27th July 2023
Cumbria ATF Local Group: Field Trip to National Trust Sizergh Castle and Estate 13 May 2023
With the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, Cumbria’s first ATF event since pre-pandemic took place at National Trust Sizergh Estate in partnership with Cumbria Woodlands, led by Area Ranger Sam Sharples and ATF staple Luke Steer.
This event was a little different to normal, with two walks in one day, giving more people the opportunity to take part. Holding the visits on a Saturday, with morning and afternoon events. ATF visits are generally limited to 40 people, and with over 300 regional members, we felt we could include more people by running two shorter events in one day.
Both walks inspired a number of questions from the groups around Sizergh’s trees, and their management, and ancient and veteran trees in general. A question that came up on both walks and is definitely a favourite of anyone interested in this area, “what defines an ancient or veteran tree?”. Luke handled this question with ease and interest in both cases, explaining far more eloquently than I could, how all ancient trees are veterans but not all veterans are ancient.
Ash dieback was a common theme, coming up upon entering the Flash Bank parkland on both walks as we stopped at a hollow, veteran ash pollard. Knowledge and advice on the topic were shared from Luke Steer and Clare de Villanueva, with Sam talking about how the National Trust are managing their trees. Ultimately, there seemed to be a more positive attitude around the outlook for ash among the groups after this discussion.
Sam gave us a history of the estate and the management of its trees over time, showing us some magnificent veterans within the parkland, with various management histories. Most memorably, he and Luke then swore us all to secrecy before showing us a 2000-year-old yew nestled in a woodland, and discussed the haloing work that has been happening around it for the last decade.
There were plenty of questions, opinions, advice, and discussion around the future management of Sizergh’s veteran parkland trees, including succession, which started some very interesting discussion from Luke and members of the group about Franz Vera’s work, the history of livestock farming in Cumbria, and how we can manage natural regeneration in parkland and wood pasture through grazing regimes.
The agricultural management of the parkland and its trees, and how changes to government subsidies will affect this was an important discussion and Sam explained how they have a new farm tenant, who started just a week before our visit and their tenancy was awarded after talks around how their business plan would work towards the National Trust’s nature and climate targets.
The most common question of the day was “when is the next event?”, so we know there is appetite for more ATF Cumbria activity and have already begun planning more events for 2023 and 2024, and remembering my suncream next time is top of the list.
Graham Watson
cumbria@ancienttreeforum.org.uk
