British wildwood

British wildwood, or simply the wildwood, is the natural forested landscape that developed across much of prehistoric Britain after the Last Glacial Period. It existed for several millennia as the main climax community in Britain given the relatively warm and moist post-glacial climate and had not yet been destroyed or modified by human intervention. From the start of the Neolithic, the wildwood gradually gave way to grasslands (open plains and fields) as human populations grew and people began to significantly shape and exploit the land to their advantage.

The wildwood concept has been popularised in particular by ecologist and countryside historian Oliver Rackham in his various works

Most of the modern woodlands that remain in England are descended from the original wildwood, but are now maintained in a semi-natural state through management, rotational felling, and exploitation for products such as timber. Where these woodlands have remained ecologically continuous since at least 1600, they are known as ancient woodland. True wildwood is believed to no longer exist in the UK.

History and development of the wildwood

Beginnings

The history of British wildwood begins during the Holocene around 11,000 – 8,000 BC, at the end of the Weichselian glaciation. Although forests existed in Britain for millions of years, earlier forest communities were eradicated by glaciations during previous ice ages.

This last glacial retreat was followed by a period of prolonged climatic moderation, which eventually gave rise to forests in the form that is familiar to most people of Britain today. As the ice melted, the warming, postglacial climate favoured the growth of trees that had previously been restricted much further south in Europe. Eastern Britain was still connected to the European continent at this time, with dry land extending across the English Channel, Irish Sea, and North Sea.