Woodland Management at the Wallington Estate

Event Summary

Wednesday 24^th April 2024, Wallington Estate  

The day provided a varied overview of woodland management at Wallington Estate facilitated by National Trust representatives Helen McDonald, Chris Johnson, Gary Flatman, Sylvia Herrick and Dan Bird.  

The event began with an introduction to Wallington. Wallington is one of the National Trust’s largest estates covering approximately 13,500 acres. The Estate incorporates 15 farms and nearly 800 acres of woodland including conifer plantations, mixed woodland, and mixed broad-leaved woodlands.  The audience was introduced to Wilder Wallington, a programme of activities aiming to deliver for nature and biodiversity, the wider landscape, visitors, and tenants/neighbours to the Estate. One of area of focus is helping the wider Wallington estate deliver for nature now and in the future. Wallington has several programmes which monitor the range of wildlife including red squirrels, native, white-clawed crayfish (smaller than non-native signal crayfish), pine martens, and (recently re-introduced) beavers and how these species impact and are impacted by changing land use and management, climate change, and creating species strongholds.  

Following introductions, the morning was spent in the West Wood close to the House. We were taken on a guided tour by Chris, Helen and Gary. Conversations were wide ranging including:  

• The woodlands as a visitor attraction and public space and how the management of the woodlands differ depending on the designation of the woodlands as part of the visitor experience including the different risk zoning and undertaking operations in this space.  
• How Wallington interacts with timber markets including external timber sales, stimulating ‘internal’ markets within the estate but also across other National Trust estates.
• The engagement of volunteer groups. Wallington benefits from an active volunteer network who, led by rangers, help to undertake a lot of the woodland operations and help meet the objectives of the management plan. Local groups (as well as those from further afield) visit Wallington and help with tree planting and other management activities. One example we observed was a restock site on an area heavily damaged by Storm Arwen. Local scouts and other groups helped with this planting.  
• The objective to plant 1 million trees by 2030 through woodland establishment, agroforestry, hedgerow planting and how this helps to meet the vision of Wilder Wallington to make wildlife habitats bigger, better, and more joined up. Introduce key species and expand their ranges. Ensure habitats are well connected allowing species to move freely across the Estate and beyond to important biodiversity hotspot.
• Woodland creation grants and funding  
• Tree shelters and alternatives to plastic tubes. Given Wallington's ambitions to plant (and establish) 1 million trees in a sustainable fashion, this is an important topic. Informal trials are underway with a range of new tree shelters which appear to offer a more sustainable solution, higher stocking densities without shelters, and wildlife management.
• Deer and squirrel management to help meet the objectives of the Estate and ensure sustainable population levels of deer to allow for natural regeneration as they move to a more continuous cover style of woodland management.  
• White-clawed crayfish arcs and river management including infrastructure and visitor engagement across the Estate and in the Visitor Centre.  
• Parkland trees and silvopasture to help conserve the historic designed landscape. By planting more trees now, this will allow the estate to maintain livestock shelter as well as the landscape look whilst allowing the original trees to transition and decline, providing benefits to biodiversity.  

Following a hearty lunch provided by the National Trust catering team, the event moved to the biomass boiler house. A biomass district heating scheme provides all heating and hot water on site serving the House, holiday cottages, offices and café. Two 130kW ETA boilers were installed by Northwoods host Reheat in 2016. The boilers are fuelled by locally sourced woodchip (partly sourced from the Wallington Estate) and enabled the removal of 12 oil boilers from the site. This topic provided an interesting stop to discuss the nuances of timber supply chains and markets and how the Estate objectives prioritised a change in the supply of the woodchip. It also provided a good opportunity to discuss the importance of managing and risk zoning trees in proximity to key infrastructure and public areas!

The final calling point of the day was a short drive away at Scots Gap where the event focus turned to woodland creation. The estate had an opportunity to bring a tenanted farm back in house and have developed an innovative approach to creating woodland that helps to meet the estate objectives. The woodland creation will prioritise nature whilst also looking to produce timber and food through agroforestry but also through fungi cultivation. The planting is forward thinking in its design and approach to ensure that the woodland is strongly established. The area is leased to a Forester who will establish the woodland and hand it back over to the estate at the end of the lease.  

Feedback from the day has been positive with attendees commenting on the value of the networking opportunities, insights gained from the National Trust representatives, and varied nature of the day.  

A big thank you to all the National Trust staff who supported and led the event and shared their knowledge with us. A big thank you also to Northwoods Innovator, WildTrack Pro, who were present throughout the day and shared their wildlife management expertise. Finally, thank you to all the attendees who contributed to discussions throughout the event.

‍

‍

Join Northwoods on a visit to the National Trust's Wallington Estate in Northumberland.

Wallington has nearly 800 acres of woodland including conifer plantations and mixed broad-leaved woodland and is home to red squirrels and otters as well as recently-reintroduced beavers.

Aimed at woodland owners, estate and land managers, this event will explore woodland and wildlife management on the estate and visit the biomass heating system and is sure to be an interesting day.

Agenda and guest speakers - to be released w/c 11th March.

As part of the funding requirements for this event, Northwoods will be taking photographs for future project promotion and case studies. If you are not happy for your image to be used please indicate this on the event booking form and inform Northwoods staff on the day.

If you have any questions please get in touch with us at northwoods@reheat.uk.com

‍

‍

‍

‍