People, trees and woods
You don't need to know much about trees to enjoy and love them. They enrich our lives by their beauty and stillness and the wildlife they support.
We plant trees to commemorate important events and celebrate them as symbols of life and renewal in nature. The tree stands as a symbol of nature itself, and in recent years trees have often been totems of defiance against urban expansion or road building.
They are the most ancient living things. Some yew trees are reputed to be several thousand years old. There are awesomely ancient yews on National Trust land at Ankerwycke (Buckinghamshire), on the Thames near Runnymede (Surrey), at Crom (Co. Fermanagh) and in Borrowdale (Cumbria).
Trees merge collectively into woodland. Many woods are beautiful and important for wildlife, but they can also be mysterious and disorienting. There is just the possibility of something unexpected, just a chance that the path will turn you away from your intended direction. People value woods as places where time moves slowly; where there is inspiration and re-engagement with a different pace of life.
Woods are places where all sorts of recreational activities are possible without intruding too much on the privacy of others. Horse riding is a widespread activity on a network of woodland bridleways. In several of the larger woods mountain biking is encouraged, and the Trust occasionally permits motor rallies.
People often work with us in woodland management, planting trees and clearing undergrowth. This is an opportunity for many people to work with nature in a shared community activity. The National Trust provides many opportunities for the active enjoyment of almost all its woods.
The conservation of woodlands has been an important part of the National Trust's work for almost one hundred years.
The first wood, Brandelhow, in Borrowdale, Cumbria was bought in 1902.
Now the Trust manages hundreds of woods extending to 25,000ha (61,776 acres) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including both some of the oldest woodland in these islands and, in some places, commercial conifer plantations which were established only during the twentieth century.
In all our woodlands the aim is to maximise their value to people and to wildlife, now and for the future.
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