Country Matters by Arrowsmith May 2025: If You Go Down to the Woods Today…

Country Matters by Arrowsmith May 2025

… you’ll have a long time to wait for a new National Forest that’s planned for Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bristol and Somerset.  Trees don’t just spring up overnight, but forests can last for millions of years, changing with alterations in climate and evolution in the trees themselves.  You might be surprised to learn that the world’s most ancient forest stood around Minehead in Somerset three hundred and ninety million years ago. Fossil traces of those early trees remain in the sandstone cliffs north of Combe Martin at Great Hangman.

Prehistoric plants won’t return. They’ll be replaced with a mixture of broadleaf trees which will restore the type of native woodland we associate with the stories of Pooh Bear and the Hundred Acre Wood! Britain’s biggest forest is three hundred square miles in Galloway, Scotland, but in 1995 the National Forest company was founded to create a two hundred square mile forest, planting over nine and a half million new trees, adding to existing ancient woods in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.  Plans have been put forward to create another swathe of forest from Liverpool to Hull, and there’s a Heart of England Forest around Stratford on Avon. Our new South-western Forest will plant over twenty million trees from Bristol up to the Forest of Dean, for future generations to benefit.

We can’t expect the future trees to be identical to those which grew in the past.  Ash dieback is just one of the most recent problems which have beset our native trees.  Dutch Elm disease, and other conditions affecting Horse Chestnut and Oaks had already changed the mix of trees common throughout Britain, often due to our stock being weakened through introduction of imported cultivated trees, and – of course – the impact of climate change.

Compared with the EU, Britain has sparser tree coverage. The EU averages 38%, but we have only 12.8% – just over one eighth. Ecologists believe we ought to be aiming to double that by 2050, as it would help to get our carbon footprint down to net-zero. There are benefits both in reducing temperatures and in managing the rain cycle, flooding and drought. Trees need a lot of water which they draw out of the ground and then transpire out of their leaves, cooling the air by evaporation. Tree roots also help prevent soil erosion, but although they might seem to dry the ground out, the evaporation contributes to the formation of rainclouds which tends to moderate between extreme conditions.

This year a new interactive map has been made available on forestresearch.gov.uk showing the location of trees in England outside forests over half a hectare.  This shows that 30% of England’s tree coverage is found in lone trees and smaller clusters.

Cirencester is particularly special in caring for the wild native Black Poplar. Found around the damp conditions of the Cotswold Lakes, at one time its timber was used for floorboards around hearths and fireplaces because it was fire resistant, but modern building practices have reduced demand. It’s a member of the saliceae family, like willows, and it thrives in similar locations, but throughout England the variety has declined, a problem exacerbated by a particular shortage of female trees. The Lakes Trust has almost a twentieth of the national total of wild Black Poplars but astoundingly an estimated one third of female specimens. The leaf is distinctive – as can be seen from this month’s photo – and approximately 350 trees can be seen at the Cotswold Lakes where they are the subject of a special project to promote the revival of the tree.

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