Substantial funding is being made available to the Wildlife Trusts to embark on an ambitious new project to restore British rainforests. It is part of a wider programme of nature-based projects funded by Aviva to remove carbon from the atmosphere and should improve biodiversity and climate resilience by restoring wild places including British rainforests.
These have been destroyed over many hundreds of years for timber, farming, transport networks and development and are mainly recognised as covering less than one percent of Britain in areas such as Western Scotland, The Lake District and Western Wales.
You may ask what is the relevance of that to the Weald of Kent?
Well – the fact is that Wealden ghyll woodlands are associated with unique groups of plants that include nationally rare ferns, mosses and the like; several of which are only otherwise found in woodlands around the Atlantic coast.
Mosses are one of a group of plants known as bryophytes, which include liverworts and hornworts and the bryophyte communities of Wealden ghylls have been neglected in terms of scientific research.
Today, woodland is still the primary land cover within the Weald and much of this woodland occurs within stream valley systems known locally as ghyll woodlands and mainly found on the High Weald.
These ghyll woodlands occupy steep sided valleys and contain a stream that over thousands of years has cut through the underlying rock to create a “ravine”. These can be deep and in themselves a fairly remarkable geological feature in lowland England.
Because of their deep sides, they are generally inaccessible to livestock which has helped these features to remain relatively undisturbed and unmanaged.
The enclosed nature of the ghylls is believed to create a warm and moist microclimate and similar conditions are absent from the rest of eastern and central Britain, being found only in the Atlantic forests on the west coast.
At the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, the majority of the Weald was still covered in woodland and clearance for agriculture and human occupation did not really change the landscape until the 12th and 13th Centuries.
It is a general rule that the older the woodland, the more species it will support, and the more species supported the more important the site will be for nature conservation. The Wealden ghyll woodlands support a rich flora of woodland bryophytes and are particularly important for many oceanic species which are restricted in the south east of England to the ghyll woodlands that are hundreds of kilometres from other British populations.
The ghyll valleys also provide a suitable habitat for regionally rare plant species including the Hay Scented Buckler fern, an oceanic fern found in over one hundred ghyll woodlands throughout the Weald and one of the highest densities of this species anywhere in Europe.
Because of their steep sides, the ghyll valleys have remained under continuous woodland cover. They therefore qualify as ancient woodland (woodlands since 1600AD) and fragments may indeed be remnants of the original “wild wood”.
Inevitably now, climate change and associated rising temperature levels may impact certain species in the ghyll woodlands and to prevent their high biodiversity value being lost through neglect, research is needed towards understanding more about the factors that underpin the biodiversity of the Wealden ghylls.
The majority of Wealden ghylls have never been field surveyed. It would be interesting to begin to identify those ghylls which contain biologically important species or communities and then consider the future management that might best protect them from the effect of climate change.
Projects such as this are of interest to WKPS and a contribution to funding could be made available.
Wealden ghyll streams are numerous in the High Weald and also occur in the south western corner of the Low Weald. Studies as to the significance of these Wealden Ghylls are relatively few and far between and WKPS is taking the initiative in spreading the word about these fascinating features of our home area.
We would like you to let us know if you own land through which a ghyll runs or if you simply know local ghylls from walking and enjoying your local area.
The complex geology of the High Weald – which includes varied soils, gradient and aspect means that a wide range of trees and plants can grow in woodlands across the area and within a single wood. The “rise” of the High Weald was created about sixty-five million years ago when layers of sedimentary rock were lifted by earth movements which also created the Alps. Over the following twenty million years the Wealden Dome was eroded, revealing a varied geological structure including sandstones and clay. Erosion then left a terrain of ridges and valleys with deep sinuous ghylls draining into them.
Wherever you see a stream cutting steeply through a Wealden woodland, you are looking at a ghyll. Wooded, Wealden ghylls are of national and international environmental importance because of their unique mosses and liverworts, humid microclimate, and sandstone outcrops.
These magical streams and ravines support rare plants and in springtime, it is not unusual to find 50 to 70 separate plant species growing in these damp gullies.
A key feature in the Weald is not only the proportion of land that is wooded – but the way in which small woods are connected to one another by historic features such as ancient hedge banks, sunken lanes, shaws and our wooded ghylls. This connectivity creates an attractive patchwork landscape but also provides “wildlife corridors” which are vital to current efforts to promote conservation at scale.
So – we are asking you to focus on these special landscape features and we will be seeking to open your eyes to the limitless potential for you to enjoy, coexist and learn about this remarkable living legacy which is all around us.
Mike Bax, Chair – WKPS