World War, and of course, there are many ways in which we honour and remember the people whose lives were changed forever during that global conflict. There are war memorials, headstones, poetry and paintings – and those man-made accolades – they capture all the names, the dates, the emotions and the places. And of course, they are vital in recording and recounting the difficult and very harrowing experiences from that conflict.
But, what this venture, I think, wanted to achieve with its First World War Centenary Woods Project was a natural, living legacy for the fallen. Flourishing places that symbolise peace and hope, as well as remembering and marking the dreadful events of war, but doing that in the shape of nature and hope for the future. Both now and for many, many generations to come, providing havens for wildlife and for people – and I'm one of those people – and so it’s a great project, it's in its very early stages, but it’s a great opportunity, I think, to have a look around today. So, oh! There's two people wandering down the road there in shorts, I think they’re hikers, I don’t think they are who I am seeing.
[Pause]
Adam: So, Guy you're the site manager here, just tell me a little bit about the site.
Guy: So, we are on the North Downs here in Surrey. It's a huge ridge of chalk that runs along southern England and down through Kent, it pops under the channel and pops up again in France. And this chalk ridge has got very special habitats on it in terms of woodland, chalk grassland, and we're very thrilled here that we've been able to buy, in 2014, a formerly intensively managed arable farm that was actually not very productive. The soils are very thin here on the hills the chalk with flints, so, pretty poor for growing crops, and we were very lucky to buy it as part of our First World War Centenary Woods project as England’s Centenary Wood.
Adam: So, tell me a bit about the Centenary Woods part of this.
Guy: So, the idea of the project was to put a new woodland in each country of the United Kingdom, that being Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. This is the England site, and it is the largest of the four sites. We've actually planted 170,000 trees here. We did go through a full Environmental Impact Assessment and this enabled us to find out where we could plant trees because there are some special habitats here, and there is a national character to the North Downs – national character being that much of the woodland is planted on the high ground and much of the lower land is actually open space, be that for arable use or pasture.
Adam: This is a Centenary Wood, so, is this just an ordinary woodland planted in the name of those who died during the First World War?
Guy: Yes. The difference is… one of the reasons this site was selected was because we do actually have history here from the First World War. We’ve got a number of memorials that I hope to show you today.
One of which commemorates a day in January 1915. Lord Kitchener inspected 20,000 troops here that had gathered and recently joined, taking up the call to join his new army. So, there were many sorts of civilians here in civilian clothing. They got up at 4am in the morning, I’m told, to all assemble here for him arriving at 10am with his equivalent French minister, and they inspected the troops for a very short period of time because they had other troops to go and inspect nearby. But many of those 20,000 actually then ended up going over, obviously, over to the frontline and many were not to return.
Adam: Shall we have a walk down? And what is there then to commemorate that? Are there, are these just trees planted in memory of that occasion, or have you got a sort of statue or something?
Guy: Yeah, well, the Regiment of Trees as we’re just about to see, as you go around the corner… An artist, we commissioned an artist called Patrick Walls who has actually created some statues for us replicating that event. So, we have men standing to attention carved out of sandstone…
Adam: Wow, yes. Just turning around the corner here and you can see this, yes, individual soldiers standing proud of a field of, actually, white daisies just emerging made from that sandstone you say?
Guy: Yes sandstone.
Adam: Sandstone soldiers. We are just walking up to them now, but behind that is all, I mean, I'm assuming this is a statue, but a statue made of trees.
Guy: Indeed, what you’re looking at there Adam is a memorial that we've called Witness. It's actually created by an artist called John Merrill and it is made up of parts of oak trees that have been assembled and it's inspired by the World War One painter Paul Nash, who was a cubist artist, and a particular painting of his called ‘Trees on the Downs’ and that's inspired by that. And we're very lucky to have included within the memorial part of an oak out of Wilfred Owen's garden.
Adam: Wow!
Guy: Yeah so it's constructed to look like trees that have been obliterated, effectively, on the frontline, very evocative.
Adam: Yes, you get very evocative pictures of a single tree either, you know, scarred black or sometimes actually still alive in a field of chaos.
Guy: That's right yeah. And that's kind of trying to illustrate that in our memorial here, and what you can do, the public can actually walk through it. We've got a couple of benches within it, actually, where people can sit and contemplate, and actually written on the inside of some of these beams that go up are actually excerpts from poems from First World War poets.
Adam: So, this first statue we’re actually standing by it’s sort of transformed in the flow of the statue – so it comes out of the ground as a sort of textured rock and as you go up 5 foot, 6 foot the statue also transforms into a man, but this man is wearing a suit and flat cap, so is a civilian.
Guy: Indeed, and that's kind of trying to illustrate the fact that many of them are just joined up and a number of them haven't even got their uniform yet.
Adam: So, let's move on, ahead of us, there’s this sort of city gent on the left but looks a bit grander, but on the right, there are obviously… these look like officers.
Guy: Yeah, the best, how I can best describe this is, that we've actually got 12 statues here and they're actually sitting among standard trees that were planted. So, we've got birch here, we've got beech, we've got whitebeam and we've got maple. But, these statues, the twelve of them, are in four lines. The guys at the back have only just joined up and they haven't had their uniform yet. And what the artist wanted to illustrate was the fact that all classes joined up at the same time. So, we have a working-class guy with his flat cap down the end there, we have our middle-class guy here with his hat on, and then we have the upper classes as well – it's meant to illustrate that everybody was in it together and joined in.
Adam: I thought this was an officer, but I can see from his insignia he's a corporal.
Guy: Indeed, and if you look at the statues Adam, as we go nearer the front to where Kitchener would have inspected, they all put the guys at the front who had all their webbing, all their uniform already, and as we move back through the lines it was less and less uniform and equipment.
Adam: It’s very evocative, I have to say, it’s much more emotional than I thought it would be. Shall we go over to the sculpture?
Guy: Yes let’s.
Adam: So, this is called ‘Witness’.
Guy: So, this is ‘Witness’ yes, and this is… John Merrill created this, he's got a yard in Wales where he works wood of this size. As you can see, it's quite a structure.
Adam: So, yes as you say this size… So, I'm very bad at judging, six… I am trying to think, how many six-foot men could you fit under here? Six, twelve, I dunno thirty foot high? Was that fair?
Guy: I tend to work in metres, I don’t know about you, but I'm going to say about six metres at its highest point.
Adam: So, it’s made of, sort of, coming into it… it's… actually, it's quite cathedral-like inside. Small but is that a fair description?
Guy: Yeah, I think so.
Adam: *inaudible* Now, every second tree here has a line of First World War poetry etched into it rather beautifully. Do you want to read just a couple out for us?
Guy: Yes… so here we have one saying: “And lying in sheer I look round at the corpses of the larches. Whom they slew to make pit-props.” [editor: Afterwards by Margaret Postgate Cole]. “At evening the autumn woodlands ring with deadly weapons. Over the golden plains and lakes…” [editor: Grodek by Georg Trakl].
Adam: Amazing, it’s an amazing place. There are a couple of benches here and these are…
Guy: These are the names of the poets. So, we have W Owen here, we have E Thomas, J W Streets, M P Cole, amongst others.
Adam: Very moving, very moving. Okay, well it’s a big site isn’t it, a big site. So, where are we going to go to next?
Guy: Well, we can walk through now Adam, we can see a new community orchard that we planted in 2017.
Adam: So, we’ve come into, well a big part of, well there are a huge number of trees here. So, is this the main planting area?
Guy: Yes, this is the main planting area. There are approximately 40,000 trees in here.
Adam: We’re quite near a lot of urban areas, but here they’ve all disappeared, and well, the field goes down and dips up again. Is that all Woodland Trust forest?
Guy: That’s right, what you can see ahead of us there is actually the first planting that we did on this site in 2014, on that hillside beyond.
Adam: 2014? So, eight, eight…
Guy: Eight years old.
Adam: [laughs] Thank you, yes mental maths took me a moment. So, the reason I was doing that, is that they look like proper trees for only eight years old.
Guy: It just shows you that obviously, you think that when we're planting all these trees now – that none of us will perhaps be here long enough to enjoy them when they’re mature trees, but I think you can see from just by looking over there that that woodland is eight years old and it's very much started to look like a woodland.
Adam: Very much so, well, brilliant. Well, very aptly I can see, starting to see poppies emerging in the fields amongst the trees. They do have this sort of sense of gravestones, in a way, don’t they? They’re sort of standing there in regimented rows amongst the poppy fields.
So, where to now?
Guy: So, we’ll go to Jutland Wood, which is our memorial to the Battle of Jutland.
Adam: The famous sea battle
Guy: Yes, it was the largest battle of the First World War which raged over two days, the 31st of May to the 1st of June 1916. We're going to meet our volunteer, lead volunteer, David Hatcher now, who's been working with us on the site for a number of years, and he's going to tell you about this memorial that we've got to the Battle of Jutland.
Adam: Right, I mean, here it's, it's different because there are these rather nice, actually, sculpted wooden stands. What are these?
Guy: Yeah, these are… actually commemorate… we've got what we call naval oaks. So, we've got a standard oak planted for each of the ships that were lost in that particular battle and we've also, between them, we've got these port holes that have been made by an artist called Andrew Lapthorn, and if I can describe those to you, they are sort of a nice piece, monolith of wood with a porthole in the middle of…, a glass porthole, that indicates how many lives were lost and it has the name of the ship.
Adam: So, this is HMS Sparrowhawk where six lives were lost, 84 survivors, but HMS Fortune next door, 67 lives lost, only ten survivors, and it just goes on all the way through.
Guy: As you walk through the feature Adam, the actual lives lost gets a bit more, bigger and bigger, and by the end it’s… there were very few survivors on some of the ships that went down, and they are illustrated on these nice portholes that commemorate that.
Adam: And this is all from the Battle of Jutland?
Guy: Battle of Jutland this is yeah.
Adam: And just at the end here HMS Queen Mary, 1,266 lives lost, only 20 survivors from 1913. Very, very difficult.
[Walking]
Guy: This memorial, actually illustrates…, is by a lady called Christine Charlesworth, and what we have here is a metal representation of a sailor from 1916 in his uniform. And that faces the woodland here, where you can see ancient semi natural woodland that would have been here in 1916. So, this sailor is looking to the past and our ancient woodland. If we look to the other side of the sailor, we have a sailor from 2016 in his uniform and he’s looking in the opposite direction, and he’s looking at our newly planted trees – looking to the future.
Adam: Let’s walk through here, and at the end of this rather… I mean it is very elegantly done but obviously sombre. But, at the end here we’re going to meet David who’s your lead volunteer.
So, David, so you’re the lead volunteer for this site? And, I know that’s, must be quite a responsibility because this is quite a site!
David: That’s very flattering - I’m a lead volunteer - I have lots of brilliant colleagues.
Adam: Really? So, how many of you are there here?
David: About seven lead volunteers, there are about one hundred volunteers on the list.
Adam: And what do you actually do here?
David: Ah well it’s a whole range of different things. As you know this was an intensively farmed arable site. And there were lots of things like old fences and other debris. It was also used as a shooting estate, so there were things left over from feeding pheasants and what have you.
Adam: Right.
David: A lot of rubbish that all had to be cleared because it’s open access land from the Woodland Trust, and we don’t want dogs running into barbed wire fences and things like that.
Adam: And it’s different from, well I think, almost any other wood. It has this reflection of World War One in it. What does that mean to you?
David: Well, it actually means a lot to me personally, because I was the first chairman of the Veteran’s Gateway. So, I had a connection with the military, and it was brilliant for me to be able to come and do something practical, rather than just sitting at a desk, to honour our veterans.
Adam: And do you notice that people bring their families here who have had grandfathers or great grandfathers who died in World War One?
David: Yes, they do and in particular we have a memorial trail in November, every year, and there’s a wreath where you can pick up a little tag and write a name on it and pin it to this wreath, and that honours one of your relatives or a friend, or somebody like that, and families come, and children love writing the names of their grandpa on and sticking it to the wreath.
Adam: And do you have a family connection here at all?
David: My father actually served in the, sorry, actually my grandfather served at the Battle of Jutland.
Adam: Wow and what did he do there?
David: He was a chief petty officer on a battleship, and he survived I am happy to say, and perhaps I would never have been here had he not, and all of my family – my father, my mother, both my grandfathers were all in the military.
Adam: And do you remember him talking to you about the Battle of Jutland?
David: He didn't, but what he did have was, he had a ceremonial sword which I loved, I loved playing with his ceremonial sword.
Adam: Gotcha. And you are still here to tell the tale! [Laughter]
David: And so are all my relatives! [Laughter]
Adam: Yes, please don’t play with ceremonial swords! [Laughter]
That’s amazing. Of course, a lot of people don’t talk about those times.
David: No.
Adam: Because it’s too traumatic, you know… as we’ve seen how many people died here.
David: Yes.
Adam: Well look, it’s a relatively new woodland and we’re just amongst, here in this bit, which commemorates Jutland, the trees are really only, some of them, poking above their really protective tubes. But what sort of changes have you seen in the last seven, eight odd years or so since it’s been planted?
David: It's changed enormously. It's quite extraordinary to see how some trees have really come on very well indeed, but also a lot of wildflowers have been sown. We have to be very careful about which we sow and where because it's also a very valuable natural wildflower site, so we don't want them getting mixed up.
Adam: So, what's your favourite part of the site then?
David: Ah well my favourite part…, I'm an amateur naturalist, so there’s the sort of dark and gloomy things that are very like ancient woodland. We call them ancient semi-natural woodland. So there is Great Hurst Wood which is one of the ancient woodlands.
Adam: Here on this site?
David: Yes, on this site. It's just over there, but we have another couple of areas that are really ancient semi-natural woodland, but actually, I love it all. There's something for everybody: there’s the skylarks that we can hear at the moment; the arable fields with very rare plants in; the very rare fungi in the woods. Actually, that line of trees that you can see behind you is something called the Sheep Walk, and the Sheep Walk is so-called because they used to drive sheep from all the way from Kent to markets in the west of the county, and they've always had that shelterbelt there – it's very narrow – so they've always had it there to protect the sheep from the sun, or the weather, or whatever. And it's the most natural bit of ancient woodland that there is, even though it's so narrow and it's fascinating what you can find under there.
Adam: And I saw you brought some binoculars with you today. So, I mean, what about sort of the birds and other animals that presumably have flourished since this was planted?
David: It's getting a lot better. The Woodland Trust has a general no chemicals and fertiliser policy and so as the soil returns to its natural state then other things that were here before, sometimes resting in the soil, are beginning to come up. We, I think, we surveyed maybe 20 species of butterflies in the first year… there are now over… 32! And there are only 56 different species over the country, so we have a jolly good proportion! We have two Red List birds at least here – skylarks and lapwings nesting.
It's all getting better; it’s getting a lot better under new management.
Adam: [chuckle] Fantastic! Well, it’s a real, a real joy to be here today. Er so, we’re here in the Jutland woodland. Where, where are we going to next do you think? Where's the best place…?
David: We’re going to have a look at one of the wonderful poppy fields.
Adam: Right.
David: Because the poppies come up just as they did in Flanders every summer and it's, it really is a sight to behold.
Adam: And is this peak poppy season?
David: It's just passed…
Adam: Just passed.
David: So, we hope they are still there and haven't been blown away.
Adam: It would be typical if I have got here and all the poppies have gone. Forget it, alright, let's go up there.
So, well this is quite something! So, we've turned into this other field, and it is a field, well never in my life have I seen so many poppies! Mainly red poppies, but then there are…, what are these amongst them?
Guy: Yeah. So, what you can see is a number of species of poppies here. The main one you can see, it's the red Flanders poppy.
Adam: And is this natural or planted because of the First World War reference?
Guy: No, it's mostly…, we did supplement this with some…, we've actually planted some of these poppy seeds, but most of them are natural and it's a direct result of the fact that we continue to cultivate the land. One of the most important conservation features we have here on site is rare arable plants. Bizarrely, these plants were once called arable weeds, but when intensification of farming began in the mid-20th century, the timing of ploughing was changed, the introduction of herbicides, all these things meant that these so-called arable weeds actually became quite rare and they were just hanging on to the edges of fields. What we've been able to do here is to continue to cultivate the land sympathetically for these plants and we now have much, much better arable plant assemblages here. We have rare arable plants here now, that mean that some of these fields are of national importance and a couple of them are of international importance, but a by-product of cultivating the land every year for these is that we get displays of poppies like this every year.
Adam: And when you cultivate, you’re talking about cultivating the land, you’re planting these poppies, or what does that mean?
Guy: No, it’s almost like replicating the fact…, it’s as if we're going to plant a crop, so we actually plough the field and then we roll it as if we're going to prepare a crop.
Adam: But you don't actually plant a crop.
Guy: No, no exactly. And then we leave it fallow and then naturally these arable plants tend to actually populate these fields. Poppies are incredibly nectar-rich, they're actually quite short-lived… Some of you may know poppies that grow in your garden, and they could be out in bloom one day and completely blown off their petals the next day. They don't, like, last very long, but they do pack a powerful punch for nectar, so definitely invertebrates… Because we don't use chemicals here anymore which would have been used constantly on this farm – and what that means is that many of these arable plants, they require low fertility otherwise they get out-competed by all the things you'd expect like nettles, docks and thistles. So as the land improves so will hopefully arable plant assemblages making them even more impressive than they already are.
Adam: But actually, as the, as the soil improves isn't that a problem for things like poppies ‘cause they'll get out-competed by other plants which thrive better?
Guy: It's a fair point, but what is actually crucial – is that to actually increase biodiversity in these fields it actually requires low nutrients. In terms of a lot of these fields, as well, we have, from years of chemical application, we have a lot of potassium, we have a lot of magnesium in them, and they have a lot of phosphorus too now. Magnesium and potassium tend to leach out of the soil so they will improve naturally, phosphorus tends to bind the soil and sticks around for a long time. So, we're trying to get these chemicals down to acceptable levels to make them more attractive for rare plants and therefore increasing biodiversity.
Adam: Well, it is, it is like a painting and I'm going to take a photo and put it on my Twitter feed. I just, [gasp] so if anyone wants to see that, head over there. But it is beautiful, properly beautiful.
I mean, so we were walking by this extraordinary painting of a poppy field to our right. It's a site which has been revolutionised because it was all arable farming less than a decade ago. What has that done for biodiversity here?
Guy: Well, as we can imagine these fields, it’s quite difficult to imagine them as we walk through them now, but these would have all been bare fields that were basically in crop production and there’s clearly been an explosion of invertebrate activity here.
We've got increasing butterfly species every year, our bird numbers are starting to go up, but also importantly we've got certain areas where habitats are being allowed to develop. So, we have a former arable field here that is now developing, it has been planted up with hazel coppice in a system we call ‘coppice with standards’, where we plant…
Adam: Coppice with standards?
Guy: Coppice with standards yeah.
Adam: Oo, well very grand!
Guy: It is! It’s an old forestry practice where they planted lots of hazel trees that would have been worked and then periodically in amongst them, there will be oak trees that would be allowed to grow longer and then harvested at a later date.
What this has meant is that we've got long grass now that is growing between these trees and that's making it much more attractive for small mammals on site.
Adam: Like what? What sort of small mammals?
Guy: Things like voles, wood mice, field voles, these sort of things that make sort of tracks and sort of tunnels within the grass.
And what that has meant is, as we go up the food chain is, that that's become more attractive now on the site for raptors. A nice story from two years ago - we have a volunteer that works with us who is a BTO bird ringer, and he sort of approached us to say “you've got barn owls nearby and your site is starting to develop nicely. How do you fancy putting up some raptor boxes to see if we can attract them in?” So, which was great, and we managed…, the local bird club donated some barn owl boxes, we put the barn owl boxes up in this field we have just talked about – the hazel coppice field – and the expert said “well they probably won't nest in it this year. They'll come and have a look…” Anyway, we put it up…, two months later… it was being used and we were able to ring those three chicks that came from that and they've been breeding ever since.
Adam: Wow, how amazing! Must be very heartening to be working on the site which is growing like that so quickly.
Guy: It is, it's amazing and when you consider that we’re within the M25, we’re very close to London, but we've got this site that is growing and it's only going to get better as we manage it sympathetically for the wildlife that it hosts.
Adam: We’re just coming round the bend and back to almost where we started into this field of standing soldiers amongst the growing trees, and the cathedral-like tree sculpture there which will take us back to the beginning. So we’ve just done a little tour…
Guy: Yeah,
Adam: So, I dunno half an hour, 40 minutes or so. Presumably, we skirted the edges of this…
Guy: You certainly have Adam! It’s a fraction of the site. We are 640 acres in size and we're just at the top part of it. This area that we've largely walked around today is very much focused on World War One and our memorials, but much of the rest of the site is, actually, is quite a bit quieter, there are fewer people around and the focus is definitely more on wildlife.
Adam: Yes, well, it has been an amazing trip, I have to say, I’ve been to lots of different Woodland Trust woods all the way up the country, to the far stretches of Scotland. I have to say I think this is my favourite. It’s quite, quite a site! And the memorial is done really tastefully and fits in with the landscape. I think this is quite, quite a site for you to manage, it's quite a thing.
Guy: It’s incredible and we are just so proud of it and we just can't wait to be able to open our car park and invite people from further afield, and not just locals who get to enjoy it as is the case at the moment.
Adam: Absolutely. Well look, thank you! It started this morning, bright sun, it looked like I shouldn’t need to bring a coat then all of a sudden, I thought “Oh my goodness”, we’re standing under a completely black cloud but it has not rained, it is not raining, we're in running distance of the car so…
Guy: Somebody's looking down on us Adam, at least for a couple of hours.
Adam: They are indeed, well thank you very much!
Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating.
And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you. -
Join us at Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Wood, Leics to discover a thriving 10-year-old wood, chat royal trees and celebrate the Platinum Jubilee. We meet with site manager David Logan to explore the site's connections with the royal family, its special art features and some of the wildlife, sights and sounds you might encounter on a visit.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk.
Transcript
Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, like all good podcasts let's start with a story and this one obviously is about a tree. It stands in a quiet part of central London called Lincoln's Inn Fields – the centre of the legal profession.
It sits, well, just outside of a gated 11-acres of parkland in one of the otherwise busiest and noisiest parts of the country. It was planted in 1953 and since then the well-heeled men and women of the legal profession, who worked there, often sheltered under its branches, passed it by, both ignoring it and perhaps enjoying it. In the 70 years that tree has been growing, there have been many monumental events and world figures who have both entered and left the stage.
When it was first planted, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. Since then, entering and often leaving the limelight – Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Yuri Gagarin, The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, John F Kennedy, video players were invented, personal computers and mobile phones were created, and there have been 15 prime ministers. But in all that time, as a living witness to that history of the new Elizabethan Age, there has been only one monarch – Queen Elizabeth II. No one has played such a long-lived part in the nation's history as the Queen.
The tree that still stands by Lincoln's Inn Fields is one of literally millions that have been planted in the name of the Queen.
Trees, of course, have an even longer perspective on time than Her Majesty but both stand as witnesses and part of history stretching back and reaching forward far beyond the timescales most of us live by.
It's very fitting, therefore, that on this Platinum Jubilee the Woodland Trust has partnered with the Queen's Green Canopy Project to invite everyone across the UK to plant a network of trees, avenues, copse, and whole woodlands, in honour of the Queen's service and legacy
From a single sapling in a garden to a whole wood, the aim is to create 70 Platinum Jubilee Woods of 70 acres each – every tree bringing benefits for people, wildlife and climate – now and for the future.
And so, I took this opportunity to visit the Trust's Diamond Jubilee Wood in Leicestershire, where I met the man responsible for looking after the woodland, David Logan.
David: So, this is Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Woods and it's a flagship site of a scheme that the Woodland Trust has to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
So, what we endeavoured to do, and we've successfully done. We created 75+ woods of 60 acres or more and they were the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Woods. And, this is the flagship one of those woods, making it the largest single-owned block of native broadleaf woodland in the National Forest area.
Adam: What immediate, I mean, we've not really gone in yet, but what immediately surprises me is this is really quite, well, it's a very young wood. Yet, it already but quite mature I mean, were these species, was this all planted?
David: You're looking at a hedgerow and beyond that are the trees at the same height as the hedgerow. So yeah no, it is to me, you know, a refute to people who say 'why bother planting woods because you never get to walk under the bows of the trees' but these, only ten years ago this was planted and when you get into the site, you're definitely in a wood now 10 years later.
Adam: those trees are all on the quite tall…
David: They must be 10-12 feet tall.
Adam: Yeah, looks even taller to me but then I'm unsure. Okay, go on, lead on. Tell me a bit about then what this site sort of is, why it's special, you know, biologically special?
David: Because of, it's big! You get that really wild feeling when you're here. So, you know, 267 hectares are completely devoted to nature. There's not, well, I don't think there's anywhere else particularly like that in this part of the country. And, so yeah, it does stand out. We get lots of different wildlife: lots of birds, lots of invertebrates, butterflies and a really good show of wildflowers as well. We will see some of them.
Adam: And what was here before? Was it just an empty field?
David: No. So, it was an open cast coal mine. So, the whole lot was owned by UK Coal and then the central part of it where the lake is was the largest hole in Europe! When it was done 750,000 tonnes of coal came out.
Adam: Wow! So, I mean, there's no sign of that at all, because open cast mining can be a real scar on the land, can't it? I mean, it doesn't look pretty and then yet is there still a hole, was that all backfilled?
David: That's all backfilled yeah so all of the substrate that wasn't coal will have been stored around the site and then all put back in the hole.
Adam: How long have you been here then?
David: So, I've been site manager for three years now, so....
Adam: Right.
David: Yeah, seen it develop.
Adam: So, what sort of, I mean, three years is not a long time, especially in the life span of trees, but what sort of changes have you seen over that period?
David: I think the biggest one recently is we took away all of the tree tubes and the fencing that the original kind of planting scheme relied on to protect it from deer and rabbits. Yeah, which has completely changed the way the site feels. So, no more sea of plastic tubes and no more fences to get in the way. So, you can get to walk where you like now, as well as the wildlife can get around the site a bit easier, and it really has changed the way it all feels
Adam: In terms of the local community engagement and their use of this wood, what’s that like?
David: It's been great. Yeah, been great right from the outset, so, we had a lot of community involvement with the original planting and then again with extensions, voluntarily.
Adam: And how well used is it by the locals then?
David: Yeah, yeah, very well used, very rarely do you ever come to the car park and there's less than five cars in it.
Adam: We're coming to, I can see... what's that building over there? That looks very pretty!
David: So, that is what we call the welcome barn. So, I've got two buildings I've got on this site. I've got the welcome barn and I've got bird hide as well.
Adam: Wow! So, what happens? Is there someone with tea and crumpets in the welcome barn for us?
David: Unfortunately not no, but there are some interpretation panels that tell you the story of the site and a nice mosaic that was made by the volunteers as well, at the beginning of the site. And then a little compost toilet round the back!
Adam: Laughs Okay that's good, good to know, good to know! And tell me about the bird hide then.
David: So, the bird hide is yet another lovely building overlooking a lake. So, the lake was kind of formed by the sinking of the coal mine and the soil around it, and yeah, so just a nice bird hide, we’ll go and look at it.
Adam: What sort of birds do you get?
David: The most exciting bird that we've had here is a hen harrier.
Adam: Right! Wow! And look, and this welcome barn, this also seems to be unusual for a Woodland Trust site? You don't normally see these things.
David: Don't normally get a building no, I’m lucky to have two!
Adam: And look at... really, really lovely sort of mosaic on the floor – Woodland Trust mosaic which sort of looks quite 1950s like... Do you know how long this…? This can't be that...?
David: No no, that was built when the barn was built and the site was created in 2012 and it's meant to, kind of, reflect the Roman history of the site. So, we’ve got a Roman road that we just crossed over there, and then we've got two areas of our underlining archaeology which we know are Roman on the site. And so, we know there's certainly a lot of Roman activity, hence a Romanesque kind of mosaic.
Adam: So, just explain a bit about where we are.
David: So, these are called the groves – The Royal Groves – as part of Royal Groves Walk, and as part of the creation of the site. There was a royal Grove created for each year of the Queen's reign, so, they’re in a series of circles and each one has a post and people can sponsor the grove and the post and then they get their little plaque added to the grove post for their year. I believe that certain years become more popular than others for various reasons and, but yeah, you'll see all these names. My favourite one, I think, is just this one. This grove is dedicated to the dahlia.
Adam: That’s fantastic laugh dahlia appreciation society sponsors. So, tell me a bit about the trees we're seeing here, there's clearly a whole mixture.
David: Yes. So, they’re all native broadleaf trees. We have got birch and oak going round. There is no ash in this part of the wood because ash dieback was kind of discovered just as the planting was going ahead and so we’re lucky. There is a compartment in the north which got ash put into it. You might see the occasional ash tree that's self-set. So, we've got a Jubilee Grove Trail going on at the weekend for the... to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee that's coming up, encouraging people to, kind of, wander around the trails, and we're going to have these tree rings, sections of a tree... one per decade of the Queen's reign and with various large events that happen within that decade there will be a tree ring.
Adam: Will that be permanent?
David: No, it'll just be for the month of June and there will be a large wicker crown somewhere onsite as well.
Adam: That's all happening next weekend?
David: Well, late this week, next weekend.
Adam: You've got a lot of work to do. I'm amazed you’ve got the time spare to wander around with me.
David: Yeah well. Yeah, yeah there's always... it's always a rare commodity time I'm afraid Adam.
Adam: Now you didn't design this here? You're a new boy!
David: I am a new boy here!
Adam: So, who actually designed it?
David: So, it was a lady called Kerrie who is here, here now. She knows lots more about the groves than me as the designer and helped put it all in.
Adam: Brilliant, hi Kerrie!
Kerrie: Hi Adam. I think I don't think I want to say that I designed the wood but...
Adam: I was building you up!
Kerrie: You were, thank you, but the layout of the groves and... I was certainly involved in the design of the concept and then how we spoke to individuals about whether they would like to be involved in this. So, it was an opportunity for families to dedicate their own acre of woodland and help us develop this wood, as well as being part of a feature that enables you to walk through the Queen's reign. Kind of, physically walk through every year of the Queen's reign, so it's really special.
Adam: Which is amazing, isn’t it?
Kerrie: Yes, it is.
Adam: Tell me a bit about this royal connection because this wasn't, sort of, just a random, sort of, marketing idea. There's a really good basis for this royal connection isn't there?
Kerrie: Absolutely, yeah so, at the Woodland Trust in 2011 we started a project to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee – so, sixty years of the Queen's reign – and we wanted to enable people across the country to plant trees and create woodland.
We did that in a number of ways. So, we had this aspiration to create sixty Diamond Woods each of 60-acres in size, which is a big, really big commitment! And we also encourage people to create Jubilee Woods which were much smaller copses of trees in community spaces. And we distributed trees to schools and communities all across the country. Actually, it was hugely successful so the wood we are here at today is the Woodland Trust's flagship Diamond Wood. And then we had landowners and organisations and local authorities who also wanted to be involved.
We needed to create 60-acre woods, we didn't know if we'd get to sixty actually inaudible we did get to sixty, we surpassed that, we had seventy-five woods at that scale created!
Adam: So, seventy-five 60-acre wood
Kerrie: Plus woods yeah, amazing, so, it's the first sixty of the Diamond Woods and then we have fifteen woods that we call the Princess Woods.
Adam: Amazing, and so this was to commemorate that reign, and this is a lovely theme though! You can wander through the years of the Queen's reign. But the royal connection to woods is long and deep, isn't it?
Kerrie: It is yeah. So, we were really fortunate that Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal was patron of that project. But there's a long and well-established connection between the royal family and tree planting, and as part of the project that we did we wanted to map all the woods that were created, and the trees that were planted. So, we copied...
Adam: So, for the, for the queen?
Kerrie: For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. So actually, we took inspiration and sort of copied the Royal Record that had been done previously to mark a coronation. So, we actually have physically created and produced, published a Royal Record which is a huge red tome and that charts where all those trees are. And this is something that had already been done before the Queen’s father. It’s actually very heavy and so we have a copy at our office in Grantham, there is a copy in the British Library, and we gave a copy both to the Princess Royal and to the Queen.
Adam: There are lots of royal connections to trees and tree planting even beyond Queen Elizabeth. So, tell me a bit about that.
Kerrie: That's right, yes. So, in the 1660s Charles II commissioned several avenues of sweet chestnut and elm in Greenwich Park and in 1651 he hid from pursuers inside an ancient oak during the English Civil War. and I think that's one of the reasons actually that you see so many pubs called the Royal Oak.
Adam: Right okay because he hid in one?
Kerrie: He hid in one yeah.
Adam: Now you came... when did you see the hole in the ground? This was an open cast mine?
Kerrie: Yes.
Adam: You saw that?
Kerrie: Yes, before any trees were here. So, I can't believe it's been several years since I've been here today, and it is now it's a wood!
Adam: Yeah, there is no sign of that is there?
Kerrie: No absolutely not, a complete transformation.
Adam: It is amazing, isn't it? How quickly really that the natural world can recover. I mean, it needs a bit of help obviously and certainly in this circumstance. But no sign of what must have been really quite horrific bit of landscaping.
Kerrie: Yeah. I think given how stark it felt at the beginning and when we first saw all trees grow in the ground here. It is genuinely remarkable for the transformation in a ten-year period of time! You can hear the birds, the trees are overhead, you know, we've seen butterflies, caterpillars... It really feels like nature has reclaimed this space it's really really exciting
Adam: And when you start, I mean, look it's already done! It’s a success! It looks fantastic, but when you started was this always a ‘this is gonna work’ or at that stage did you think ‘this looks horrible, this might be a disaster, no one might come, no one might get on board with this project’?
Kerrie: Well. I think we all had the vision, we all had hope. There are colleagues of mine that have been working at the Trust for longer than me who knew how this would look. I just didn't know that. This is one of the first projects I worked on so, to see it within ten years, the change that's the thing that I find you know really amazing! I thought I would have to wait much longer, and I'd be coming back with grandchildren to say look at this, but actually, here we are within a decade and it is transformed.
Adam: Brilliant! Alright, well let's move on, let's find David again.
Kerrie: Well, David on a previous visit has actually shown the Princess Royal around this wood. So, in terms of royal connections David has been a royal tour guide.
Adam: Okay, so we have a living royal connection here?
Kerrie: We do.
Adam: Look here’s a little bench, I might just sit here for a while. Brilliant, ah there’s a dedication, what does it say? 'In honour of Sally Whittaker who believed in the beauty of wildlife and protecting it'. I have to say I always do like stopping at a bench and reading those dedications.
Brief pause
So, David, I'm not the only super important person you’ve taken around this woodland, am I?
David: You're not the only super important person maybe, you are charming Adam!
Adam: Ahhh thank you that's very sweet, very sweet laughs come on tell me about the even more important people you've taken around!
David: So, yeah well, the most important person I guess would be Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, alongside Darren [Moorcroft] the CEO of the Woodland Trust. So, I was pretty nervous that morning, to be honest. The CEO, I’d never met him before and obviously a member of the royal family! But yeah no, I remember being nervous at the beginning, and then by the end of the day when I finally said goodbye to Princess Anne I was longing to spend a bit more time with her. She is incredibly charming, yes.
Adam: Yeah. So, we come to a waymark, which? It’s left, is it?
David: Follow the blue and white arrows.
Adam: Right so, if there are... there two different paths? Does blue and white mean anything or?
David: Yeah. So, there’s three waymarked trails around the site and we just happen to be happening on a little bit that's on two of those. So, there's the woodland walk which is the longest walk around the whole of the wood, and then there's the Royal Groves Walk. And then there's the lake walk as well
Adam: Right so, explain a bit about where we're heading off to. You're taking me into the centre of the woods, it feels like?
David: Yeah. So, we're continuing along the groves and eventually, we will get to a broad open vista, and you will be able to see most of the features of the site.
Adam: So, we are already walking out to what looks like a less wooded area.
David: Yes, we're kind of skirting the western edge of the site now and then...
Adam: It's a big site, isn't it? how long will it take to walk over the whole thing do you think? How long are these paths?
David: Like a good tour of every feature of the site here's looking at half a day really, probably, and that's with a bit of pace on.
Adam: I’ve only got short legs laugh so I’d add a few hours. So, there's another one of these posts. Shall we just have a look? 1985 were through to, anyway so...
David: Green woodpecker there, did you hear?
Adam: Oh no wow! I missed out, I've been looking out for posts, I missed the green woodpecker. So, we're just coming out of a rather wooded area into – it suddenly opens up very dramatically – and look at that it's a very different view! So I can see a lovely wildflower meadow almost and then at the bottom a huge lake! A huge lake. So, this is where the old open cast mining just sunk down a bit and has since got naturally filled?
David: Yeah. So, what you're looking at now is the epicentre of the open cast coal mine and obviously the wider landscape around it. So, yeah that's our lake and the end of the groves walk. So, you can just see the final three or four grove posts just heading off down the hill. And then this was an open area left to retain the view and then on the other side of the lake we've got a 5-hectare exclusion zone so there's no paths in that area. Just, no paths in the area, just to allow nature to completely have five hectares for resting birds et cetera.
Adam: Let's go down because I think...
David: We've got something else to show you.
Adam: Sorry go on, rushing ahead, what is it?
David: So, we got this piece of land sculpture that was created by an artist called Rosie Levitan and there are calls every now and again. We get somebody asking if we can put some kind of panel up to explain what it's all about, but the artist herself expressly asked that not to happen. So, I think she is more inclined to allow you to kind of figure it out for yourself or come to your own conclusions as to what it's all about. So, it was created with money from the Arts Council at the inception of the site. So, no money that could have gone into conservation went into creating this piece of art. But yeah, I'll leave you to...
Adam: Sorry, this is it? This is it?
David: This is it; I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions.
Adam: So, when you said a piece of art, I thought you meant like a large statue of something out of wood, but actually, this is a sort of an earth tiered... almost like amphitheatre going downwards counts I think 5 tiers there.
David: It's in a spiral so you can walk around the outside which takes a lot longer than you think!
Adam: Laughs Yeah right I think I might take the direct route down, but to be honest, it seems like a brilliant place to put on a play!
David: Yes! That's my thoughts as well, yeah I'd love to get a play here.
Adam: Yeah! Have you ever gone down then done a soliloquy?
David: Errr not, well, do you want me to?
Adam: Yes, if you if you've got a piece ready laughing
David: Unfortunately, I haven't. I mean I could maybe do a jaunty jig or something like that?
Adam: Yes, well look, we’re recording.
David: Yes, well, no let's not!
Adam: That’s a shame laughing I think you probably come down when there are not many people around. So, if you ever do see a man in Woodland Trust clothing doing a jaunty jig at the bottom of this amphitheatre-like piece of art you know who it is and that he just wouldn't do it for us laughter very nice, very nice.
Adam: So, you're gonna take me down to the lake now?
David: Yeah, take you down to the lake.
Adam: And it's there that we are going to meet one of your volunteers, is that right?
David: That is right yep, a chap called Gerald. So, he's been volunteering with us on the site since the site was created and in various different roles
Adam: And I’ve just gotta say it is beautiful walking down here because there are just huge numbers of buttercups aren’t there?
David: Yes, it is stunning, isn’t it?
Adam: It is stunning, it’s like a sort of it's like a painting! It’s like a painting, brilliant!
David: This is our pond dipping platform.
Adam: There’s a cuckoo
Bird song
Adam: That’s very good, so Gerald, sorry, we’re distracting you. I can see you distracted by some swans coming over with their little babies. They're coming over to investigate you think?
Gerald: I think they are yes! It's good to see it, I, they must be relatively young because a few weeks ago they were they weren't about so it's...
Adam: Right. We’ll let these swans investigate us as I chat to you so tell me. I'm told you do tonnes on this site. What was the local community’s feeling when the trust took over this site and sort of explained what it wanted to do?
Gerald: Generally, really good because you can imagine if you've got an open cast colliery on your doorstep a wood is a big improvement!
Adam: Well, that’s what I was going to say, because sometimes there is, sort of you know, some resistance or sort of misunderstanding about what is trying to happen. But here you go ‘surely this is going to be better for everybody’?
Gerald: Yeah, so I think, overall, the mood was very good. There will be people who say yes but why don't you do this because this is better? We had some debates about whether we could put in some fruit trees, for example, and because we're in a sort of prime growing area in Leicestershire here. And there were debates about whether that was acceptable, whether they were native trees or not. But it was all good healthy discussion and it's interesting to see how the trees have grown and they have particularly grown well on this area here which was the open-cast. When you think – this all was disturbed ground that was put back – the trees have grown probably better here than they have in parts of what was the agricultural land.
Adam: I have to stop because the swans have properly come up to us now. There they are! How involved do you get now, now it's well established what do you actually end doing? Do you come down here most weeks or?
Gerald: It's a couple of times a month at least now. During the pandemic, it was sort of very limited of course, and well before that time, I used to do a monthly walk which was really...
Adam: This is your guided monthly walk?
Gerald: Yes guided, with a series of friends and colleagues.
Adam: Do you have a favourite part of the wood?
Gerald: Actually, probably near the bird hide just along from there.
Adam: Why?
Gerald: I don't know really. It's gotta mix, you got a mix with the water, you got the mix of the trees, a bit of the open meadowland here, and yes, the bird hide does add a bit of character to the place. I think we're lucky to have that there.
Adam: I think David's waiting for me there. Shall we go over and have a chat with him?
We’ve paused for a moment because we’re just passing a black Poplar and a little plaque next to it saying it was planted by BBC Breakfast on 1 June 2012 in celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Gerald: Yes, we have the two black poplars here.
Adam: There's another one here. Was that planted by ITV for balance? Laughter
Gerald: Oh no much more prestigious.
Adam: Oh sorry, yes it was planted by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal who is patron of the Jubilee Wood Project on the 1 of June 2012. And doing very nicely!
Gerald: Yes, they are indeed! They've both grown quite a bit in the last year, I think.
Adam: Very nice! So, what's the way to the bird hide? Is it round here?
Gerald: Just go up to post on turn left. It's at the moment, hidden by a willow screen. It's a piece of willow art, although it's not particularly obvious
Adam: You can see they’ve been bent over at the bottom haven’t they to form a sort of willow fence.
Gerald: If you were to look down on it from a drone it will be an outline of a skylark. It's a little bit overgrown and that's on our task list for next winter to prune that and try and weave in the lower bit. So, it's going to task our skills! Laughter
Adam: We’re going into the bird hunt now.
We’re in the bird hide. David, ironically having seen lots of birds the moment I get in here actually I can’t – oh I think there is one over there – but do people, is this a good actual spot to be watching birds from?
David: Yeah, yeah because it gives you that cover so the birds don't necessarily know you’re here. It is quite a light bird hide though but it was created in conjunction with the Leicestershire Wildlife Trust, so they must have built a few bird hides, but yes.
Adam: To be honest it's lovely weather today. But if it was raining a little bit this would be a fantastic place just to sit down for a while, wouldn’t it?
David: Yes, it would yeah. Just get out of the rain, I’ve done that a couple of times!
Adam: Right, fantastic, alright well where are we going to next?
David: So, there's just one last thing I would like to show you onsite which is just a short walk back up the hill.
Adam: Okay, what is that?
David: It is called the photographic plinth and so it's basically some encouragement for people to keep on visiting the site year after year. So, what we've got is we've got a plinth that you put your camera on and then a brick area that you supposedly stand on so you can get exactly the same photograph every year. You can visit the site and you can watch your family grow as the wood grows around you
Adam: What a brilliant idea! What a brilliant idea. Okay, okay so David so there is a plinth.
David: Yes, this is our photographic plinth. What it needs is updating, because obviously when this was made smartphones didn't exist and now you wouldn't really get a smartphone balanced on that!
Adam: Yes, that's true
David: It needs a little block bit putting on so you can rest a phone on it.
Adam: So, it's not only the trees which have changed, it's the technology that it's referring to. I’ll tell you what, I mean, obviously I'm going to have my photo taken aren’t I? Can I give you my, I haven’t got a camera, I do have my smartphone, so I'll go stand... I’ll go stand here, and in a couple of years I'll come back and I’ll have even less hair. Hold on a second – do I look better with my hat off or on?
Pause
Neither. I feel that was an undiplomatic pause I felt.
David: What I was thinking is that I need to see both to answer correctly, that's why I was thinking. So, I'm gonna take it from the correct position.
Click
There you go
Adam: I'm not confident that looked any good from the look on your face. I'm not going to look at it now I'll check it when I'm home.
There is clearly a lot more to it than I've managed to explore today but what a wonderful treat, on a lovely, beautiful Monday, in this very special royal year! To come and celebrate that here! thank you very much David.
David: that's quite alright Adam it's been a pleasure
Footsteps
Adam: Well, that was a great walk and thanks of course to everyone who arranged that. It's a fantastic place to visit especially in this Royal Jubilee year. If you know about these things, you can find it at grid reference SK 390132. The nearest train stations are Burton, Tamworth and Loughborough, although they're all a bit of a car journey, I have gotta say, from each of those stations. But if you're looking for a woodland perhaps nearer to you do have a look at the Woodland Trust website which has a special site to find a wood near you it is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. I do recommend you do that until next time happy wandering.
Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don’t forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you’re listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. Why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast. Keep it to a maximum of 5 minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special, or send us an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you.
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Lying next to the River Avon just inside the Cotswolds, Avoncliff Wood is no ordinary wood. The site hosts one of the biggest trials in the UK to find biodegradable alternatives to plastic tree guards. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also a living laboratory, revealing how ash dieback will really affect nature. Site manager Joe gives us a special behind the scenes tour to learn more. We also meet volunteer wardens Kay and James, and catch up with TV presenter Alice Beer who lives nearby.
Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk
Transcript
Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, I've changed trains at Bath Spa for what appears to be a very small train which is taking me to Avoncliffe. Now, in fact, the train conductor has told me the platform is so short when I get there only one door is going to open. He came through asking “Is anybody getting off?” and I'm the only one, the only one.
Well, I have to tell you, the station here is straight out of a 1930s style Agatha Christie film, that's what it screams to me. Beautiful signs, beautiful flowers, the River Avon just almost next door to the station, a great looking pub and down at the end of the platform one single man who I'm assuming is Joe Middleton with the Woodland Trust, site manager here and the guy who's going to show me around.
Joe: So, welcome to Avoncliffe Wood in the Avon Valley just in between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon. We just crossed over the famous Avoncliffe Aqueduct and just followed the River Avon until we hit even Avoncliffe Wood which carpets the side of the valley across this area of the Cotswolds AONB, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, right at the southern end of the Cotswold AONB.
Adam: There's very little woodlands right here, so what's going on in this first field?
Joe: So, we’re just at the edge of our woodland creation. So we bought 20 hectares, about 40 football pitches, of ancient woodland – untouched for generations – and to buffer that, to try and expand carbon storage and fight climate change and the ecological decline we’re seeing we actually bought another 10 hectares, another 20 football pitches, worth of agricultural fields essentially and meadows which were very intensively grazed and we've planted that up with over 5,000 trees to try and get the next generation of trees in here.
Adam: Wow, okay so shall we go through, have a look? Thank you.
Joe: So just next to us as you can hear the birds singing away, there are blackbirds, robins and blackcaps in there. There’s one acre, here, just on the right-hand side, which was actually planted up 25 years ago by a neighbour. So, the very small one acre square now 25 years later is teeming with you know 30-40 foot birch trees, willows, hazels and hawthorns, full of cherry blossom and hawthorn blossom, and birds nesting, tweeting, and insects buzzing all around us! It's quite rare these days!
So hopefully we think everything we planted up here, all 5,000 trees would look like that in 25 years. A proper young woodland.
Adam: And you've clearly, I mean, they're not uniformly planted so there's a big patch in the middle which you’ve got nothing and they seem to be done in clumps, so why have you done it like that?
Joe: Do you want to know what that patch in the middle is? That’s a sledging lane. Right well so we carried out community consultation when we first bought the woodland. We asked all the locals, we said look there’s this really lovely kind of big expanse of fields all around the wood, we want to buy it, we want it to, you know, fight climate change, we want to try and do our bit for wildlife. And they said whatever you do leave us a sledging lane because when it snows here this hill is perfect for tobogganing down.
Adam: laughs you see I thought it was going to be for some really technical reason! You need to do that for a very specific reason, I didn’t realise it was gonna be sledges.
Joe: There are also wide rides, you know, big areas that people can walk through. We’ve created a really good path network in here as well in some areas and natural regeneration so there are areas unplanted and there are areas purely for tobogganing fun in the middle of snowy winters.
Adam: And why not? It’s very important. Now, the thing that we can see in this immediate field is a lot of tree guards and well I'm also standing by a little sign which says biodegradable tree shelter. I always call them tree guards, but this was called tree shelter. Now that is not by coincidence. The tree guards are a huge issue, aren’t they?
Joe: Yeah, I mean with governments pledging to plant millions if not globally billions of trees to fight climate, you know hold onto carbon, stop floods, we have to be able to do it without using oil-based plastics. For the last 35 years people have just, every tree that's gone in you know, not every one, but most trees that’ve gone in have been planted with a giant plastic tree guard which doesn't biodegrade, it litters, it causes microplastics, and people…
Adam: And are they reusable those plastic guards?
Joe: They are to a certain degree, they're not easy to recycle, there are some better recycling schemes now just starting. But actually, probably one in three are reusable. But a lot of places are too far to go and get them, people don't bother they get left and derelict and are expensive to go and collect every single one, especially when you’re planting hundreds of thousands. So the biodegradable alternative is the absolute key. Find something that naturally, you know, biodegrades away back into the soil, doesn't harm anything, it doesn't use oil.
Adam: Right, I'm just going to go up to… So, this is a biodegradable one?
Joe: Exactly.
Adam: It looks sort of yellowish and quite canvas-like but it's very it's very firm, it doesn't feel, I mean that feels a sturdy old thing this.
Joe: Yeah so, we've got 5,000 trees we put in. We are using some old recycled plastic ones, so we've been given a few, but actually we've got 16 different types of biodegradable alternatives to plastic here. So, they range from cardboard, you know, made from paper or mulch to biodegradable plastics, which the jury is out on at the moment, to actually resins and oils from things like cashew nut shells and pine resin.
We’ve got a train coming past us! Train noise
Two and a half years ago, when we planted the 5,000 trees in all these biodegradable guards, we launched something called Big Climate Fightback, a big Woodland Trust campaign to bring people out to help plant trees and do their bit. And actually, we ended up with over 250 people arriving one Saturday – spades in hand – on the trains in all the train stations. And the people in Bath, and Bristol and Bradford-on-Avon must have thought “what on earth is going on?”, with over 250 people arriving with spades on the platforms. And they came in here, they planted trees en masse – school kids, families, local groups.
Everyone came here to try and plant trees and with that we, you know, told people about the problem of plastics and we've basically now got one of the biggest sites in the UK for trialling an alternative to plastic – to try and protect these trees so they get to five, seven years to get to a good height where they’re no longer susceptible to browsing by deer, by rabbits, by voles, which is the main reason the shelters and guards are here to protect them.
Adam: And correct me if I'm wrong but there is a sort of school of thought saying well don't use any guards. I mean it's now sort of established practice that you’ve got to use a guard otherwise the tree won't survive, but there is this sort of vague thought we never used to use guards in the distant past, so why have we suddenly got obsessed with them?
Joe: I mean deer numbers are higher than they've ever been, it's a huge amount of browsing by deer with no natural predators, so it's complicated, that is the simplest answer, but putting up a giant 6-foot fence is probably you know the other solution which is in a lot of cases, depending on size, it can be much more economic, more practical. Very small areas – probably not massive areas, but medium sized – deer fencing is probably the answer, but then you’ve still got rabbits and voles you’ve got to fence out.
So, doing nothing, over-planting, natural regeneration – we've got an area if you look up to the edge of the woodland we've left the buffer zone of about 20-30 metres around lots of this woodland, all around it, with nothing, we’ve just fenced it off and we're just going to allow the woodland to expand – every one of those berries and those nuts and seeds that drops into the ground will hopefully just have a, you know, wild natural generation. Like Knepp with a huge rewilding – that hope of what happens there doesn't happen as easily here but can take a long time. Hopefully that will establish woodland itself, but it may take 50 years. At the moment we've got a climate emergency on us and amongst us, so we have to do something now so planting trees is a very good quick solution.
Adam: A huge issue because if we are planting for ecological reasons what we don't want to do is every tree comes with its own polluting plastic. I mean that’s not the future. So, the answer to that question may well lie in the thousands of experiments you're carrying out in this field we’re standing in.
Joe: Absolutely.
Adam: Right, well I've stopped us walking. We better… I better get my steps in. So, let’s carry on. Where are we heading to now?
Joe: So, we're gonna go and find our two volunteer wardens in a minute.
Adam: So, we’ve got two volunteers hard at work. I can see just up the hill a bit.
Joe: So, this is James and Kay who are both our two volunteer wardens. They’ve been working now replacing broken, rotted, fallen biodegradable tree guards, replacing the trees as they die as well, and these two have been working hard to help keep an eye on them for the last few years for us.
Adam: It's got them hard at work!
Joe: They are incredibly hard at work. Hey guys how you doing?
Kay and James: Alright? Hi! Hello.
Adam: They do have you hard at work! So Kay and James, so first of all before we get to what you’re actually doing, why have you been doing it? What's your interest? Why did you volunteer to do all of this?
Kay: Well, you’ve been a volun… a member of the Woodland Trust for about 25 years.
James: Well, it’s about 35 years now.
Kay: Since this is really on our doorstep, this is a perfect opportunity to get really involved with the Woodland Trust.
Adam: James, I mean, you’ve been a Woodland Trust member for a very long time. And, ah the debate around trees has changed enormously. Hasn’t it?
James: It has, and I am glad that people have suddenly valued trees. I was in the military but, before that, I was out of Kent, out near Canterbury and my uncle was a farmer with orchards and basically from the earliest days I knew about the trees, the names of trees. The pollards at the end of the field as windbreaks, the various wetland trees down in the floodplains around the Romney Marsh area. But I already had a fascination for the massive oaks, the spectacular deciduous trees on the horizon I think made this this countryside look like it does, so British, and so English, with these gorgeous round shapes, compared to a lot of conifers you see in all the European places I’ve been to.
Adam: Okay, talk me through a bit about what you’re actually doing here – I mean, you know, hammer in hand I can see.
Kay: Hammer in hand, we're replacing some of the tubes that haven't stood up to the wind and the rain. We found that circular rather than rectangular and…
Adam: works, circular works…
Kay: circular works, because otherwise if it's square they act as a flag, especially cardboard ones. When they get wet, they just disintegrate – as you can see there's lots of bare sticks around here, so yeah, we're going through and replacing them with circular ones.
Adam: Fantastic, now I know that the local community were very involved with the Trust, sort of when the Trust took over and sort of designed this site. Tell me a bit about what the local community feel.
Kay: That was a great day. We had two schools frog marched in, and yeah, with their teachers and staff and they planted the whole area, which was lovely – they were naming the trees as they were planting them. I know the whole village got involved with planting 5,000 trees over a progressive few weekends and subsequently James and I have been replanting the failures.
Adam: And James I mean very clear how engaged you are with this sort of issue but to tell me about the feelings then of the local community and what they what they felt when Woodland Trust first came here and how involved others are apart from you two.
James: So, I'm very pleased that people are actually accepting, on the whole, that their backyard has been filled with trees and shrubs which are growing up for their children's lifetime.
Kay: We have had some objections to this, but they haven't given their reason why. I assume it's because it's used when we do get snow, which is very rare, it's the sledging field. The Woodland Trust have kindly left a gap for sledging but then they moan that the grass is too long so you can't please everyone all of the time.
Adam: But when it was first thought about, and I think it's really interesting isn’t it, that you say the community are largely behind this, but I think if others are listening to you now where they may be talking about a woodland on their doorstep created by the Woodland Trust or their own sort of organisation – I wonder what people's first reaction, what were their concerns and hesitancies that you heard about that may have been overcome?
Kay: People don't like change do they? And at the moment it's, yeah, it doesn't look picture perfect with the stakes and the guards on, but you've got to envisage what it will look like in 10-15 years’ time. You've only got to look at the hedgerow, which is behind us now, and at this time of year which is beginning of May, it’s absolutely gorgeous. The blossom’s out, the fresh burst of the leaf is so colourful and vibrant, what’s not to like about having a wood on your doorstep? And we were very lucky.
Adam: Okay, well brilliant, well thank you very much. Look I don't want to disturb you anymore but that's brilliant. Thank you very much.
Kay: Thank you!
Adam: So, we're gonna head up now to the ancient woodland. Now this is certainly unique in any of the Woodland Trust sites I’ve been to, because normally the Trust actively encourages people to come in, but this is the only site I've been to where the ancient woodland bit you stop people from coming. Oh, look this is…
Joe: This is our nifty little fenced area which…
Adam: We’re going through the barbed wire so just be careful going…
So, explain to me why you've unusually actually kept the public out of the ancient woodland.
Joe: Ash dieback really is becoming a huge problem across a lot of woodlands I manage. I manage about 30 woods across the West Country and every one of them has large amounts of ash that really grows really well on these sort of limestone soils and in these hills around the Mendips, the Cotswolds.
Gosh there’s a huge Buzzard just soaring over the edge of the woodland there.
So, ash dieback is killing off essentially all our ash trees. Estimates vary at the moment. You know recently it was about 95% and then people said it was around 60%. So, the latest estimate is that about 60% of our ash trees will die over the next 50 years. How fast they die is the worrying thing but when we bought the wood in 2019 ash dieback was blowing across the landscape. It is a fungal disease. It naturally spreads.
It came over from Asia originally in infected stock of nursery trees being planted out. So, no one's been able to plant any ash for the last three years. It's now being reported all the way from the east of Great Britain, all the way to the west, every year, until it’s spread and spread and spread now our mature ash trees – whether they're in a hedgerow, along roadsides and country lanes, whether they're in woodlands – ash trees are essentially dying en masse, and this is killing off everything that lives and breathes on those ash trees.
Adam: And the reason you're keeping the public out is because the trees are dangerous, are they? They might fall?
Joe: Yeah exactly, so where you have a path or road or property you have to maintain, you know, what's reasonably practical safety for people to be able to walk under it. We realise if we were to create a load of paths, allow a load of people into now what is a fantastic ancient woodland, but it has never really had any paths in, it's been undisturbed for generations – over 100 years now – we don't think anyone set foot in it. So, we didn't want to create any paths because we didn't want to fell any trees, so we've kept it shut and all the locals have seemed to have bought into that and are really pleased this is just a woodland for wildlife. They're happy enough to walk around the fields where we've created woodland.
Adam: And is it also something of a laboratory to see what happens to ash dieback? If you really don't step in and try and do anything?
Joe: Exactly yeah, so, in so many woodlands across Britain because of the large amount of public footpaths, people are having to fell for health and safety reasons, so there's not very many examples where if no one goes in and nothing happens, what happens to that wildlife? Does it also dramatic- dramatically decline, with the trees losing? Or are there some winners? So, are there some decay species? Some fungi species? Some insects, beetles that love decay rotting wood that increase? So we don't really know. So, this site we've turned into a living laboratory, this is a unique case of where we are monitoring the species within the wood, how they react to ash dieback over time.
Adam: We're now going into the bit of ancient woodland which the public are locked out of and so we have got this big “keep out, closed due to ash dieback” (sign).
Joe: You have exclusive access!
Adam: Brilliant, now I gotta say, I mean I've got to take a photo of this because this is a sea of amazing plants. I'm really, I want to be careful where I tread, I don’t want to disturb anything. Because I'm completely ignorant, what are these plants?
Joe: Can you smell it?
Adam: Yeah sure, it’s extraordinary!
Joe: This is wild garlic.
Adam: Is that what it is?
Joe: Ramsons are all in flower at the moment and now we can see for literally, well, hundreds of metres is the white snowy tops of these wild garlic flowers that are just coming up across the thick green leaves and when there's no path in sight you have to be careful where you tread. So, luckily wild garlic’s quite prolific, so we’ll tread carefully, but an undisturbed wood looks like this. It's like a sea, or a carpet of sort of snow.
Adam: That is extraordinary, isn't it? Yes it is a sea of snow and that's the advantage of actually having undisturbed places. Is that it, I mean, yeah sea is exactly what it looks like. These sort of white foaming tops to the rolling green waves of vegetation. Quite amazing.
Joe: All you can make out are the occasional tracks of foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels, that have gone through it, maybe the odd deer as well. But insects seem to be declining catastrophically. The ideal analogy is, you know, people used to drive around even in the 80s and you get windscreens splattered with bugs and insects. It just doesn't happen anymore and that massive decline of insects, it’s unknown the reason, it probably doesn't help with, you know, when people are using lots of pesticide sprays across the countryside, along with climate change, but as all those insects decline so do our birds that feed on them, so are our bat species – so they're not fat enough to basically get through the hibernation and then when they come out of hibernation and the young are born there are just not enough insects so they don't make it through the summer essentially, and they don't have another generation that makes it. So, yeah, bat species are declining at the moment, so that's one of the first things we've noticed, and well ash are declining en masse. There were a lot of these species of ash that we’re monitoring that are all dying en masse.
Adam: I mean so that, I mean, …you're telling me all these terrible things
Joe: Yes, I know.
Adam: But I mean that's important it's still amazing landscape still isn't it?
Joe: Absolutely.
Adam: And that's always been true with woodlands. That decay brings its own new life and decaying trees are very important parts the of the ecosystem, but even given all of those challenges that you talk about are there any, are there any high points, any reasons for optimism?
Joe: Well, wild garlic’s obviously doing really well in this particular wood! But there will be some species that do, really, there will be some species of butterfly that you know do really successfully with the increased amount of light. But one of the best success stories, the best things you can do to feel positive about it is to go back out into those fields, plant the trees, the next generation, so that if some of these woodlands do suffer for whatever reason then we've got far more woodland habitat.
We need to increase our woodland cover from about 13% to 20% fast and then if we get 20% – we've got the shrubs, we've got the tree species, got the rewilding areas – to be able to provide those homes for the species that aren't doing so well. That's the key I think is to plant the next generation, get there quickly.
Our woodlands have a fantastic history and have been managed over time. This is just the next phase in the management to basically keep an eye and ensure our guardianship secures for that next generation in the next 50-100 years.
Adam: Well I'm going to leave Joe to smelling his wild garlic, because TV presenter and journalist Alice Beer, who I used to work with, I know lives not that far from this woodland. Now I know she's out and about today so I'm going to call her on her mobile to discuss what the countryside around here means to her and her family. Okay, so just Alice first of all we should explain a bit about our history, so everybody…
Alice: Oh must we tell everybody? Do you think we should?
Adam: I think we should share a little bit. I used to open letters on Watchdog which was a massive massive programme at the time and I can't, do you remember how many people watched it? I can't
Alice: Well I don't know I'd come to watchdog from That's Life and That's Life, which was before you were born Adam I’m sure, had 15 million viewers in its heyday and I think Watchdog was around 7 million viewers, which now is completely unheard of, but then you know it was just 7 million people watching it and more importantly 7 million people putting pen to paper. No emails, pen to paper, and thank God Adam Shaw was in the post room!
Adam: Yes I was opening the 7 million letters with one or two other people and Alice was much more senior, so we would come to pass those stories onto Alice and of course, you are now, what’s your official title?
Alice: I suppose I'm actually probably daytime television presenter but I'm far too much of a snob to say that! I kind of dip in and out of various things trying to still help the little guy or pass on information.
Adam: You have a regular spot on a very big programme, This Morning?
Alice: Well, This Morning, yes, it’s every day, it's now two and a half hours, they keep extending it! I am waiting for it to bump up against the Six O'Clock News soon! But This Morning it was, “can you do a piece on brisk walking and the health benefits”, as a result of some survey that came out, so here I am for the second time today brisk walking and broadcasting at the same time which is fantastic!
Adam: Very good! Don’t trip over! You’ve got a couple of dogs with you haven't you as well?
Alice: I have, I’ve got Stanley who's my five-year-old schnoodle and his girlfriend Tilly and there are times when they become quite amorous in the long grass but I'm going to try and keep it clean for your sake!
Adam: I knew you when we used to work in Shepherd’s Bush in London, but you are now a country girl aren't you?
Alice: Yeah, wellies welded to my feet! I grew up in suburbia and in North London suburbia and the countryside wasn't really important to me, but my parents took me out, took me and my sister out walking quite a lot. There was always “shall we do the walk through the woods”, “should we do the walk through the bluebell woods” which is slightly longer or “should we go up and round” which involved the hill. So, there was always a consciousness of walking in the countryside as a pleasant thing to do, but as we've got older, the countryside has become more important to me and we have been doing that thing, my partner and I have been doing that thing where we're trying to move out of London and we've settled on this beautiful village, beautiful functional village not far from Malmesbury in Wiltshire, which is where I am now, walking alongside the River Avon. So not too far from Avoncliff and the same body of water sort of flowing past me which is rather nice.
Adam: How lovely. I know, I've seen you on This Morning as you’re talking about wellbeing, and in terms of actually, with your consumer journalist hat on talking about the gadgets you could buy to help with wellbeing and having lights I think that show, sort of, natural light. I mean, how important do you feel it's been for you and your family during these rather difficult times to have access to nature and the outside?
Alice: It’s been everything to me. Everything. I've got teenage girls in fact it’s their birthday today, their 19th birthday today, so for them probably it spells isolation for them because they didn't grow up in the countryside, or this this particular part of the countryside, so you know this means being away from their friends, but for myself and my husband it's been, it's been really important. For me to leave the house and walk in space because in London everything has felt very close and very claustrophobic and I’m mentally not good at that at all! So, I'm incredibly lucky to be able to breathe and give myself sort of mental and physical space away from other people. I was able to work from here, so I did sixty live broadcasts from, in effect, my back garden during lockdown.
Adam: It’s really interesting that you talk about your girls sort of feeling a sense of isolation because they came from the city and now are in a very rural area. I often find that it's a curious thing to get one's head round because really the nature debate about sustainability and trying to be better for the world is often very strongly led by young people.
Alice: Oh it's theirs, it's completely their campaign! But I'm not sure that they associate it with, I mean, I feel like I'm treading on dangerous territory speaking, you know, putting words into their mouths because they're both very eloquent, quite passionate girls. I feel that I'm not sure that they would stand out in a field and say “we must protect this”. Probably coming from the city, they feel more that they see stuff, they see things going into bins, they see landfill, smoke, pollution. So, they see the big preservation of our world from a city perspective, probably more than standing in a field and thinking “oh this must never have, you know, thousands of houses built on it”, which is what probably makes me panic as much as anything.
Adam: Do you get a sense of a change in people's attitudes in the way they behave, I mean, I think people talk about the need for ecological sustainability. I see amongst my friends and family, I have to also be careful about what I’m saying, I see less actually willingness to change personal behaviour than a willingness to say it's important, but they don't do an awful lot. Do you see that real difference?
Alice: I'm a huge hypocrite, but I am now suddenly, it was probably about six months ago I was putting something in the bin, and it sounds like a strange Greta Thunberg epiphany, but it slightly was. I was putting some plastic in the bin, and I was trying to clear out a room and I was thinking this is going nowhere! This can't be recycled. This has to go underneath the ground, and this is not going to break down. I had a sort of panic about the fact that well if I was doing this and everyone was doing this and though I sort of have had that epiphany and I am changing my behaviour, and nothing particular triggered that, apart from me clearing out a bedroom and realising I had too much stuff. You know, which is odd, but you know, in terms of the big picture in the world I think it's very hard to make individuals feel responsible when we see big companies not taking responsibility. It’s that sort of, well what difference is little me gonna make? And I’ve sort of had that, well I'm going to make a difference, so I will. I've had that moment and I think we have to all have that moment and I'm just about to fall into the River Avon, which could be interesting! I'm trying to encourage the dogs to have a drink. There you go guys, come on, look Tilly have a drink! Yeah well they’re sort of having a drink, but I'm the one that's most likely to go in here.
Adam: Well look, Alice, I feel split because I quite like the sound effect of you going in to end this, it’d be a great end wouldn’t it! But on the other hand not a great way of re meeting after all these years. Look I will let you get on with your walk but thank you very much, thanks a lot.
Alice: Thank you, thank you.
Adam: Well, let's leave Alice Beer there and indeed all our friends at Avoncliff Woods. I do hope you enjoyed that and if you want to find a wood near you, you can go to the Woodland Trust website, woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood and you can find a wood that's local to you. So that’s woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. I do recommend you do that. Until next time happy wandering!
Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don’t forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you’re listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. Why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast. Keep it to a maximum of 5 minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special, or send us an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you.
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