The workshop ran by The Woodland Trust could not have been better. It was thorough, insightful and friendly, with ‘takeaways’ that included a 10m tape measure, clipboard, high-visibility jacket and assorted guides and handouts. I was able to put some faces to names, and make some new acquaintances – fellow travellers on the marvels of ancient trees. Things I have learnt over the last couple of years are starting to fall into place: I know my trees, know how to differentiate between notable, veteran and ancient (more or less), and can even make an educated guess at the fungi and epiphytes on any tree I come across and marvel at.

I arrived at Beechwood Hall prepared for being wet, muddy and cold. I’d prepared homemade courgette soup in a flask, with a courgette and pasta with broccoli too. Tim Spector (Zoe Health App) would be proud of me. I could have done with some dried cranberries and almonds, or prunes and walnuts to snack on. I’m trying not to do biscuits these days.

I am never punctual – either I turn up early or I never make it. I was early; I find getting to meet a few people and know what is what long before we start a useful thing. I can get to know the other people who arrive early, and figure out a suitable place to sit given that images will be projected onto the back wall. We are offered coffee and biscuits. Homemade cake comes later.

Icebreaker Postcards

The icebreaker was inspired. I was glad they were at least doing one. Encouraging people to get to know each other is invaluable especially where we all share the same interests.

This is the ‘Postcard Challenge’ – we were invited to pick a postcard which represented us that we could use as a way of introducing ourselves. I over thought it of course and picked up the Mona Lisa (art), the A Gustav Klimt (art again), then a different Gustav Klimt (art and family), then a Jaws like shark with gaping mouth to represent the work of a councillor (they need teeth, a voice, sharp-eyes to protect trees). Then I spotted a very old Helen Brown Card showing off her South Downs Prints.

I could use this as a springboard into ‘tree art’ (I have been working on and working out lino and vinyl prints of ancient trees for nearly a year now), and from tree art into Friends of Markstakes Common and from that into my role as a Councillor. There were 17 of us all told, including 6 I think from The Woodland Trust. A love for nature, the Sussex landscape and trees were common themes – simply being a ‘tree hugger’ came up (we’re all one of those).

The training, and staffing, is funded by the National Lottery, which brings with it certain obligations relating to communications/PR and outreach. We would be photographed. We signed release forms. I’m vain enough to wish I had my contact lenses in, and to make sure they get my good side! Better still, do what the BBC does and make sure faces don’t feature at all ?!

Funders/Supporters all of whom I should look into include also Action in Rural Sussex, Small Woods, Sussex Wildlife, The Woodland Trust and as mention Heritage Fund.

Bob Epsom introduced Lost Woods

With a background as an arborist working along the highways and byways he must be glad to be out into the countryside not having to worry so much about trees falling into the traffic. The three theme of Lost Woods are: Resilience, Growing Woodland and Building Skills.

The aim is to capture 100% of notable, veteran and ancient trees across an area of 312km2.

Ancient trees are less likely to appear in ancient woods I learnt because they fail to compete with other maturing trees. There are no true ‘ancients’ in Markstakes Common, just mature trees with ‘ancient features’ – life in the wood is competitive. The biggest battle being for light.

A few names were mentioned which I ought to follow up: The Wiston Estate and Knepp Estate for example.

History plays an important part in identifying ancient trees, and checking where they may appear. We will be looking at Yeakell and Gardner Map of Sussex 1780.

Here are a couple of grabs available from the University of Portsmouth. The first interests me because I live here and now the land shown intimately, the second because it features Markstakes Common (an ancient wood) where I spend a good deal of time. Seeing this I am always reminded that Balneath Wood exists only in name having been grubbed out and turned into pasture after the Second World War. It also intrigues me that according to this 1780 map Markstakes Common included what is now designated as Starvecrow Wood.

We should also refer to Ordnance Survey Drawings, available from the British Library Old Maps Online, and to 1940s RAF images held by Historic England’s Aerial Photographs held by Aerofilms. And thus three of my interests are blended into one: maps, geography and history.

This is screengrab from the 1899 map, there is another, little changed published in 1911. It will take some digging to go back further.

I could spend days flying around the UK looking at aerial photographs from the 1940s. Finding Markstakes Common from high altitude photographs was less easy, though I can see how a large tree casts a shadow and might therefore be worth a look on the ground to discover if it is still there.

The area of Lost Woods we will be surveying is squeezed in between the South Downs National Park and the High Weald. We’ll be using all the technology we can, so a ‘shared space’ via Teams and Microsoft will be used to manage and gather the results. Technology getting tied in knots is my problem: I run two work accounts on Outlook/Teams already, let along another two via G-Mail. All of this from Macs – nothing is ever compatible without outlay.

Hilary Hinks, a Woodland Trust Heritage Researcher then explained what it is like being a volunteer. Hilary has been a volunteer for ten years. She spoke about the difference between ancient and veteran trees (there are anomalies) and how she is has found them in all kinds of places, from visiting gardens near Horsham, to specific sites such as Laughton Woods and Petworth (amongst others). She spoke of the importance of trees in the landscape scale for owners, farmers and community.

We got into a discussion about ancient trees having no legal protection. I wanted to understand the purpose and value of a Tree Protection Order (TPO). This I concluded, and others agreed, comes down to the skill and determination of a local council, and a councillor or two in a town, district or County Council to stand up to those threatening ancient and mature trees (typically developers, highways and other land owners wishing to change land use). Practices have not always been conducive to an old tree’s long term survival (compacting of the ground by heavy farm vehicles, pesticides and stock all have their impact – little of it good). Someone well able to digest, and respond to developer’s plans, working through recognised local plans, knowing the legal position and then negotiating a solution and long term management plan for a tree or trees is the way to succeed (some of the time).

The benefits of ancient and veteran trees are significant 

We went through the biodiversity benefits of a single, mature tree storing carbon, holding back rain, creating and maintaining the soil around it. 

While I’m here I’m going to set these out in a way that will help me remember. There are numerous benefits in relation to:

Habitat

Food Source

Shelter and nesting sites

Microclimate regulation

Soil Health 

Pollination and seed dispersal 

Genetic Diversity

I’ll pick over each of these at a later date. What Hillary also spoke of is the cultural significance of trees and how we feel about trees. She spoke about the iconic sycamore tree on Hadrian’s Wall – significant not for its age, but its isolation, its position on a heritage site and the memories people made when the saw it, walked under it, passed it by and of course, saw it in the 1991 Kevin Kostner Robin Hood film. Petworth Park comes highly recommended. This step by step ‘ancient trees’ walk sounds like something I should do shortly – to see the trees as silhouettes before spring, then to return in summer. Its less than an hour away for me from Lewes.

How do you decide the difference between a notable, veteran or ancient tree?

It has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with looks, and therefore species and location. And age, to a degree. Hawthorn or silver birch might only be 100/150 years old to be in its final stage of life, whereas an oak or yew may still only be in its mature stage when it is 400, 500, even 800 years old (for yew).

A notable tree stands out in its locality, which is why I will struggle to add more trees from an ancient wood like Markstakes Common to the National Tree Register. There are many magnificent, characterful looking oak trees in the wood: but there are many of them, so no matter how they look, whether they have lost limbs, have decaying wood on the ground and epiphytes growing along their branches, they are no exception for this location. Put the same tree in a town, a back garden, or by a road and on its own and it could well warrant being recognised as ‘notable’ – after all, to replace it would take centuries. If I am to identify additional notable trees in Markstakes Common they are likely to be one or two of the silver birch I have stumbled upon (literally).

There are many different ways to consider the multiple stages of a trees growth through to senescence, decay and collapse – when an entirely new life-giving entity in the form of decaying wood occurs.

I like something more scientific, than merely illustrative. Here, not to scale of course, we see what is most likely an oak (though has some beech-like features?). We need a further stage where a fallen, and crumbling trunk is returned to the earth – something than can take many decades. I’ll draw something that works for me. I’ve collected photographs of oak from a few leaves to ancient … what I aim to do is to draw up say 12 stages which in theory could be animated to indicate growth to maturity, ‘growing downwards’ with retrenchment. Of course, this assumes no ‘catastrophic’ event stepping in to finish it off.

Features of an ancient or veteran tree include:

Features of veteran or ancient trees:

• Widening trunk
• Hollowing or rotting 
• Rougher or more creviced bark
• Buttressing to support the tree
• Crown reduce in height and sticking out 
• Cavities on trunk/brunches
• Running water
• Sap running down
• Fungi
• Insects in the dead wood 
• Ink from an oak bowl used to write the magna carter

The Sullington yew and walks with ancient trees around Sorrington are worth a visit.

Cowdray Park is also worth a visit, for an ancient sweet chestnut and the ancient Queen Elizabeth oak – one of the 50 Great British Trees that were selected by The Tree Council in 2002 to in honour of the late Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

I asked about woodland trees surrounded by other trees. I guess a needle in a stack of needles is no longer as interesting as the needle in a haystack. I prefer the tangled, reaching nature of a woodland tree compared to a parkland tree and its false ‘perfect’ form. There’s more of a story to tell, how a tree has successfully, or otherwise, been able to compete for resources – for sunlight in particular.

A Silver Birch can be ancient at 150. I am familiar with two already recognised trees from Markstakes Common, (tree 15) alive, doubled-over long ago, on the northern edge of the wood, and just behind it a now dead tree. Elsewhere in the woods I have I believe been able to identify several other examples of silver birch that could be designated ‘notable’ if not ‘veteran’.

I’m going to spread my search to take in Hazel and Hawthorn. I’ve always been attracted to the twisting trunk and branches of a Hawthorn on the path along the northern boundary of Markstakes Common. And there’s a second, assuming it is Hawthorn, towards the north-running winter woodland stream.

Martin Hügi is someone worth following. He did a pilgrimage across the UK walking through England and Scotland visiting as many ancient trees as he could.

After a coffee break Bob then took us through the process for putting a tree on the Tree Register. We learnt that here are now 210,000 ancient trees thus far recorded. It is a worthy ‘Citizen Science Project‘.

The essentials to get down are: 

• Location – grid reference and context.
• Species
• Girth – tape measure. 1.5m from the front. At the narrowest part of a pollard. If there is ivy or holly try to get under it. 
• Access
• Additionally: 
• Tree Form: maiden, pollard, coppice, phoenix etc: 
• Condition:
• Fungi
• Epiphytes: moss, lichens, ferns etc: 
• Invertebrates / bats – signs of

For Holly I need to visit Ashdown Forest – there are no ancient holly trees in the Sussex research area.  

The largest beech tree in Britain is in Eridge Deer Park. And this old coppiced Hornbeam in Brede High Woods.

Ancient coppiced hornbeam, Brede High Wood © Copyright Patrick Roper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A frequent visitor to Brede High Wood in 2018/2019/2020 I am surprised I never found this.

For background research we need to know our maps. I have since enjoyed getting lost down a few rabbit holes of research seeing the places I know from the sky 80 years ago.

We will also use Land Registry which shows how ownership links if not the owner.

Magic.gov.uk I’m going to have fun with this. Markstakes Common of course has been thoroughly surveyed and has its own sets of habitat, flora and fauna maps.

we will register:

• Just where access is required.
• Record where there are no trees
• Record where you have visited 
• Record if it is a no go area

Then we had lunch. Then we were issues with a 10m measuring tape, a clipboard and guide book, donned wellies and hi-vis jackets and headed ‘into the field’, conveniently where we would find a few ‘ancient looking’ oak trees.