Behind The Scenes Of Our Woodlands

This winter, during the closed season our forestry team are working hard on various projects to help enhance the woodlands around the park.

One task currently underway is the re-pollarding of over twenty veteran hornbeam trees. The hornbeams in question are estimated to be more than three hundred years old and have great importance to the historic and ecological landscape feature.

Pollarding is a method of pruning that is normally started once a tree or shrub reaches a certain height. The trees have all been historically managed as pollards but have since been left for many decades as this practice has become perhaps less commonplace. Whilst these lapsed pollards look majestic, there is a risk that, if left unmanaged, they will begin to fail as the large stems and lateral limbs become too heavy for the old pruning unions to support them. Works were therefore planned and executed to maximise the longevity of these trees for the future.

Our woodland has approximately two hundred similar trees and we plan to continue this work over the next five to ten years, however, we are being careful not to change the growing environment near to these very valuable trees to quickly!