Ancient Woodlands with Luke Barley

So this book, Ancient, tell us, for those who don't know, what is the definition of an ancient woodland?

well the definition in sort of strict conservation terms is really simple it's woodland that's been in existence since the year 1600 in england and wales it's slightly more recent in scotland because of the different histories of land use and map making because it's all about those maps so around that period we find the earliest accurate maps so we can see whether the woodland was there in the year 1600 so if it was on that first map in the year 1600 or the maps that came soon after that and it's still there now we know that it's been there for at least 400 years now lots of ancient woodland will have been there a heck of a lot longer than that some of it will have never not been wooded and those are the most important bits even if the trees came and went some of it might have been much more open previously than it is now but it still maintains some sort of wooded habitat and the soil hasn't been disturbed by plowing or fertilization or pesticide use or any of that so it maintains this incredibly rich ecosystem And we know now, sorry, just to say that some ancient woods were cleared before that, which we, that was, you know, 40 years ago, we thought that they'd all been wooded forever if they were there in the year 1600 or so.

But now we know using LIDAR that there are old field systems under some ancient woods.

So they have come and gone over sort of a much longer period of time.

But still, the really important bit like their soils, even 400 years of ecosystem continuity is really, really important and special.

So although they always have really different, very braided histories of the trees coming and going, if it was there 400 years ago, it's very, very important for nature now.

Tell us about our oldest woodlands.

I mean, I'm thinking of Whistman's Wood in Dartmoor, where I've been and seen all these beautiful mosses and lichens and just hanging down because it is our own rainforest.

Can you think of any of our ancient, ancient woodlands and can you describe those?

Sure so that's really interesting isn't it so Whitman's wood is often held up as the archetypal ancient wood because it's so characterful and beautiful and it's it is really important as a fragment of temperate rainforest so it's got that lichen and lower plant interest that's unique to the west coast of Britain really.

In some respects though it's probably not one of our real oldest wildest woods because we do think that Wismans wood was managed so like most of our ancient woods it would have been managed by people typically coppice so the trees would be cut down and left to grow back and people would take that produce and use it for the things they needed and Wismans was in that system we think although it feels very remote today it's not actually that hard to get to with a horse and car in the grand scheme of things.

So the very, very oldest woods and the ones that are the closest to wild in this country are even more remote.

And they're the woods where basically we, as in people, couldn't get there to manage them to take the things we needed.

So the only influence they've had over centuries or more is basically where we've grazed livestock and changed the way we've grazed livestock so if you get up into the steepest and most remote parts of the white peak ravines in derbyshire or you know right up the sort of in the corner of a crag halfway up a fell in the lake district if you find a wood in those places they're the real real special remnants that have probably never been influenced by people that by grazing pressure

That's fantastic.