Wonderful wood pasture

Thursday 13 March 2025

Monkwood musings

Join Julie, the project engagement officer, and Dominique, the reserve manager, on a journey through time as we restore lost habitat on land at Green Farm, next to our beloved Monkwood nature reserve.

Wood pasture at Croft Castle, Herefordshire. Photo by Dominique Cragg,

Dom discusses the wonders of wood pasture and our visions for Green Farm in 300 years time...

Purple hairstreak butterfly by Scott Dallow

Imagine yourself sitting in a meadow. The grasses are long and swaying in a gentle summer breeze. Your back is supported by a rough-skinned, veteran oak, which has already seen 300 summers come and go. It’s got the scars to prove it with old injuries exposing its inner heartwood and many rot holes in its trunk. Its canopy is vast and yet it still hasn’t reached its prime - in fact, this oak is only just approaching middle age.

There are thousands of lifeforms within this tree alone; only surviving here because this oak can provide food, shelter and nest holes. From the spotted flycatchers that return each spring to the same nest hole, to oak bracket fungi that erupt from the trunk when conditions are right. Brown long-eared bats silently fly out from the heartwood cavity at night to feast on moths and insects over the ponds. A small colony of purple hairstreak butterflies use these oaks as stepping stones across the landscape.

Wood pasture at Croft Castle, Herefordshire

Nearby, a lime that was planted at the same time as our magnificent oak is coming into flower. Its towering crown is heavy with nectar-rich flowers and the hum of bees can be heard even from where you’re sitting. Opening your eyes slightly, you can count around 30 veteran trees all within the meadow and yet spaced far apart. Each one of these trees was given the best possible conditions to help it get to this impressive age – light, nutrients and very little competition. There have been some casualties – you can see a few black poplars that have fallen over and are quietly returning to the earth. But these rotting hulks of deadwood are still incredibly valuable. They are now home to hundreds of deadwood invertebrates whilst at the same time recycling nutrients back to the soil, ready to help the next generation of saplings to start growing.

From a nearby scrub thicket, the nightingale starts singing again. His is a quieter song now, having already established a territory some weeks ago and already having chicks that are ready to fledge. The balance of dense, mature thickets, young scrub and open meadow changes every year. Some years see more scrub when the herd have been focussed on grazing other areas of Monkwood. Sometimes the animals spend a lot of time here and create a more open, grassy landscape.

This combination of grazed meadows with scrub pockets and open-grown trees is known as wood pasture. The UK used to have much more wood pasture than it does now. There used to be a lot more wood pasture surrounding Monkwood too. It was such a valuable habitat historically, not only for wildlife but for people too, as it provided timber from the trees (they were often kept as pollards which could be harvested regularly) and grazing for livestock at the same time. If you only had a bit of land, being able to use it for a dual purpose was very helpful.

They are home to hundreds of deadwood invertebrates whilst at the same time recycling nutrients back to the soil, ready to help the next generation of saplings to start growing.

For wildlife, ancient wood pasture can offer so much. Veteran trees that, on their own, provide fantastic microhabitats, all the benefits that grazing animals can bring to an ecosystem, nectar sources for invertebrates and a wonderfully complex web of life in the soil.

For all the reasons above, the final bit of woodland creation within our Green Farm project was to recreate 10 acres of wood pasture. In February 2024, we began to realise this vision by planting 40 saplings into the northernmost fields of Bullocks Ground and Lower Field. On a day with 40mph winds and heavy rain, the Trust’s reserves team assembled for a session of “team bonding”. Hardy folks that we are, we completed the task in just a few hours, having established young limes, oaks, black poplars, field maples and sweet chestnuts. These have got protective guards and a wooden stake for support and we’ll add timber livestock tree guards in the summer.

The largest saplings are around 150cm tall so they’ve got a way to go before they are ancient giants. But they’re well-spaced, sheltered and with their roots in good soil that retains water well so we’re hoping they will settle in quickly. We can only imagine how the wood pasture will look here in 300 years’ time but if it’s anything like the vision above, it’s well worth the effort.