Wood Pasture and Parkland (England)

Introduction This is a spatial dataset that describes the location and extent of Wood Pasture and Parkland habitat across England. Wood Pasture and Parkland is a Priority Habitat as listed in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) 2008. Wood pastures and parkland are the products of historic land management systems and designed landscapes and represent a vegetation structure rather than a particular plant community. Typically, this structure consists of large, open-grown or high forest trees (often pollards) at various densities, in a matrix of grazed grassland, heathland and/or woodland floras. Why is it important that Natural England publishes this data Wood Pasture and Parkland (England) is a priority habitat as identified in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) and listed as being of principal importance for the purposes of conserving or enhancing biodiversity under Section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) act. Wood-pasture and parkland are mosaic habitats valued for their trees, especially veteran and ancient trees and the plants and animals that they support. Specialised and varied habitats within woodpasture and parkland provide a home for a wide range of species, many of which occur only in these habitats, particularly insects, lichens and fungi which depend on dead and decaying wood. Lineage The Wood Pasture and Parkland Inventory (WPPI) was initially created in 2011 under contract by Exegesis as a provisional inventory. The inventory was established by collating exsisting datasets, drawing on specialist knowledge, refering old maps and aerial photography. This inventory included data from: OS county series maps (Epoch 1 1843 - 1893, Epoch 2 1891 - 1912, Epoch 3 1904 - 1939, Epoch 4 1919 - 1943) and first and second edition UK perspective Aerial Photographs dated 1999 to 2009. Modern OS maps were used to created polygon boundaries and these boundaries were mapped to the OS Master Map framework. This first inventory did not cover all England, subsequent inventories added missing counties e.g. Greater London by using the same techniques. Data was added to the inventory in subsequent years based on expert feedback and survey work. The inventory was updated in 2020 by collating data from the existing dataset, local record centers, local councils and other sources all verified by OS county series Epoch 1 - 4 maps and aerial photography. Parkland was defined as areas with a minimum of 3 trees, excluding boundary trees, which had less than 250 m between trees. Park extent was mapped to boundary features where park trees were less than 100 m from the boundary or the boundary included a large tree which was less than 250 m from a park tree. Some areas of woodland were included where possible park trees were present. Some open areas and wooded areas were not removed as the precise extent of parkland habitat was difficult to determine from aerial photography. Cemeteries and churchyards were excluded unless they were entirely within the park boundary. The minimum mappable unit for the inventory was 0.25ha. Metalled roads and rivers were excluded according to Natural England mapping rules, therefore some areas <0.25ha may be present if separated by a road. In 2025 the inventory was updated further by remapped all polygons to a new version of OSMM and by aligning the attributes to the Priority Habitats Inventory (PHI), which had also been updated since 2020. A series of datasets remapping Cumbria was added to the inventory to replace and update all the polygons Cumbria. Further data was added via submission to the PHI mailbox ([e-mail]) on consultation with NE habitat specialists. Attribution Column Heading Full Name Format Description ObjectID ObjectID geometry Geodatabase identifier Shape Shape geometry Spatial format identifier MainHabs Main Habitats Text Name of Habitat present HabCodes Habitat Codes Text Code representing main habitats present in the polygon FeatDesc Feature Description Text Additional information about the nature of the habitat or features present FeatCodes Feature Codes Text Code corresponding to the habitat feature descriptions OtherClass Other habitat classifications Text Additional Habitat classification information relating to main habitats AddHabs Additional habitats present Text List of codes for additional habitats present within the polygon PrimSource Primary data sources Text List of primary sources for main habitat present in polygon. With corresponding HabCode in brackets AreaHa Area in hectares Numeric Polygon area in hectares Version Publication version Text Date of publication for current update UID Unique ID Text Unique ID for the polygon based on XY location coordinates Shape_Length Shape_Length Numeric Polygon perimeter Shape_Area Shape_Area Numeric Polygon area Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.