Wood Pasture and Parkland

Wood pasture and parkland represent an iconic, historic land management system that blends forestry and agriculture by combining low-density, open-grown trees with livestock grazing or deer management on the same landscape.

This ancient silvopastoral system (a form of agroforestry) was historically widespread across medieval Europe, operating under complex common rights where land served the dual purpose of providing timber and animal pasture. Because the trees are grown far apart rather than in a closed forest canopy, they receive abundant, unrestricted sunlight from all sides. This allows them to develop massive, wide-spreading crowns and thick, heavy trunks, frequently growing into spectacular ancient and veteran specimens. The open canopy also allows a rich grassland or heathland understory to thrive below, creating a highly unique structural interface between open pasture and woodland edge habitats. This combination supports an extraordinary diversity of wildlife, particularly saproxylic beetles that require sun-warmed deadwood, rare epiphytic lichens that thrive on well-lit bark, and bats that utilise the hollow trunks for roosting while hunting insects over the surrounding open pasture.