A Book of Britain: The Lore, Landscape and Heritage of a Treasured Countryside. Johnny Scott

      PRESERVING OUR ANCIENT WOODLANDS

      Although landlords with an interest in hunting or shooting preserved their woodlands for game cover, the overall damage to small broad-leafed woods, copses and spinneys through afforestation and agricultural reclamations inspired Kenneth Watkins, a retired farmer in Devon, to start the Woodland Trust in 1972, with the aim of preventing further loss of ancient woodland.

      REMARKABLY, THERE ARE STILL OVER 22,000 SITES OF ANCIENT AND SEMI-NATURAL WOODLAND IN ENGLAND, AROUND 14,570 IN SCOTLAND, 850 IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND OVER 100 FOR WALES. ONLY 3,000 SQUARE KILOMETRES OF ANCIENT SEMI-NATURAL WOODLAND SURVIVE IN BRITAIN – LESS THAN 20 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL WOODED AREA.

      The early 1970s saw the beginning of conservation awareness among the general public, and by the end of the decade donations to the Trust had enabled them to acquire woodland across England. In 1980, they obtained Coed Lletywalter, a 38-hectare ancient woodland site in Wales, and in 1984, Balmacaan Wood in Scotland, overlooking the banks of Loch Ness. In 1996, they began working in Northern Ireland and by 2009 the Trust was involved in the conservation management of around 13,000 hectares of woodland. Conservation soon became part of the political agenda, and the example set by the Woodland Trust was picked up by the Nature Conservancy Council, the government department responsible for designating and managing National Nature Reserves and other nature conservation areas in Britain, between 1973 and 1991.

      During the 1980s and 1990s the Nature Conservancy Council and its successors, which in 2009 were Natural England, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Countryside Council for Wales and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, compiled inventories of ancient woodland sites in their respective regions, with the Woodland Trust providing the information for Northern Ireland. Remarkably, there are still over 22,000 sites of ancient and semi-natural woodland in England, around 14,570 in Scotland, 850 in Northern Ireland and over 100 for Wales. Only 3,000 square kilometres of ancient semi-natural woodland survive in Britain – less than 20 per cent of the total wooded area. More than eight out of ten ancient woodland sites in England and Wales are less than 200,000 square metres in area, only 500 exceed one square kilometre and a mere 14 are larger than three. This is a fraction of what there once was, but a great deal more than any other European country, and what we have, mainly in the remains of old Royal Forests, chases and the parkland of great estates, is now fiercely protected.

      Nor are they all only in rural settings; the London Borough of Haringey contains no less than five ancient woods. Highgate Wood, Queen’s Wood, Coldfall Wood, Bluebell Wood and North Wood were once part of the great Forest of Essex, and during the medieval period, the hunting estate of the Bishops of London. Here, between Muswell Hill and East Finchley, eight kilometres from St Paul’s Cathedral, are 70 hectares of original pedunculate and sessile oak, hornbeam, beech and holly woods with the occasional wild service tree. There are several other ancient woodlands in the Greater London area: Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods, Epping Forest North, Lesnes Abbey and Bostall Woods, Ruislip Woods and Poors Field.

      MYSTERIOUS AND MYTHICAL TREES

      Uniquely to Britain, we have amongst our ancient woodlands, in churchyards, on village greens and parish boundaries, a number of trees of immense antiquity. When we think about preserving our ancient woodland heritage and debate the importance of doing so, it is vital to remember that since time immemorial trees and shrubs have all had religious and cultural meaning and usage.

      The Celts were extraordinary people; tribal, quarrelsome and addicted to mead, but also highly organised agriculturalists, industrious miners, and successful traders in iron ore, gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, grain, skins, slaves and hunting dogs to the Continent. They were deeply religious nature worshippers, whose lives were ruled by superstition and the seasons, and it was they who bequeathed us a heritage of folklore, much of it centred round their veneration of trees.

      All species were believed to have magical powers and to be inhabited by a deity or spirit, especially oak, ash, yew, crab apple and thorn, and of these the oak trees were considered the most sacred. No one has stood before the critical gaze of an ancient oak with its gnarled trunk and great twisted limbs and not felt a sense of awe. The sight of one of these majestic trees rearing up out of a glade in the underwood, or a grove of them standing alone on the edge of a heath, bare, gaunt and terrible through the winter then bursting into life again in the spring, symbolised all early man’s polytheist beliefs in life, death and rebirth.

      THE ANCIENT OAK

      Oaks were particularly revered by the Druids, because then oak trees were the main woodland host for mistletoe. Imagine the impression on an Iron Age Celt, trudging homeward from a day’s coppicing during the winter solstice, believing all plant life had ceased and suddenly glancing upwards to see a clump of green leaves and white berries glowing in a shaft of sunlight, high in the bare branches of an oak tree. This was the ‘Golden Bough’ of folklore and legend; an assurance that all the Druidical incantations, ritual bonfires and sacrifices were doing their stuff; that spring would come again, bringing warmth, fecundity and new life.

      To the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Slavs and Teutonic tribes, the oak was foremost amongst venerated trees, and in each case associated with the supreme god in their pantheon – sacred to Zeus, Jupiter, Dagda, Perun and Thor respectively. Ancient kings presented themselves as the personifications of these gods, taking on the responsibility not only for success in battle but also the fertility of the land, which relied on rainfall. They wore crowns of oak leaves as a symbol of the god they represented as kings on Earth. Successful Roman commanders were presented with crowns of oak leaves during victory parades, and oak leaves have continued as decorative icons of military prowess to the present day. Spiritual appreciation of oaks did not cease with the advent of Christianity; although many oak groves were supplanted by early Christian churches, St Columba was said to have had a fondness and respect for oaks and was reluctant to fell them – though his chapel on Iona was constructed using timber from the nearby Mull oak woods. St Brendan was inspired to use oak boards instead of traditional hides to cover his coracle, which legend says floated him across to the Americas some thousand years before Columbus.