Jul 12, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 10 segments
In this Tree Amble episode we went to the South Lakes to find forester Edward Mills in his patch of ancient woodland. Ed's wood is buried deep in a part of the world rich in a woodland heritage and…
So when you say improvements, I mean, it's always a query for me, isn't it? It's always a worry.
But is it the fact that you're trying to recover some of the damage that's been done in the past to what is, if it's ancient woodland, essentially... a natural habitat that's...
I don't think the woodland's been damaged by past activities, except, well, it's probably been more damaged by lack of recent activity.
So a forester friend who walked around the woodland in the summer told me that he came here in the 80s and the whole wood was coppiced.
Right.
He says there weren't any sycamore, there weren't any beech, and now we're walking through this completely... closed canopy woodland.
The hazel is sort of falling over because it's not vigorous anymore, it's been shaded out.
It's more like more about enhancing the woodland, recovering some of the biodiversity and just making sure that we don't have more of the wrong biodiversity.
And it's interesting, isn't it, because actually this is, when we talk to people, we try and explain that actually dynamism in a landscape is a really important feature of it.
Some of it's adapted for deep shade, but some of the stuff that's really under threat is adapted for warm, sunny conditions in glades and to feed on the wildflowers that are in the coppice scoops.
And actually, when we use this, trying to get the root of some of these things, the process behind that opening up and coppicing was essentially a large herbivore, wasn't it?
So when you say improvements, I mean, it's always a query for me, isn't it? It's always a worry.
But is it the fact that you're trying to recover some of the damage that's been done in the past to what is, if it's ancient woodland, essentially... a natural habitat that's...
I don't think the woodland's been damaged by past activities, except, well, it's probably been more damaged by lack of recent activity.
So a forester friend who walked around the woodland in the summer told me that he came here in the 80s and the whole wood was coppiced.
Right.
He says there weren't any sycamore, there weren't any beech, and now we're walking through this completely... closed canopy woodland.
The hazel is sort of falling over because it's not vigorous anymore, it's been shaded out.
It's more like more about enhancing the woodland, recovering some of the biodiversity and just making sure that we don't have more of the wrong biodiversity.
And it's interesting, isn't it, because actually this is, when we talk to people, we try and explain that actually dynamism in a landscape is a really important feature of it.
Some of it's adapted for deep shade, but some of the stuff that's really under threat is adapted for warm, sunny conditions in glades and to feed on the wildflowers that are in the coppice scoops.
And actually, when we use this, trying to get the root of some of these things, the process behind that opening up and coppicing was essentially a large herbivore, wasn't it?
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