subject: Keeping The Kids Happy During Half-term [print this page] When it comes to keeping kids happy and entertained over the half term, finding things for them to do can be quite taxing. One thing you can do with your children is tree spotting, finding the different trees and making a list of the ones they find. Having suggested that you send the children out on an ancient tree spotting mission this week, we thought it might be useful to mention some examples of situations they could explore.
Everyone thinks of the oak as the archetypal ancient tree. The famous Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is these days rather sadly, held up with chains and a fence around it to stop all human contact.
But, back to the tree hunt. In the open countryside, scattered across much of England, you might find ancient black poplars on flood plains in meadows and occasionally in ancient hedges. Ancient ash clings to limestone rock in the Northern Dales. In the Derbyshire Dales, coppiced lime stools are so old that the rock that they sit on has eroded away from their roots, giving the appearance that the tree is supported by stilts.
In the Scottish Borders, ancient wood pasture oaks can be found at Cadzow and Dalkeith, whilst ancient Scots pine have survived in the Caledonian Forest way up in the Highlands. Wales also has a history of hunting forests where occasional ancient trees can still be found.
It's worth seeking out some of these old trees and exploring them a bit more closely. They can be full of nooks and crannies, holes and dead and rotting wood. The perfect homes for thousands of species of plants, animals and fungi, including many rare and threatened ones. Trees are unique as wildlife habitats because of all the wood decay, bare surfaces of trunks, boughs and roots. We need to manage our ancient trees because they are a precious part of our heritage. Many trees have worked in their time to provide our ancestors with firewood for their homes, fodder and shelter for livestock and timber for buildings and ships. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
Lets just finish this collection of woody blogs with a wonderful quote from one Frances Kilvert on ancient trees at Moccas Park in 1876: "Those grey, gnarled, low-browed, knock-kneed, bent, huge, strange, long-armed, deformed, hunchbacked, misshapen oak men that stand awaiting and watching, century after century." Couldn't have put it better ourselves
by: Richard Johnson
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