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The Castle Howard estate includes over 800 hectares of woodland, including ancient woodland and a large number of veteran trees. They're very much part of the landscape, but it's still a commercial enterprise and most of the trees are planted as a crop. Looking after it all is the estate's Forestry Manager Nick Cooke.

"The primary aim of most of our woodland is to produce timber. But not all woodland is commercially exploited. Our management plan gives every part of the woodland an objective."

Those objectives vary and can range from simple timber production to a complicated mix of bio-diversity, long term retention, wet woodland or even natural reserve.

Here's Nick in front of the estate's largest oak

"We've got some very important ecological woodlands, and the management of these is that we don't go in. Sometimes intervention is necessary. We had some semi-natural ash woodland that had been invaded by sycamore, these had to be removed.

"Unmanaged woodlands tend to be worse for bio-diversity. There are lots of things that will actually destroy the feature we're trying to protect. More than 90% of the woodlands in the UK are man made. There's always been intervention."

That intervention has been taking place on the Castle Howard estate for over 300 years, so is Nick aware that he's continuing work started many generations ago?

"Forestry is the ultimate long term job. We're planting oak trees today for someone to benefit from commercially in 100 years time. You definitely get a feeling of stewardship and continuity."

"We do sometimes get complaints but these are crops. We crop them in a responsible and sustainable fashion, but at the end of the day it's the money that we get from timber sales that pays for the other work we do. The oak trees we cut down today were planted as an investment. We continue that work. It's about stewardship of the resources."

As well as overseeing planting and felling, Nick and his team catalogue and look after the estate's large number of veteran trees - defined as having passed the normal age for commercial felling.

"They're incredible ecological resources. The longer a tree's there, the more insects and fungi are able to colonise it. They're also a cultural and historical archive. I think they deserve the same protection we'd give ancient buildings.

"We have veteran oak trees in active commercial woodland. They add a tremendous richness to the woodland and we're able to have both side by side."

If you've ever visited Castle Howard, you'll have seen the oldest trees on the estate. They're in the car park and, at an estimated 500 years old, these veteran oaks predate the house itself by at least 200 years.

The ancient oaks in the car park demonstrate some of the biggest issues faced by the forestry team.

An ancient tree in the car park

"Here we have the public, with vehicles, and ancient trees. So there are significant health and safety concerns. We had an incident where one fell over on a calm morning. Fortunately the car park was empty. So we did some surgery to lower them and make them more stable. They've responded really well with lots of new growth."

It's easy to assume that woodland looks after itself, but spending a few hours with Nick Cooke shows how much work and planning is really needed, not to mention the hundreds of years of experience through many generations.

So next time you're taking a walk through a wood, take a look around you, and consider the work of people like Nick and his team.