Forest School at Lydford Gorge

Since undertaking Forest School training in 2007/2008 myself and other wardens have been busy creating a special outdoor education site deep in the woods at Lydford Gorge. The site has a shelter(or bender) made with Hazel rods and tarpaulin, fire circle with log benches and work stations. There are interesting things hanging from the trees such as a handmade wooden spider, these help create a magical and stimulating environment for children to enjoy. The facility to date has been mainly aimed at local primary schools and is proving very popular as a base for environmental activities.

Finding Ancient Woodland

In this series of occasional articles on woodland, the point is to provide a reference from which terms or concepts used in blogs about our activities in, or descriptions about our woods, can be understood. We have dealt with why woods are managed and tried to explain some of the terms applied to woodland. Here we are going to concentrate on woodland of ancient origin, because this covers the majority of National Trust woods on Dartmoor and how to distinguish it from secondary woodland and plantations with just a map.

Likely Locations - The Renowned countryside historian Oliver Rackham makes a distinction between 'Planned countryside' and 'Ancient countryside'. The former, typified by much of the Midlands, consists of regular grids of rectangular fields with straight roads and spinneys of woodland, largely of recent origin. This is the landscape bequeathed us by the Enclosure Acts.

Ancient countryside though, typical of South and South-east England, is characterised by intricate paths and lanes, thick hedges, irregular boundaries and despite its proximity to London, more ancient woodland than can be found anywhere else in the country. Intermediate between these two, is the uplands, which includes Devon & Cornwall. Here you are more likely to see ancient woodlands in narrow river valleys or on steep slopes on the edge of parish boundaries. National Trust woods on Dartmoor are perfectly described in this context.

Evidence - Old maps, deeds and charters are a wealth of information. The first edition OS maps of 1858-1876, of 6 inches to 1 mile are often described as the masterpieces of British mapping, with the English landscape picked out in studied detail. For those who wish to pursue the subject sources of information for the study of ancient woodland are many, works by Oliver Rackham are especially recommended.

Much can be gleaned though from modern maps and it is soon possible to study a map and distinguish ancient woodlands from those of more recent origin. If you have a map to hand, especially if its 1:25000 scale, dig it out and have a look.

• Shape - recently planted woods are likely to have straight edges, whilst older woods tend to have irregular boundaries.


• Study Contours - Is the wood on a steep slope or in a valley? If it is, it could be ancient.


• Is there water? - A stream or river running through a wood is a common feature of an ancient wood.


• Look at lines - Look at the pattern of thin black lines denoting walls and other boundaries. These reflect the enclosure history of the landscape. If the boundaries of the wood do not fit into the pattern, its likely to be ancient.
  
• What's nearby - Is heathland, 'waste' or common land adjacent? Does the wood mark a parish boundary (marked as a line of black dots on OS maps at 1:25000 scale)? If these can be found a wood is likely to be ancient.


• Names - Names can be a big clue, reflecting names of nearby settlements or incorporating old words for woods such as hanger, lea or grove, which are largely of Saxon origin. Ancient woods tend to be called wood, coppice or copse. Secondary woods might be a covert, plantation or possess no name. Local place names also help, those ending in -ley/-leigh or -hurst suggest an inhabited clearing surrounded by woodland and -feld could be an open space within sight of woodland.

These are broad outlines only, obviously there is more to it, but as a simple exercise, if you have a 1:25000 scale map of Dartmoor, open it up and locate Ashburton and Buckfastleigh (note the -leigh) in the south east of Dartmoor. Look at the woodland that the River Dart snakes through. If you can, locate The National Trust woods of Holne Woods and Hembury Woods. Do you see how irregular the boundaries are, how the contours indicate how steep they are (especially Holne) and that both woods mark out parish boundaries.

Names are a fascinating subject. Holne Woods reflects the parish to which it belongs and derives from an old English word for Holly, Holm, Hollen, thus Holly Woods.

Hembury Woods is adjacent to Buckfast and Buckfastleigh. 'Buckfast' means 'stronghold' - a place where deer and buck were held, always in woodland and the '-leigh' indicates the inhabited clearing surrounded by woodland. Co-incidentally, Hembury can be roughly translated as 'High-castle', in relation to the Hillfort found here. So from Holly Woods and High Castle Woods, we arrive back to the present and the end of this blog, but perhaps spend a moment or two looking at other woods and guessing which may be ancient and which are very obviously modern plantations.

In the next blog, we will see how the wood itself gives us all the clues we need to establish if it is of ancient origin or not.

Castle Drogo wins award for biomass boiler

Castle Drogo on Dartmoor has won an award for being one of the best examples of sustainable energy in the South West with its new biomass boiler.

One of eight winners, England’s last castle took home a highly-sought after Green Energy Award for its biomass boiler, in the category of ‘Best Renewable Energy Scheme’.

The new biomass boiler has reduced the Castle's annual carbon emissions by 150 tonnes and generated 1,000,000 kilowatt hours of renewable heat per year. It is easily accessible to 125,000+ visitors a year, and is included in visitor tours that further promote renewable energy. The fuel for the installation is supplied by a local woodchip supplier, with 50 per cent coming from the estate itself with 100 per cent by June 2010. Many members of the local community, other businesses and charities have also visited Drogo to have a look at the new boiler to see if our success can be replicated elsewhere.

The winners were chosen from a high-quality shortlist of entrants from across the region by an independent panel of judges who have expert knowledge in sustainable energy.

David Bailey, Castle Drogo Property Manager said: “We are thrilled at receiving this award; it’s a real credit to everyone who has been involved on this project. Our aim is to be free from fossil fuels by 2016 through using hydro and solar power and by reducing our energy requirements. Our new boiler has already reduced our fossil fuel needs by 50 percent. We not only want to be the last castle built in England but also the greenest!”

Seeing the wood for the trees

In a previous blog we looked at how the woodlands of today and the wildlife unique to them are a result of centuries of management. This new blog picks a path through all the different terms applied to woodland which any one new to reading about woodlands would be forgiven for getting confused about.

Woodlands that comprise predominately of locally native trees and shrubs that have largely arisen naturally are known as semi-natural woodland. Woodlands derived principally from human activities of planting, sowing and other intensive silvicultural treatments are generally known as plantations or woodlands of planted origin.

The above titles refer to the dominant vegetation of a site, whereas the next titles refer principally to the site itself irrespective of the vegetation type.

Woodland is referred to as ancient woodland when it has been in continuous existence since before AD 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland .

After 1600 the tradition arose of growing trees in plantations. This was the basis of modern forestry which is quite different from the management of woods. Also around this time the mapping of the country becomes more accurate meaning, amongst other clues (another blog another time), ancient woodland can be discerned from plantations.

Now, as mentioned, ancient woodland refers principally to the site. Bearing this in mind the term ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW) is applied to semi-natural stands on ancient woodland sites, whilst the term ancient woodland site is made irrespective of its current tree cover. Indeed, in the 1950's and 1960's many ancient woodland sites were grubbed up and replaced with plantations of trees not native to the site. These are referred to as a plantation on ancient woodland site (PAWS).

Woodland is the naturally dominant vegetation type of Britain which means that, with exceptions, most land would revert to woodland if its current use was abandoned. Where woodland invades land that was previously unwooded it is known as secondary woodland

(Ancient woodland, or the wildwood, could be termed primary woodland).

There is a final, historical use of woodland that should be noted, wood pasture or 'silva pastoralis', that is, woodland open to grazing stock, and usually managed by pollarding.

From the brief descriptions given above one can see that one wood can be many things and to the observer who knows what to look for these differences of land use can be seen. You really can see the wood (the site) for the trees (the vegetation type).

To finish upon this subject let us make a quick visit to The National trust owned site of Holne Woods. Upon entering the wood you are walking in secondary woodland but as you journey deeper you are in ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW). Eventually you will go through a gap in a wall into an area that was historically enclosed, wood pasture.

Alternately we can go to the National trust site of Hembury Woods. Again, ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW) that also contains a Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site (PAWS).

Confused? Well here's a quandry to finish on.

The dominance of oak in western woods is largely through mans design, that is, Victorian forestry, so an accurate description of woods such as Hembury is of an 19th century oak plantation of coppice origin on an ancient woodland site.

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Angels-with chainsaws

Those amongst you who know the Teign valley have almost certainly heard of Whiddon deer park.

It was set up to enclose a heard of Fallow deer (as it's name implies) in about 1560 by Sir John Whiddon, and it is still enclosed by the impressive granite wall which he commisioned.

The park now contains hundreds of massive ancient and veteran trees and is also a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) for its lichens and dead wood invertebrates. It also still contains a lot of deer, though they can now come and go at will.

Many of the old trees in the park are reaching the end of their lives, the Beech trees in particular are starting to collapse, if all the old trees disappear, what will take their place? what will happen to the important lichen and insect communities?

At this point I shall quickly explain the difference between an ancient tree and a veteran, as these terms are often used interchangably. An ancient tree is simply an old tree, the age at which a tree becomes ancient is not fixed and depends upon the species of the tree, if a tree is much older than the average age for it's species it is ancient. When looking at the growth rings of a tree, you can see them increase in width as the tree establishs itself, continue as large rings through the life of the tree and finally begin to decrease in size as the tree reachs old age. When the rings are consistently smaller year on year, then the tree is reaching the last stage of it's life and well on it's way to being ancient. A veteran tree on the other hand can be pretty much any age and at any stage in it's lifecycle, and is best thought of in the same way as a human war veteran. A veteran may be young, but has seen a lot through his/her/it's life and has the marks to prove it, a veteran tree may have limbs missing, scars, cracks, rot holes, fungi etc All these features make a veteran tree invaluable for wildlife as the holes and scars may be homes to birds, bats, lichens etc Because a tree will often take hundreds of years to accumulate all these characteristics, it is normally older trees which are veterans.

And now back to the park.....

Unusually for a deer park there are a lot of younger trees growing beneath and around the older trees in Whiddon, probably due to a halt in grazing sometime around the early 20th Century, and therein lies the secret to the future of this park, and the challenge facing us over the next few years.

Last year a map was produced showing all the old trees, which were tagged with numbers for identification, using this we are aiming to achieve three things;

1.Prolong the lives of the older trees

2. Identify new trees which will take the place of the old and help them to grow to maturity

3. Veteranize some of the smaller trees to provide a "stepping stone" habitat for the communities which depend on the existing veterans.

To do this we are working our way around the park, "halo" thinning (as in an Angel-geddit!) which means taking out trees in rings to make space for an older tree in the centre. This allows more light to reach these older trees, particularly around the base where they often grow new shoots. In addition we are also selecting "successor" trees to replace the old trees in years to come and halo thinning these and creating young veterans of others by allowing branches to tear off, pollarding trees to get them to sprout from a tall stump and boring holes in trees to allow habitat for bats/birds etc.

The result of all this work should be a continued habitat for the Lichens and deadwood invertebrates, and to secure the future of large, old trees in the deer park.

Tree number 292- a fine Oak and a good example of the sort of trees in the park.

Drogo 10

The National Trust on Dartmoor and South West road Runners proudly present - the Drogo 10

It is the Drogo 10 off road running race this Sunday - so far there are over 450 entrants- the biggest field ever!

The race is down and up and down and up the Teign Gorge around Castle Drogo. You can enter on the day BUT it is not for the novice - 10 miles in the Gorge is a long way!

It must be one of the most picturesque runs in the country - so if you don't want to enter why not come and watch and then visit Castle Drogo - the last Castle built in England.

You can enter on the day - 10.30am start - see the race web site for details.

Do your Christmas shopping from home

A gift for all seasons - this Christmas give someone special National Trust membership. For further information on our 3 months free offer contact Jeff, our Countryside Recruiter, on jeff.bovey@nationaltrust.org.uk