Frith Wood

The mature beech trees in the wood today are thought to have grown from seed planted after the Napoleonic Wars possibly from Belgium. Now after almost 200 years they're about as tall a beech trees can get. The weather today was awful and these beech were groaning and swaying in the wind.

Looking directly up into the canopy gives a sense of how tall the trees are. Their long straight trunks were once destined for ships masts but then steel and steam power came along and these trees, like many of the oak in the Forest of Dean, were never required for ship building and left to simply grow old.