Wood pasture and parkland

Ancient wood pastures are areas of grazed pasture, heath or open hill with a scattering of iconic open-grown veteran trees. Once a common feature of the Scottish landscape, they provided shelter, pasture and fodder for livestock, as well as wood products for local people. The trees themselves often show signs of earlier working and may have been obviously pollarded (cut back to a high stump out of reach of grazing animals), regenerating with multiple stems to provide poles, or browse for livestock in harsh times; signs of ancient fields or abandoned crofts can often be found nearby. The grazing prevented competition by younger trees, allowing some individual trees to survive to a great age.

Wood pastures are a kind of living ancient monument, where the living things - the veteran trees - are of as much interest as built structures and earthworks which may exist elsewhere, for they are an ancient part of our man-made or cultural landscape that pre-dates the Highland clearances.

This woodland type is widespread throughout upland and lowland Scotland with an estimated extent of between 8000 and 17000 hectares.

Old, open-grown trees are the defining feature of ancient wood pasture. The sunlit canopies attract insects and other wildlife less suited to denser woodland. As the trees reach old age, growth slows until the crowns start to die-back. In a pasture situation, with no competing trees, the period of decline can last for many years - centuries in some cases. Mosses become established on the large branches and in crevices in the bark; wood-rotting fungi colonise broken branches and stems; beetles move into the dry deadwood and sap-sucking flies and hoverflies find a niche in the rot-holes, sap runs and other scars that these veteran trees accumulate. The process of ageing provides an uninterrupted supply of deadwood in various stages of decay, ensuring the needs of species continue to be met. This long-term continuity is critical. Some insects and lichens  occur only where there has been a presence of old trees stretching way back in time. The roots of ancient trees also develop complex communities of mycorrhizae, the fungi that play an important role in nutrient uptake by trees. The surrounding pasture and open woodland flowers provide nectar sources for flying insects. Semi-natural pasture will support grassland fungi, rare butterflies and moths. Also, birds, such as woodpeckers, flycatchers and wryneck, as well as bats, stoats and weasels.

To reflect its international importance and vulnerability, its value for a wide range of associated priority species, and its role in representing the historical legacy of past management, wood pasture and parkland has been made the subject of a priority Habitat Action Plan for wood pasture and parkland  where a range of measures to protect and enhance this precious and important habitat have been specified.

Visit Rassal Ashwood National Nature Reserve  , a historic wood pasture on a rare outcrop of limestone in Wester Ross. Rassal is one of Scotland's few natural ashwoods and the most northerly in Britain. The underlying limestone creates unusually fertile soils, which support many flowering plants. The woodland was once managed to provide feeding for grazing sheep and cattle, so many of the veteran trees show signs of pollarding or repeated harvesting.

Breathtaking examples of remarkable ancient parklands can be seen at Dalkeith Estate'sDalkeith Old Oakwood  , and Cadzow Oakwood at South Lanarkshire Council's Chatelherault Country Park  .

Extensive and actively managed ancient upland wood pasture can be visited at the Woodland Trust's estate at Glen Finglas  .