From the Forestry Commission:

Ancient Wood Restoration On Track

The Forestry Commission has unveiled a £76,000 grant to speed the restoration of 76 hectares ( 190 acres) of ancient woodland in Country Durham.

The money has been allocated to the Croxdale Estate on the outskirts of Durham City, where a long term scheme is underway to remove conifers to allow native species like oak and rowan to thrive. Much of the wood - owned by the Salvin family since the 15th century and located in a registered Historic Park and a Conservation Area  - is planted on steep terrain, which plunges down to the River Wear, making felling and extraction work extremely difficult. 

Richard Pow, Forestry Commission Grants and Regulations Manager, said: “We’ve backed this scheme to enable this valuable woodland to be gradually transformed so that it is once again dominated by native tree species. There are wonderful examples of ancient woods being restored in the North East, but it is a long term job requiring careful management."

Species to get a major boost from the work at Croxdale include locally declining birds like redstart and spotted flycatcher and ancient woodland flora such as bluebells and wood anemone. 

Woods are said to be ancient if they are marked on the earliest reliable maps, which date to the early 1600s. The North East has 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of such woodland, one third of which has been re-planted to varying degrees by non-native trees like pines, spruce and larch.