This guide deals mainly with management of the ancient semi-natural beech–ash woods of southern England and south-east Wales, but it also includes guidance on the yew woods which are sometimes associated with them.
Both are concentrated on base-rich soils: rendzinas and brown earth soils developed over chalk and limestones and other alkaline or mildly acid clays and loams. They occur in well-defined groups on the South Downs, North Downs, Chilterns, Cotswolds, lower Wye Valley and the Carboniferous limestones of South Wales. There are estimated to be 10,000–15,000 hectares of ancient semi-natural woodlands of this type.
