Forests, Woodlands - Your responses

We had a great response from our readers on the post "Woodlands - Forests - What's the Difference?" Here is a selection of some of the replies we received, ranging from the factual to the poetic. Thanks to everybody who joined the conversation.

When you close your eyes and imagine a forest, what do you see? And how is that different from what you imagine as a woodland?

The forest is thick with trees and dark... the woodland has open spaces, is lighter and there are varying shades of colour and light throughout.

The forest in my imagination consists mainly of conifers which go on for miles and miles.  The woodland in my imagination is smaller and has glades and rides and small streams and lakes with people and wildlife benefiting from all these things.

It's interesting that I should see them this way as my role as a social forester... woodland management for me is mainly done by hand through sustainable methods such as coppicing - which leads to something similar to what I imagine to be a woodland.  However the word forester suggests I would work in something more like the forest from my imagination using machinery and chainsaws.
Kirsten Manley

For me, and this links back to my childhood living in Canada, I imagine deciduous forests when I imagine the word "forest". It reminds me of my childhood running in the woods, going on hikes, and spending time with my family. Whereas woodlands have always been something from a fairytale, specifically English fairy tales, that should have woodland creatures, Robin Hood's and the like. As a result, my idea of a woodland is purely fantasy and is for some reason always associated with a hidden grove or picturesque field on the edge of a walkable woodland as a setting. So for myself, the difference is reality versus fantasy.
Charlotte Black


In the Wyre Forest. Photo by Jo Dacombe

Common question, lots of different answers across space and time too...
The feeling at the meeting I was at the other day that woodlands are a British thing and forests are a continental and American thing...
Suzi Richer

The thoughts of wood and forest instantly conjure up our collective human awe and whispered reverence, of whatever is obscured in the world, both in nature and in spirit. The difference to me is that woods are small, local, friendly and familiar. The trees are well spaced and the undergrowth is deep as it scrambles around in dappled light. The woods woosh and creak and hoot and scuttle. The woods have a dawn chorus and a cacophonous roost. They shout in the Summer; “Come and climb my trees!”. They groan from their loaded lushness in August… “Come soon and relieve me of my heavy bounty. Prepare to kick leaves and collect conkers.” They shiver on the whitening air of Winter: “Tread softly now, we are sleeping.” And soon there are Snowdrops and Violets and Bluebells and last minute digging for stashed hoardes. “Oh…are we to start again? Splish splosh, then let’s get ON with it!

That Forest which jumps around enigmatically in our (usually so clear) minds’ eye, avoiding our direct glance and glamouring the view into its interior… That Forest is Dark. That forest invades your mind with stealthy fears of twisted boughs and sickened roots and shifting corners beyond your gaze. Gaze on…it will entrap your consciousness, remove your beliefs and replace them with something not of this world - that forest. Mostly, it is silent. The noise it makes cannot be heard with your pretty, clever, fleshy ear. But it speaks a roar that we all know. It screams; “If you value your teeth and your tongue, STAY AWAY FROM ME!” It places the notion firmly in your gut; “Do not play with me if you won’t forfeit your soul. DO NOT play near me even if you think you might want to be emptied and spat to the lurking Crows (who know to stay above and beside me, rather stalking the fields than even caw at This Forest.) Wise birds those Crows – See you follow their lead.” As through decaying stumps and rotting hapless wild things’ frozen jaws, IT chokes out, as it turns its ivy cloaked back; “Consider that your final warning.”
Clare Jackson
 

Woodland at Beacon Hill, Leicestershire. Photo by Andrew Postlethwaite

For me, woods are an area of land that is covered in trees. Some are managed to produce crops of wood and timber, others are wild or feral. As someone who enjoys being in the countryside and now makes a living riding mountain bikes, I spend a lot of time in woods and love being amongst trees. I find them restful but endlessly engaging places to be. There is always something new to experience and enjoy.

Forests mean two, very different, things to me. The first is “forest” which is legal term for a medieval crown hunting area. It was managed to encourage large game, particularly deer. In these areas there were particular laws about protecting the game for hunting and punishing (or at least raising revenue from) people who infringed upon the sole right of the crown to take game. Whilst the forests are no longer legal entities they often retain the personality of this former use. They often retain a feel of being “different” from place that were not forests.

“Forestry”, by contrast is an area where trees, usually conifers are managed as an arable crop to be harvested when mature or when the value of the crop is highest. This term appears to have come into Britain after the Second World War (though I stand ready to be corrected on that). They are often monocultural as befits an arable crop. As such, though they are often pleasant, they hold less of a joyous experience for me.
Andy Whincup

A forest might have only one species while a woodland will have several species.... What does Oliver Rackham say??
Dale Thomso

Good question. So we looked it up in The History of the Countryside by Oliver Rackham, 1986:

"Woods are land on which trees have arisen naturally. They are managed by the art of woodmanship to yield successive crops of produce in a perpetual succession. When cut down the trees replace themselves by natural regrowth."

"The word 'forest' has been much abused in its history. In this book I use it only in two distinct senses. A Forest (spelt with a capital F) is land on which the king (or some other magnate) has the right to keep deer. This is the original sense of the word: to the medievals a Forest was a place of deer, not a place of trees. If a Forest happened to be wooded it formed part of the wood-pasture tradition; but there were many woodless Forests...I also use forestry in the modern sense as the art of managing plantations. Historians of modern forestry often fall into the trap of assuming that it is the successor of the medieval Forest system, but the two have little in common but the name."

Interestingly, Rackham's definitions of woodlands, Forests and forestry all involve the interaction of humans with trees, and are not about trees being from a world of nature separate from us. I feel the idea of nature as "other" is a much more recent concept. Something we will discuss more in our project, no doubt.

In the next update:  An introduction to the first of Imagining Woodlands' collaborators, artist Jo Dacombe.

As ever, thanks for following.

This post was originally posted as a newsletter on 21 April 2017.