It is said that spending time in forests does wonders for our health and mental wellbeing. But even those who work in forestry don’t always appreciate the benefits of paying a recreational visit to one of the UK’s beloved woodlands. In the latest in an occasional series, Carolyne Locher visits the Tall Trees Trail at New Forest National Park, where coast redwoods evoke images of California.
THE winter sun, low in the sky, creates silhouettes of the coast redwoods casting shadows across this boggy terrain. This place could be a roadside rest stop in Jackson State Forest, where gulps of cool air offer welcome relief from the heady switchback bends of Highway 20, leading from Willets through redwood country to Fort Bragg.
This fleeting California memory is prompted by the sight of bark – orange, stringy, striated – belonging to the coast redwoods growing in the Tall Trees Trail, a publicly accessible 1.5-mile walk running alongside Rhinefield Ornamental Drive in the New Forest National Park.
Lying adjacent to Southampton on the south coast, in 1079 the New Forest was declared a royal hunting ground where interfering with the King’s deer and fodder was a punishable offence. In 1698, centuries-old ‘rights of common’ (grazing by ponies, cattle, pigs and donkeys; estovers; turbary; and pannage throughout the ‘open forest’) were formalised in statute for locals working the land. The woodlands provided timber for the Royal Navy for centuries: 17th- and 18th-century enclosures (planted plantations) fed the navy in WW1. In WW2, they provided areas to barrack and train the troops.
The New Forest was designated a National Park in 2005. At 220 square miles, it is the UK’s second-smallest National Park – less a forest and more a mosaic of landscapes and wildlife habitats, encompassing ancient woodland, coppice, enclosures, open heathland, wet grassland, mire, pasture woodland, riverine woodland and bog woodland.
Today, the Crown owns almost half the area (29,000 ha) within the National Park boundary. Forestry England (land managers), the National Park Authority (landscape conservation, public access and community issues, e.g. planning) and the Verderers of the New Forest (protecting ‘rights of common’) work in administrative partnership to enhance the landscape and provide for public access.
The park receives 15 million day visits a year, according to its Natural Capital Report (2016). This tourism economy returns nearly £400 million back to the local economy each year. In 2019, #thenewforest and #newforest hashtags were used 452,854 times, making the New Forest the most ‘Instagrammed’ forest in the UK (according to Away Resorts, operators of six UK holiday resorts). With 100 miles of way-marked paths (also for cycling, running) throughout the Park, the most popular visitor activity is walking.
“The Tall Trees Trail is popular year-round, especially in summer when many make use of Blackwater car park’s BBQ picnic site,” says Charlotte Belcher, one of three New Forest recreation rangers. Charlotte has worked for Forestry England since 2017.
Her role includes monthly tree inspections in high-risk zones, checking signage and facilities and organising 60 Blackwater Arboretum volunteers. She patrols the forest throughout the year, engaging with the public to promote responsible use of the forest, either through campaigns or time-specific issues such as ground-nesting bird season and wildfire safety awareness.
The Tall Trees Trail began life in the 1850s, when redwoods, firs, rhododendrons, and azaleas were planted to create an ornamental driveway up to Rhinefield House, once a private mansion and now a hotel. In 1971, the (then) Forestry Commission developed the trail to encourage people to explore the 9.8 ha of tall trees.
From the wooden arch in Blackwater car park, cross Rhinefield Ornamental Drive into Vinney Ridge Inclosure and follow the path, straight ahead for Blackwater Arboretum, or right for the start of the trail.
The Tall Trees Trail is backdropped by enclosures, plantations of conifers and broadleaves criss-crossed by networks of rides and informal paths between compartments, managed by beat forester Mike Danks.
Mike was direct production harvesting manager at Thetford before joining Forestry England’s New Forest forestry team of craftspeople, keepers (whose tasks include wildlife projects such as goshawk monitoring and ringing, and ground-nesting bird monitoring and more, in addition to deer management), and forestry operations subcontractors. Mike says: “Knowledge I have not used for a long time, of silvicultural systems, broadleaf management and natural regeneration, has come back.”
Managing the enclosures means, “planning and implementing the long-term Forest Design Plan and overseeing practical works. The role is a great challenge. Each enclosure has an operational site assessment (Forestry, Ecology and Estates departments and the Recreation team work together) every five years, setting out works to meet Plan objectives. Working with these departments and with the Verderers and the Open Forest team, I am beginning to really understand the variety of habitats, the pressures on the site and how unique the area is.”
The trail’s well-maintained path curves back and forth towards the drive. Open areas either side are surprisingly wet. Significant amounts of windblown stems left in situ form boggy dams. A small bridge leads to a cluster of spongy, stringy, striated, orange trunks. The coast redwoods growing near the road provide a momentary mental portal to California.
It is unusual to see so many cared-for ornamental conifers growing in groups, rather than as single trees. And if truth be told, to stroll among them, stroking, hugging and (if you want to) sniffing them, feels really rather ever so slightly un-English. Voices of walkers powering their way up the Ornamental Drive towards Brock Hill car park pierce the reverie. A series of consecutive and temporary wigwam dens reinforce how popular this area is with families.
The winter canopy thins, and a young sequoia puts in a distinctive appearance amid slim barren broadleaves. This and other Vinney Ridge Inclosure compartments of oak, beech and birch were thinned in 2017 and Mike hopes that mast trees will flourish here.
Unexpectedly, a grassy ride leads between two impressive giant sequoia known as The Twins. A plaque states their height at around 50 metres, the tallest trees in the New Forest and approximately a third of the height achieved by their American cousins.
Curving on, moss-covered toes on straight and chunky oak trunks mimic elephant feet. Felled stumps look like cartoon splats.
Back into the evergreen, gaps encourage young and feathery natural regeneration. “Mostly,” says Mike, “Douglas fir, some European silver fir, some Sitka spruce and Lawson cypress as well. At the top of the walk we have Weymouth pine. These trees are at a prime age for dropping seed and they grow well in the canopy gaps. If large trees die or are blown over, we have enough to bring on the next crop. At some point, we will re-space them.”
At Brock Hill car park, we avoid returning through Poundhill Inclosure. Instead we take a left turn, up, over and down a hill covered in Western hemlock, joining a gravelled forest track running between conifer plantations. An off-piste expedition ends in wet feet and the rumble of traffic along the A35.
According to the Natural Capital Report, the New Forest National park contains 8,494 ha of woodland (40 per cent conifer, 40 per cent broadleaf, 10 per cent mixed woodland and 10 per cent open habitat). Mike says: “The term ‘open forest’ covers everything outside the enclosures, including ancient semi-natural and ornamental woodlands, the mire system, heathland and wetland areas, and anywhere where commoning animals graze.”
A path left leads to Blackwater Arboretum, planted in 1958 on the site of an old oak tree nursery and once having provided stumps for the army to blow up during training after WW2. Charlotte says: “After a period of inactivity, the Arboretum has been GIS mapped (to within 40 cm of each tree) by volunteers. We found 355 specimen trees from 110 different species in the collection. We are adding to it so that there is a good variety of ages.”
Due to the arboretum’s southern temperate location, Forest Research monitors the trees for potential future timber species. Mike says: “The trees are left to grow naturally. It is important for Forest Research to see heavy branching or knotting.”
Charlotte adds: “Blue Atlas cedar is currently of interest.”
Birdsong has accompanied us most of the way. It continues as cloud cover builds and as we take a circuitous path, examining new deer-fenced plantings, new tags, real cones and the sculptural sycamore keys and redwood cones of the Sensory Trail. A birder from London in possession of a bulky tripod-mounted monocular waits patiently on a bench for a hawfinch to appear from a roost in the spruce. Charlotte has seen songbirds here (blackcaps, treecreepers, nuthatch and crossbills) but never hawfinch.
Returning to the forest track we continue towards the low-running River Blackwater. Drains form moats around wide compartment edges, whose interiors are filled with rhododendron. Mike says: “The Ornamental Drive had understorey of rhododendron. Following reports of Phytophthora, clearance began in 2008. It continues throughout the open forest and enclosures. Rhododendron, laurel and, to an extent, holly, have a tendency to shade everything else out.”
At the turn of the century, the European-funded New Forest LIFE III Wetlands Project (restoring priority interest features of the New Forest SAC and their supporting adjacent habitats) was the largest river basin restoration project of its kind. Works included reinstating ten miles of river meanders and reconnecting streams to flood plains, which could help to slow some of the flow during extreme weather events.
Extreme weather events are among the surest signs of climate change. Mike says: “A couple of times this winter, the River Blackwater has run up to two metres. People say it is one of the wettest winters they have known. When I joined in 2018, it was a lovely summer, but not so lovely for the forest, where it was bone dry and uncomfortable for the commoning stock.”
“Dry weather increases the chance of wildfires, with some being deliberately set,” says Charlotte.
Up until the 19th century, banks and ditches were used to exclude cattle, ponies and deer from eating the trees grown for timber. This forest track ends at a T-junction, formed by a deer-fenced conifer plantation.
Both Vinney Ridge and Poundhill Inclosures contain mixed- and single-species compartments of timber: western hemlock, Scots pine, Corsican pine, larch, Douglas fir, beech and oak. In Poundhill, mensuration forecasts have just been completed. “We harvest, thin and fell, from September to November, when it’s slightly drier, so that forwarder extraction routes do not get so deeply rutted, pushing mud and silt into the watercourses,” says Mike. “Contractors use brash from felling to support themselves or they may put in culverts or temporary bridges over some of the bigger drains.”
February and March is planting season in the enclosures. Additionally, “We are removing ride-side birch and western hemlock from within the plantations, and planting up the ride-edges with hawthorn, blackthorn, spindle, crab apple, field maple and wild service trees, creating a scalloped edge of natural ride habitats.
“In some of the broadleaf plantations, volunteers are hobby-felling beneath larger, older oaks, opening the area up for natural regeneration. In others, we are respacing natural regeneration to 1.5 to 2 metres, depending on its size, to encourage its growth.”
Reaching the tarmac south of the Ornamental Drive, it seems that with much meandering, photographic breaks and pit stops to take on biscuits, our walk has stretched to 3.8 miles. Musing aloud that we have not seen that most iconic species of New Forest wildlife, two holly-chomping ponies appear. They approach us, staying just long enough for the photos taken to be uploaded to Instagram.
The wider world does have an impact here. Charlotte says: “Being close to the ports, the Arboretum is a possible point of entry for tree health issues. We saw problems in some spruce; a couple died. Plant Health took samples away. We don’t know if it is Spruce Bark Beetle or something else.” She has been asked to look out for the Asian hornet affecting bee populations.
Dothistroma needle blight is established in the arboretum’s pine species and is affecting younger trees in plantations of Corsican pine. Mike says: “When I spoke about the cleaning work earlier, removing trees from the planted crop, we are now looking to favour those other trees in planted Corsican pine crops.”
Re-entering Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, we are welcomed back to Blackwater car park by tall Douglas firs, known for shedding large branches. Charlotte and her team will re-inspect all the trees in high-risk areas following the storm event predicted for this weekend. Arboricultural contractors will perform any deadwooding required.
If trees do fall in the car park or along the Tall Trees Trail, Mike says they will try to leave them in situ. “If a lot come down, they are taken to ride-side and put up for sale.”
Dusk is falling, as is the rain. Unwilling to leave the area just yet, we head to the nearby village of Brockenhurst for cream tea.
Walking among the conifers of the Tall Trees Trail does offer a break from the norm, a mental respite, precisely because their generous proportions are so unusual.
www.forestryengland.uk/new-forest
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