Updated Boundaries of Ancient Woodland polygons covering England. This is the updated spatial dataset that describes the geographic extent and location of ancient woodland habitat in England (excluding the Isles of Scilly). Ancient Woodland features will be approved county-by-county for publication throughout the first year of production until the data product coverage extends across England.
This is the updated spatial dataset that describes the geographic extent and location of ancient woodland habitat in England (excluding the Isles of Scilly). Ancient woodland is land that has had a continuous woodland cover since at least 1600 AD. It includes Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland (ASNW), which retains a native tree and shrub cover, Plantation on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS) where the original tree cover has been felled and replaced by planting, often with conifers, or Ancient Wood Pasture (AWP) where the trees are managed in tandem with a long established tradition of grazing, characteristically with at least some veteran trees or shrubs. The Update Project is being submitted on a county by county basis, the final figures will be updated once each county is submitted.
Already published this is the update of this dataset, but it is uploaded as a new layer due to new designations. Ancient woodland is an irreplaceable resource of immense biodiversity and cultural importance. The AWI Update project will deliver an accurate inventory of the entirety of England’s ancient woodland resource, including those woods smaller than 2ha which are currently not mapped on the AWI. It will also ensure that the AWI is used and respected by planners, developers, land managers and all those who make and use spatial plans in England’s countryside.
The ancient woodland boundaries are digitised to OS MasterMap - assessed by licencing staff as suitable for OS Presumption to Publish process. However, the maps that Ancient Woodlands are based upon include the OS 1” First Edition maps, the OS 1:25 000 and the OS 1:50 000 maps. The boundaries cannot be taken as precise, especially where they are surrounded by woodland, and are only precisely comparable with other boundaries at the 1” map scale (1:63 360). The inventory identifies over 22,000 ancient woodland sites in England. Ancient woodland is identified using presence or absence of woods from old maps, information about the wood's name, shape, internal boundaries, location relative to other features, ground survey, and aerial photography. The information recorded about each wood and stored on the Inventory Database includes its grid reference, its area in hectares and how much is semi-natural or replanted. Prior to the digitisation of the boundaries, only paper maps depicting each ancient wood at 1:50 000 scale were available. The datasets consulted: OS MasterMap, OS First Edition Maps (Historic County Series Maps Epoch 1-4), Historic OS Drawings, Aerial Imagery, Original AWI Datasheets, Open Source old historical maps (varies depending on county agreements), BSBI Indicator species data, County Tithe Maps, Forestry Commission National Forest Inventory and Forest Condition Survey. Besides the isolated and modified woodland boundaries derived from OS MasterMap that have been identified Ancient Woodland, additional third party data is viewed for informative purposes only during the creation of the project layer. No data from any other of these third party sources is copied, transferred or viewable in the layer to be published. Attribution statement: © Natural England copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved.