Talk:Ancient woodland

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no move. No evidence presented that the subject is always "Ancient Woodland" as asserted. JPG-GR (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

"Ancient Woodland" is a formal designation, and so ought to have capital initials. I've corrected the text of the article, but the name of the article itself also needs to be changed. I therefore propose that it becomes "Ancient Woodland", with the caps. In the meantime, I've redirected a new page of that name here.--Richard New Forest 20:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I moved this page to Ancient Woodland on 29 October 2007 after no responses to the comment above. In February 2008 it was moved back to Ancient woodland without discussion, with a link in the edit summary to Naming_conventions. This states that second words in titles should have lower case initials, unless the term is normally capitalised in English.


 * As explained in my original comment above, the term Ancient Woodland is a formal designation which is indeed always capitalised in English. It should therefore be moved back again to Ancient Woodland.  I have made an entry in WP:Requested moves.  --Richard New Forest (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Four of the sources use ancient woodland, lower case; so where is the evidence for always capitalized? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It is a formal designation, like, for example, Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area for Conservation etc. Any source using it uncapitalised is incorrect, unless they are using it in verbal senses, which is not what this article is about.  It would be like saying "London transport", the "House of commons", or the "English channel" – it does not matter how many sources used those uncapitalised, they would still be wrong...  --Richard New Forest (talk) 15:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I presume you mean proper name; but you have yet to supply evidence for your position. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, proper name, always capitalised. Not really my position – it's universally known throughout British ecology, and the official position of the UK Government and government agencies.  It shouldn't be any trouble to find; I'll see what I can do. --Richard New Forest (talk) 18:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose: I don't agree that this term is normally capitalised, although it certainly is on occasion. There are sources which show it capitalised and others which do not. Therefore the status quo with the redirect is acceptable and should prevail. Naturenet | Talk 21:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose I can understand the nominator's argument, but it's not always formal designation. On a quick google search, I found that it was uncapitalised in the majority of cases. The only instances of capitalisation were the title of books ("Ancient Woodland: Its History"); a company; and countrysideinfo.com capitalises it in the title but uses lower case in the main text (something that occurs quite often). The government forestry website uses lower case. The Natural History Museum uses lower case. These are pretty reliable sources, and I don't think they would use the casing incorrectly. PeterSymonds | talk  04:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Decision not to capitalise
I did have further comments to make in respect of the preceding discussion, but will respect its (somewhat premature) closure and the decision to keep the title of the article uncapitalised.

There is no doubt that Ancient Woodland is a formal designation and that such designations are normally capitalised. However, I was unable to find good evidence that this convention is commonly followed in this particular case. Even bodies heavily involved in protecting Ancient Woodlands such as Natural England, the Woodland Trust and the Forestry Commission commonly use lower case initials, even when talking about the designation. I have therefore revised my opinion. I still consider that it is logical and better to capitalise, and that not doing so is incorrect. However, if the official bodies do not feel the need to do it, there is no great harm in Wikipedia following them. --Richard New Forest (talk) 19:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

PAWS and Ancient Replanted Woodland
Does anyone know if these are the same thing? Natural England shapefiles use ARW for what could well be the same as PAWS. (I've just added a mention of ARW to the article.) --Northernhenge (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it means "Planted Ancient Woodland Site". So it is a site with Ancient Replanted Woodland, nearly the same thing – a particular site, rather than a general concept.  Richard New Forest (talk)

PAWS is Plantation in ancient woodland site, its name is as it suggests, a plantation that is planted where previously there was ancient woodland, often that that has been felled for timber or possible plannted on a glade (or unfortnatly sometimes the woodland was clearfelled for the porpous of planting a plantation) (Pcwizme (talk) 20:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC))

Pre-1600
Does anyone know why 1600 and 1750 were chosen? I know the article says that tree-planting before this date was relatively uncommon, but why was this so? I'm making an educated guess that it's something to do with the British East India Company being founded in 1600 - presumably trees were planted in order to provide the ships required by this expanding international trade - but this is just a guess on my part. The article would, IMO, benefit from some explanation about why "planting of new woodland was uncommon" before these dates Dom Kaos (talk) 17:30, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've always understood that these dates are partly to do with record-keeping. No country-wide maps that reliably indicate all existing woodland can be found before those dates in each country. "In Scotland, ancient woodland sites are strictly those shown as semi-natural woodland on the “Roy” maps, (a 1750 military survey and the best source of historical map evidence), and as woodland on all subsequent maps. Woodland Trust document" It might also have something to do with inclosure: prior to inclosure the practice of clearing woodland was more common than planting it. Naturenet | Talk 08:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Naturenet's explanation: these are roughly the dates of the first reliable maps that show woodland. Inclosure is also relevant, because new woodland on unenclosed land would be browsed by livestock.  As I recall there is discussion of these points in the standard introduction for the county Ancient Woodland Inventories – I'll have a look at one when I get the chance.   Richard New Forest (talk) 09:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for taking the trouble to respond - you clearly have much more knowledge than I do on this subject, so I'll leave it in your capable hands! Now for my next question...

Ancient Woodland Indicators
Currently a red link - I'm not sure whether this is a page which has been deleted or whether it just hasn't been created yet, but perhaps the information on this page could be expanded (and include links Natural England's lists or similar) and then a redirect set up from Ancient Woodland Indicators to this page - does that sound a sensible suggestion? Dom Kaos (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Too many images
There are a lot of images on this page and not all of them are directly to do with ancient woodland. If you think they are, please caption them accordingly. Otherwise I'm going to go through it with a critical eye sooner or later.

At the moment I would keep: Naturenet | Talk 16:58, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Ancient woodland at Brading
 * A recently coppiced alder stool in Hampshire
 * Ancient pollarded beech tree


 * I agree. It could be argued that there's space for one of the flower images—to illustrate the species listed in that part of the text—though it would be preferable if an image could be found of an indicator species within an ancient woodland setting, rather than just a close-up. Similarly the image of the wattle being constructed could be kept as illustration of text within the History section, though again a more illustrative image would be preferable. But all the other close-up images of flowers should go. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

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Any objection if I globalize the article with a couple of sentences?
Per https://www.tuba.gov.tr/tr/yayinlar/suresiz-yayinlar/raporlar/ancient-woodlands-and-trees-a-guide-for-landscape-planners-and-forest-managers-1/the-ancient-woodland-concept-as-a-practical-conservation-tool-the-turkish-experience

The first sentence would need to be changed or pushed down - any suggestion for new first sentence?

Or should I edit old growth forest or indeed should the articles be merged or the lead of this excerpted there?

Chidgk1 (talk) 11:54, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * This article is at the moment specifically about the UK definition of ancient woodland, which is something fairly well defined and not particularly relevant to non-UK woodlands. Ancient woodland could be argued to include subsets of old-growth forest, but paradoxically can also include woodlands that have been very recently replanted. I do not think that it would be useful to internationalise this article or merge it with another; but quite possibly you could improve old growth forest. Naturenet | Talk 18:50, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * ok thanks will edit Old-growth forest Chidgk1 (talk) 18:56, 21 May 2023 (UTC)