Project will chart Greater Manchester’s trees

A unique project to record and preserve Greater Manchester’s tree heritage has secured investment
from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

The project, Greater Manchester’s Heritage Trees from Red Rose Forest will over the next four years, collect people’s stories, photographs and memories about their local trees, woodlands, orchards and hedgerows.

The aim is to build up an online record of the city’s tree heritage and the special part it plays in our society and culture.

Hilary Wood, Green Streets Manager at Red Rose Forest said:

Trees have played a crucial role in the history and heritage of the towns and cities of Greater Manchester. They form the backdrop to our lives and make urban areas nicer places to live and work and provide incalculable benefits to our health and wellbeing.
Just imagine a Greater Manchester without trees and you realise how critical they are. They have shaped our lives as individuals as well as our local history, culture and society.

Greater Manchester’s rich tree heritage can be found across built up areas of the conurbation as well as in more open areas of countryside, parks and green space.

The Ancient Woodland Inventory, which maps areas which have had continuous woodland cover for centuries, includes 179 sites in Greater Manchester covering 874 acres. And the Greater Manchester Tree Audit, which was carried out by Red Rose Forest, estimates that the conurbation is home to 10 million trees.