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THE UK IS RECKONED TO HAVE MORE
ANCIENT TREES THAN ANY OTHER NORTHERN
EUROPEAN COUNTRY... BUT WHERE ARE THEY
ALL? THE WOODLAND TRUST WOULD LIKE
YOU TO HELP FIND THEM
I
N 2008 Caravan Club members will help to ensure the protection of
across the UK helped to find and wildlife, including these wonderful trees,
record aged trees as part of the which can be home to many rare and
Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Hunt. endangered species. In addition, the Trust
It is estimated that there are more has identified a number of other Club sites
ancient trees in the UK than anywhere which may have one or more ancient or
else in northern Europe, yet there’s no notable trees just waiting to be recorded, at:
official record of where they are or how
many there are; and, unlike old buildings, a73
a73
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
they are not protected. Keswick and Grange-over-Sands,
The Ancient Tree Hunt is a five-year
project involving conservation groups, a73
Cumbria
Modbury, Sidbury and Newton
landowners and the general public, to
create a comprehensive living database of a73
Abbot, Devon
ancient trees – the first step towards a73
Morpeth, Northumberland
cherishing them. In 2007 the Ancient Tree a73
Battle, East Sussex
Hunt received grant and lottery funding a73
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
enabling it to launch the scheme to the a73
Crawley, West Sussex
public, and by February this year it had a73
Crystal Palace, London
collected over 35,000 records of ‘fat’ old a73
Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, and
Skipton, North Yorkshire
trees (see
www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk).
Ancient trees can be found in parkland or WHAT’S THE BEST WAY
hedgerows, on field margins and along TO HUG A TREE?
country lanes. Old trees associated with First, find your old tree. Use local
woodland are most likely to be on the edge knowledge or the Ancient Tree Hunt’s
of ancient wood boundaries. The oldest historic maps to find a likely spot. Take a
tree in the UK, and perhaps in Europe, is tree book with you, then record what sort
believed to be the Fortingall Yew. Rooted of tree it is – take a photo and collect some
near Callendar in Scotland, it is thought to leaves to identify it. Then use a tape
be 5000 years old. Ancient yew trees are measure or the hug method. Hugging is an
often found in churchyards, but they are easy way to measure the girth of old trees,
much older than the churches as they mark just one of several indicators of a tree’s age.
places that were considered sacred to pre- Anyone, of any age, can take part. After all,
Christian religions as well. who doesn’t need a hug? a73
Earlier last year, a Caravan Club member
found a majestic yew, known as the Lych
Gate Yew, in a churchyard in East Sussex.
The tree’s girth measured more than four
metres (or three hugs) – the perfect size for
identifying an old, fat tree for the hunt. In
fact several Caravan Club sites have been
identified as having notable or ancient trees.
The Woodland Trust has helped the Club by
providing advice on how to care for ancient
trees, contributing to the development of
biodiversity plans for key sites. The plans
discovertouring.co.uk DISCOVER TOURING 39
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