The Queen's Green Canopy is a jewel in the Lake District's Crown

You may have seen in the media that as part of celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee that nation was being asked to ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’? Our trees and woodlands officer, Lucy Saunders explains why it was important for the Lake District National Park Authority to get involved in this ground-breaking initiative.

New planting

As part of this event we have planted a section of new woodland on our land at Storms Estate, Keswick consisting of almost 1,500 saplings and were delighted to receive confirmation from the Palace that this was being included in the nationwide planting project.

We planted around 1,500  mixed, native broadleaf with some pine thrown in for the red squirrels.

But we’ve also been involved with the Queen's Green Canopy in a different way.

The Queen was also asking people to nominate existing ancient trees and woodlands. This was so that she could select 70 of them to honour across the British Isles as a way to highlight the importance of these irreplaceable trees and woodlands and promote how to look after them.

Ancient Woodlands

After looking over our woodland portfolio it became quickly obvious that our network of 11 woodlands in the Rusland Valley ticked all the boxes required for nomination: they are classified as Ancient Semi Natural Woodland, contain a host of ancient and champion trees, has a rich cultural and heritage history such as charcoal making which has occurred in this valley since the 13^th century and has the special quality of being part of the Atlantic Rainforest, a rare and unique habitat which offers refuge for special wildlife which is little seen elsewhere in the country.

The good news is that our woodlands were selected!

The Rusland Valley (Glass Knott Wood in particular) is one of my favourite places to visit in the Lake District National Park. I’ve previously joked these woodlands are the “jewel in the crown” of our land holdings so the woodlands honoured by the Queen is very validating – they are now jewel in the royal crown.

This is the tallest Small Leaved Lime tree in Cumbria and the tallest of the pair measures at 35 metres in height. It's one of my favourites.

I hope you will join us in celebrating this achievement by paying a visit to this lesser visited part of the National Park.