Ancient trees at Hatfield Forest, Essex Woodland Walks - The Woodland Trust Podcast

Join us for an episode of virtual time travel to visit Hatfield Forest, Essex and explore over 2,000 years of rich history. As we journey through this outdoor museum, we chat to Tom Reed, a Woodland Trust ancient tree expert, and Ian Pease, a National Trust ranger, who explain why the wildlife and cultural value of these trees makes them irreplaceable. Discover why ancient trees are so important, what makes a tree ancient, how people have lived and worked with them through the centuries and the urgent need to better protect them.
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Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, today I am off to Hatfield Forest, which is the best-preserved medieval hunting forest in Europe, which has a very rich history stretching back, well, a very long time, some 2,000 years or so.
Now, the forest itself is actually managed by the National Trust, but the Woodland Trust works very closely with them. In particular, the reason I'm going there is to look at and talk about ancient trees, their importance to people and landscape, and of course, how old you have to be to be ancient.
Ian: My name is Ian Pease, and I’m one of the rangers here for the National Trust at Hatfield Forest.
Adam: And so how long has your association been with this forest then?
Ian: Well, it's getting on for 30 years.
Adam: You're looking good on it.
Ian: Thank you. Thank you. [Laughter]
Adam: That’s very cool. Now look I have met you by this extraordinary, well, is it a tree or is it two trees? Inaudible just describe where we are standing.
Ian: So, we are standing just to the left of the entrance road as you come into the forest and this is a magnificent hornbeam, er and although, like you say Adam, it looks like it's two trees it is actually one.
Adam: How do you, how do you know?
Ian: Well, it's done what's called compartmentalise. So, what happens when trees get to this age –and this tree is without a doubt probably around 700 years old – is the heartwood falls away and you're left…
Adam: The heartwood’s in the middle?
Ian: The heartwood, the heartwood in the centre falls away, and what you’re left with is the living part of the tree, which is the sapwood and what you can see there is that what trees do, trees are very good at adapting when they get older. And they are generally very good at adapting throughout their lives. So, what has happened here is this tree has stabilised itself by compartmentalising, so sealed off these two halves to stabilise itself and you can also see what we call aerial roots starting to come down from the canopy which gives the tree the rigidity and strength.
Adam: So, where is that? I can’t see, let’s have a look, what do you mean?
Ian: Yeah, so let’s have a closer look.
Adam: I’ve never heard of aerial roots.
Ian: You can see these structures…
Adam: Yes, I see.
Ian: …these structures are what we call aerial roots.
Adam: Yeah, they do look like… but they're not in the ground, they’re in the air. So where are they...? What function are they serving?
Ian: Well, they’re basically supporting the tree and what's happened here, this is an old pollard, so originally, they’d have been what we call bowling in the top there, and the roots would have gone down into that sort of composted material that was captured in the bowling, and as that’s gradually fallen away that's what you're left with at the top there.
Adam: So, these roots are supporting the tree as opposed to bringing it nutrients or anything?
Ian: Well, they are supplying nutrients for it from this compost material…
Adam: Oh, I see, which is still there.
Ian: You can still see some of it there. What's happened obviously is as the trees aged, it's fallen thr