Phase 2

Phase 1 identified 2,617 woodland areas that had been continuously present since the First Edition Ordnance Survey maps were produced in the 1830s.

Woods present in 1830 cannot be assumed to be ancient. The 17^th and 18^th centuries were a time of massive landscape change in Northern Ireland. The Plantation of Ulster, beginning around 1600, and the decades following, saw both widespread woodland clearance and extensive new planting, often in different places, as large new estates were developed.

The task in Phase 2 was to distinguish ancient woods from long-established woods.

The need for archive research and field survey

It is not possible to trace the history of most woods back to 1600 or before using only old documents and maps.

Historical records are never comprehensive, and in Northern Ireland 17th and 18th century estate papers are not always easily available, due to the break-up of estates in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and a fire that swept through the Public Records Office in Dublin in the early 20^th century.

In some parts of the UK, physical features (e.g. boundary banks) and lists of species thought to be associated with ancient woodland have been determined by expert judgement for use as indicators of a site’s continuity.

In Northern Ireland, it was decided that both detailed archive research and field survey should be carried out to determine the antiquity of woods as follows:

• carry out field survey of all woods in the preliminary dataset

• determine the antiquity of as many sites as possible from archive evidence alone

• analyse field survey information associated with these woods to try and identify plants significantly associated with ancient woodland

• use the presence or absence of these species to ascribe antiquity to other sites where historical evidence was incomplete