Oxfordshire Woodland Group

In Tom Wessell's book Reading the Forested Landscape the author explains how the root plate of a fallen tree can create an impression in the landscape that both provides a signature of the age of the woodland together with creating a localised exposed mineral soil habitat that can provide a seed bed where tree and other plant seedlings might germinate.

Casting an eye over the woodland floor in an ancient woodland should reveal lots of mounds where trees have fallen. In the above picture apart from one tree blown down in the 1987 storm no other mounds are evident and so this woodland is clearly not ancient but more likely to be a planted up meadow or field.

Chilterns