THEY have quietly watched over our landscape for centuries observing the changes to the Gloucestershire countryside.

Many have been lost to progress and development but now a woodland conservation charity wants to protect the country's remaining Ancient Trees for future generations.

The Ancient Tree Hunt was launched six months ago by the Woodland Trust.

The Trust believes the UK has more Ancient Trees than any other country in Northern Europe, but their locations are unknown, so it is calling on members of the public to join the Ancient Tree Hunt, recording trees as they find them.

The Tortworth Court Estate is the home to one such tree, a Sweet Chestnut. The tree is famous for its huge twisted main trunk, which has re-rooted several times in the ground becoming trees in their own right.

Legend has it the Tortworth Sweet Chestnut, which has a girth of 11 metres, sprang from a nut planted in 800 AD and written records mentioning the tree go back to the 12th century during the reign of King John.

The tree itself has already been recognised by the Tree Council, when in 2002 as part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee it was classified as one of 50 Great British trees.

The Woodland Trust now wants to find other Ancient Tress to allow them the same protection.

So far more than 4,000 Ancient Trees have been recorded and verified including an Oak tree with a girth of seven metres near Haresfield. It is believed the tree is one of three remaining Oak trees planted after the death of Edward II in 1327 at Berkeley Castle. The trees indicate the route of his funeral cortège from Berkeley to Gloucester Cathedral.

To help in the hunt the Trust is using historical maps, which show details of towns, villages and countryside from 1843 to 1893, along with current road network so woods, copses, parkland, buildings and streets that existed in the past can be located.

Nikki Williams, project manager for the Ancient Tree Hunt, said: "These wonderful maps are helping us identify some of the best places to search for remaining ancient trees.

"People joining the Ancient Tree Hunt can step back in time to see former landscapes of parks, gardens and tree-lined avenues - all strong clues to follow up to find surviving ancient trees as well as a fascinating glimpse of local history.

"As the trees get older, they develop holes, nooks and crannies providing perfect homes for insects, bats and birds, including rare and threatened species, so groups of ancient trees are extremely important wildlife habitats.

"The old maps show us exactly where larger concentrations of trees once stood."

The Ancient Tree Hunt is a five-year project, led by the Woodland Trust in partnership with the Ancient Tree Forum and the Tree Register of the British Isles.

The hunt aims to record at least 100,000 surviving Ancient Trees throughout the UK by 2011.

To join the hunt visit, www.ancienttreehunt.org.uk Ancient trees; o Trees of interest biologically, aesthetically or culturally because of their great age.

o Trees in the ancient or third and final stage of their life.

o Trees that are the old relative to others of the same species.

The best way to determine a tree's age is to hug it. A hug is based on the finger tip to finger tip measurement of an adult.

The trees below might be ancient if they measured; Oak - three adult hugs Beech - two adult hugs Scots Pine- one adult hug Rowan - one adult hug Birch - a wrist hug Hawthorn - an elbow hug Cedar of Lebanon - two hugs