Locating ancient woodland

Ancient woodland has a nice ring about it and plenty of interest, whereas plantation woodland conjures up the prospect of rows of uniform/homogenous/monoculture of even aged trees with so little of interest. Some of the best ancient woods are legally protected by SAC or SSSI designation, whilst others fall within Nature Reserves. Then there are woods that have escaped designation and until recently these required the consultation of maps and then a visit to establish their credentials, happily there are now inventories of woodland accessible online. The UK Government ministry of DEFRA has a very useful application for finding ancient woodland in England, the devolved Governments of the UK also have similar applications for viewing woodland inventories and categories too.

Screen grab illustrating the woodland designations on the Defra Magic map https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs

Whilst Ordnance Survey maps denote broadleaved trees it needs further investigation to get an overview of the woodland. A simple overlay with a satellite view allows the woodland to be investigated for the canopy cover or size of the tree crowns, a rule of thumb is the larger the tree crown the older the tree.

Screen grab illustrating the woodland designations on the Defra Magic map https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs

Another rule of thumb is that many ancient woods are now actively being coppiced for habitat and biodiversity, the satellite view is usually a few years out of date, so it's a case of having an open mind when visiting.

Coppicing activity in ancient woodland.

If you are predisposed to visiting ancient woodland, these online resources save a lot of time and effort. More pertinently some flora is intimately associated with ancient woodland and flowering times are short.

Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia)