The beautiful English countryside!

[Albion]

Here are some pictures form mapcrunch.com (based on streetview - that's why everyone features a road). They give a fairly good representation of what the typical countryside is like in different regions. I'll post more from other regions some other time

North

[Ultra]

Do you actually have any large forests in England? It's kind of depressing not being able to see a real forest on the countryside.

[Albion]

Do you actually have any large forests in England? It's kind of depressing not being able to see a real forest on the countryside.

Yes, there are forests. The large ones are usually in the national parks but there are small forests dotted around the country. Only around 10% of the country is forested though (similar to Denmark or Netherlands), but there are small woods here and there, often by rivers and streams. Clearance of the forests began in the Bronze Age and the coverage was around 30% by the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The agriculture is different here, much of the land is good for crops whilst the climate is usually mild enough to allow livestock to overwinter out in the fields. This is possibly a reason why the forested area isn't greater, forests are usually on thin soils or in deep valleys unsuitable for agriculture.
The forested area is increasing as coppicing becomes economical again (many woods were historically managed for wood - not slash and burn, coppiced and pollarded) and as some types of farming become unprofitable. If the weather keeps being as bad as it was last year then (cool, very wet and generally terrible) then the arable area will shrink by 1/3 and pasture of forests will become more prevalent.

Forests aren't our wilderness like they are in Sweden anyway, our wild areas are the moors. It's a different type of flora and fauna more akin to alpine or tundra areas.

[liamliam]

Do you actually have any large forests in England? It's kind of depressing not being able to see a real forest on the countryside.

Hi Mr ignorant, yes of course they have lots of forests and woodland all over England, even in places like London there are forests, like the Lea Valley forest.

some English forests:













Can I also ask why you feel it's necessary to have a Turkish flag being burnt in your signature? Bit extreme don't you think?

[Albion]

[Pepe Gonzalez]

surprising that england has so few forests... is it more natural or more because of human influence?

[Albion]

Coniferous forests bore the shit out of me, they're monocultures of trees and not a lot else (at least in the UK). The deciduous woodlands are usually full of shrubs and wildflowers and all sorts of flora under the trees, but the plantations of larch and lodgepole pine are usually quite dull, with nothing but darkness beneath them.
Stone pine is often planted along sandy areas and near the coast, it can look nice. Scots pine forms some nice stands in some areas too, although I see a lot of ageing ones planted as landscape specimens in the lowlands around 100 years ago or so that really look out of place. They don't spread in the lowlands, the only place where I see Scots Pine, Hawthorn and Rowan spread naturally are the hills.

As it happened, I went for a bit of a walk at lunch and took a few pictures in a woodland. I'll post a few in a bit.

[Graham]

They have some near the borders, but not like a proper forest you could get lost in.. Coniferous forests are boring I agree, too dark.

[liamliam]

surprising that england has so few forests... is it more natural or more because of human influence?

There are quite a lot of forests in England, even these large forests in London:

Epping forest:













Waltham Forest:

[Albion]

They have some near the borders, but not like a proper forest you could get lost in.. Coniferous forests are boring I agree, too dark.

You could for a few hours. Most of our woodlands are natural whereas many on the continent are planted monocultures of pines for timber. The reason why plantations are rarer in England is because pines grow too fast here (due to the usually mild winters, abundant rainfall and decent temperatures), this leads to poor quality, low-grade wood only fit for paper. What plantations do exist are in cooler areas with colder winters, this leads to slower growth. Beech and oak grow very well in England, but there isn't the same mass market for them as there is for cheap pine. This is essentially why the Baltic has historically been Britain's source of cheap timber.
A damp, windy climate also leads to trees that aren't straight, although crowding trees forces them to search for the light and grow straight (this is why coniferous plantations are ugly - they're very closely planted to make the trees grow straight, whilst this leads to a dead zone below the canopy).

Despite Scotland being more heavily forested than England, much more of its forested area is plantations. The dream of a Scots Pine forest covering much of the Highlands remains something of a pipedream whilst so many sheep and deer remain grazing there.