While driving through Northumberland today, it is easy to mistake Kielder Forest for the evergreen landscapes of Canada or Scandinavia. However, stretching across more than 60,000 hectares, it is home to towering conifers, rare birds of prey, red squirrels and restored peatlands. Interestingly, the Kielder Forest was not created as a wilderness; instead, in 1926, it began as a strategic timber reserve born of the lessons of the First World War. According to The Guardian, thousands of unemployed ex-servicemen were recruited to plant the first trees, thus laying the foundations for a forest that has evolved over the past century from a commercial timber plantation into one of the country’s most significant conservation landscapes.
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