HISTORICAL maps are helping to find and protect ancient trees in Dorset.
The evocative maps, showing details from towns, villages and countryside from 1843-1893, have been added to the Ancient Tree Hunt website run by the Woodland Trust.
One of Dorset's most remarkable old trees is the Waterman's oak, a mile south west of Wimborne, with a girth of 5.5 metres.
To show the history behind today's landscape, the Ancient Tree Hunt teamed up with Landmark Information Group, home of the UK's largest digital archive with nearly a million historical Ordnance Survey maps from the 1840s. The old maps are then overlaid with the current road network so woods, copses, parkland, buildings and streets that existed in the past can be located to help trace and record surviving ancient trees.
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