UK Nature and Environment

Are you busy? Stop what you’re doing and walk with me in my ancient woodland. I promise you it’ll do you good. The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”, a simple pleasure known to improve your health and wellbeing that is even prescribed by doctors as a form of medication. We can all reap the benefits of a walk among the trees here in the UK, as long as there are woods left to do it in.

Ancient woods (ones that have persisted since at least 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 1750 in Scotland) are an amazing feature of our landscape. They are the UK’s richest and most complex terrestrial habitat and home to threatened species such as red squirrels, stag beetles, Scottish wildcats and bats.

In my own small patch of woodland in the south of England, which I bought in 2022, I spend my time in wooded glades that have existed since Elizabeth I was on the throne. The history of the place is, of course, even longer.