Ancient Woodland Restoration 

Coombe Wood

Many of our trees have been hit by ash dieback, a fungal disease that has weakened their structures. Sadly, they will not recover and so must be felled. From August 2024, we will begin a large-scale woodland regeneration project that will include work on removing the infected ash within Coombe Wood. 

The trees will be restocked with mixed, native broadleaf. This will enable us to regenerate the areas of ash dominated woodland, create new habitats and future-proof against disease. Deer fences will be installed to protect the new trees. 

As the work will begin during bird nesting season, an in-house walk through will be undertaken before work commences to identify any potential nesting sites and these will be further surveyed before work commences to ensure no nesting birds are disturbed.

Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS)

PAWS designation indicates a site of ancient woodland that has been cleared of most of its native trees and shrubs, and replaced by non-native conifers. This can have negative impacts on the woodland and its habitats. 

Since 2022, a major project has been underway to restore 42 hectares (104 acres) of the Ashridge Estate PAWS, located on particularly inaccessible and ecologically vulnerable parts of the landscape. Specialist track matting is  used to protect the woodland floor, funded by the Forestry Commission. Adding an extra layer between the machinery and the forest floor, the matting prevents damage to the woodland soils by reducing rutting
along the woodland tracks and protecting the nearby archaeological features.

2024 marks the third and final year in the matting project. Between September and December, we go deeper into the woodland at Sallow Copse, covering an area of 16 hectares, 11.5 of which is conifer, with a mixture of clear felling, replating and thinning.

In a phased removal, we are clearing small areas and thinning others by 1/3 to prevent continued damage. After the initial felling phase, we will replant parts of the site with a sapling mix of native broad-leaf trees to recreate what traditionally would have been found in this woodland. Other areas will be left for natural regeneration of trees and forests. Much of the remaining conifer will eventually be removed and replaced by native broad-leaf in the years to come.

The matting has helped us to make substantial strides towards our ultimate woodland restoration plan which will see the removal of most conifers and the revival of a diverse and well-structured natural woodland. This, in turn, benefits wildlife and contributes to carbon sequestration.

This project at Ashridge could set a new bar for what more sustainable forestry could look like in the UK.

Read more about the initial stages if the project here.

 

Looking after Veteran Trees

Veteran trees are old trees, notable for their features, and they play an important part in our ecosystem.

Fall of a giant

In 2015, Ashridge Estate’s most famous tree, the Frithsden Beech, cleaved in two. There was nothing that could have been done for this star of many films, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Les Miserables and Sleepy Hollow. But it was a wake-up call that the work already started to look after the estate’s veteran trees should be prioritised.

Size of the task in hand

The Ashridge ranger team have identified over 1,000 ancient and veteran trees that would benefit from help. A veteran tree is not quite the same as an ancient one. It can be hard to tell the age of an ancient tree but an oak would not be considered to be ancient until it was at least 400 years old. 

Veteran trees are old trees which are notable for their features. ‘These could be dead branches, holes, hollows, areas of rot or a fork with a watery pool,’ explains Ashridge’s ranger Ben Byfield. 

The important of veteran trees

Veterans are vital because ‘they play such an important role in the ecosystem and support so many rare species,’ says Ben. ‘Invertebrates associated with old trees are incredibly fussy as to where they like to live. It could be in a rot pocket, in deeply fissured bark or in the hollow trunk. Young trees just don’t have that same diversity of habitats.’ 

Throughout Europe ancient and veteran trees are now rare. Ashridge is a nationally important site for these trees and their associated rare species.

Halo-releasing

Research into ‘halo-releasing’ to prolong the life of veterans has been going on for the last 30 years. Haloing is based on the theory that as trees age, they become less tolerant of shade. When trees that began life in an open area become surrounded by younger trees, they suffer due to a lack of light. If the lower branches are shaded out by saplings, their lives can be shortened by 100 years.