Native woodland

Native trees and woodland have often survived along streams and on valley sides of the central moorland dales, usually where farming the land was difficult or where woodland was protected and managed by man.

Oak, ash birch and rowan often thrive, with the shrubs such as hazel and hawthorn providing the understorey. The ground is carpeted in spring with bluebells, wild garlic, dog’s mercury and many other plants which grow according to the soil conditions and their own exacting requirements.

The alder often picks out the damper ground along the rivers and streams and most of the dales have their own distinctive landscape in which woodland plays a part out of all proportion to its area.

But the traditional management that safeguarded these woods in the past is less common nowadays and we need to look after them now if they are to survive into the future.

Larger broadleaf woods are rare but significant woods are still found in the lower parts of some valleys such as the Esk, or at Roxby and Mulgrave Woods near Sandsend.

Many broadleaf woods are ‘ancient woodlands’ and their value for biodiversity is immense because they are the last links with a long-gone, more natural landscape where man’s impact was less and nature held sway. Many plants and animals are found nowhere else, so these woods are irreplaceable.