Despite a very bad weather forecast and heavy rain members of the Ancient Tree Forum (ATF) and some enthusiastic members of the public turned out for the event at Lullingstone Park in North Kent. 

Lullingstone Park 

Lullingstone park contains some of the largest ancient oak trees in England, and is thought to be one of the top 100 ancient tree sites in the country. The trees are scattered throughout the historic park, tucked away in dense woodland or out on the public golf course.

Large hollow oak	Fallen Beech

Like many old English country estates Lullingstone Park has been divided up and the surrounding parkland is owned by the District Council and has been converted to various recreational uses. There is a visitor centre with a wonderful plastic ancient tree in the heart of the café and from here various circular paths radiate out around the site.

Some of the wood pasture system that was characteristic of the parkland landscape still exists. Susan Pittman, a local historian, provided 35 of us with some background to the history and past management of the parks main landscape. An area of 62 hectares (153 acres) of woodland has been classified as a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) for its old pollard trees and woodland, which support important communities of invertebrates, lichens, breeding birds and fungi. However this does not include all the massive old oaks scattered around the rest of the site. For map click here - please note that the map may take some time to download.

The site has a long continuity of woodland habitats, with an abundance of decaying wood, which have supported rich diversity of fungi and invertebrate fauna. There is an outstanding community of breeding birds, including hawfinch and lesser-spotted woodpeckers. Kent Bat Group are also surveying the site to find out how bats are using the area and what species are present and so far have recorded brown longeared, common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, noctule and serotine.

We started our tour discussing the problems of retaining ancient trees within the context of a public golf course, with the inevitable risk associated with standing and canopy dead wood. At Lullingstone Park in recent times the trees have benefited a mowing regime that leaves areas of rough uncut grass out to the drip line of most, and some are also protected by a dense thicket of scrub. Golfers are deterred from going too close to the trees except when they are looking for miss-hit balls therefore reducing the risk. Also at Lullingstone the Council has taken some ground-breaking steps to help reduce the risk in other ways. A public right of way (footpath and bridle way) has been moved to divert the route away from the canopy of an ancient oak. By moving the path three metres to one side, outside the canopy area of the tree, the target has been removed, and the risk significantly reduced.

Like many other parkland landscapes, large areas were planted up just after the Second World War, and these vigorous young trees are now swamping the ancient pollards. Although some remedial clearance has been completed in the last 10 years around some of the worst affected trees, the damage may have already been done. Walking around the wood and looking closely at the ancient pollards, it becomes clear that there are evident signs of their decline, yet unlike there counterparts in the open grass areas, they do not have any low branches and may not be able to retrench back to form lower crowns

Ashenbank Wood
The Woodland Trust owns this area of woodland; it covers an area of just over 31 hectares (77 acres) and is mainly broadleaf woodland with some very large sweet chestnuts. The wood is also an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and is open to the public throughout the year.

The route of the channel tunnel rail link (CTRL) cut off the northeast corner of the wood. However as part of the mitigation to compensate for the habitat loss, some of the felled trees were re-erected to recreate large diameter standing decaying wood – a rare habitat these days. A total of 12 large stems of mixed species, age and dimensions were strapped to the mature trees using steel cables.

The re-erection methodology may not have been perfect, but the fact that it was done is ground breaking work and has set a president for similar habitat creation elsewhere.

We would like to thank John Smith for the photos and the help of Andrew Cowan in writing the story.