Why it's good to cut down trees at Suffolk's Sutton Hoo

Endangered songbirds and wildflowers are reaping the benefits after traditional techniques to manage the woodland are being used to help tackle climate change. 

To mark National Tree Week, the National Trust, which looks after the 270-acre estate near Woodbridge, has released a new film highlighting how rangers are using traditional woodland management techniques to improve biodiversity and sustainability at the countryside site.  

Coppicing and thinning in the Sutton Hoo woodland. (Image: Darren Olley/National Trust)

Sutton Hoo is home to three main types of woodland – coppice, plantation and lowland mixed deciduous.

Since 2018, when the woodlands became part of National Trust land, rangers have reintroduced a number of traditional management techniques to improve the health of the woodland and increase biodiversity, while also reusing the felled timber across the site. 

Jonathan Plews, area ranger at Sutton Hoo, said: “The two main methods that we’re using to manage our woodlands are coppicing and thinning - traditional techniques that we've recently reintroduced. 

“Thinning is a process where we take roughly 30% of the trees out over a ten year period, which will increase regeneration and light levels and transition our plantation woodland into more native woodland.” 

Plantation woodland is usually grown as a crop to meet the demand for certain types of timber. This means it matures at the same time and has a uniform age, size and height, with very limited diversity.

Native woodland occurs more naturally and develops over time – often centuries - to offer a greater variety of species, ages, structure and light. 

Coppicing, which involves the repeated cutting back of a tree to its base to encourage new growth, is also being used across the estate. Once the trees are coppiced, they’re left to grow for up to 25 years, with no further intervention. 

Nightingales are now seen again in the Sutton Hoo woodland. (Image: Jonathan Plews/National Trust)

Bramble within scrub woodland is an important nesting habitat for nightingales, which are listed among the UK’s most threatened birds. Famous for their distinctive song, they have seen a population decline of 90 per cent in the past 50 years and now feature on the UK’s red list of conservation.

Four pairs were recorded at Sutton Hoo in 2024, which is an increase from when active woodland management began at the site.  

The timber produced as a result of this management is also being put to good use. 

The timber from the estate is used around the site or turned into gifts sold at the National Trust shop. (Image: National Trust)

The team at Sutton Hoo has invested in its own mill and now produces gates, fencing and signage for use on the estate, as well as benches for visitors to use and chopping boards and jewellery that can be bought from the gift shop.