As the title suggests, this is a manual, and it is intended to provide practical guidance for non-professionals who want to undertake woodland surveys. It is the product of the Woodland Heritage Champions Project – a collaboration between professionals, from a range of disciplines, and volunteers – and it was funded by The Heritage Lottery Fund, The Woodland Trust, The Forestry Commission and English Heritage, amongst others. The book is aimed specifically at enabling volunteer groups with little or no experience to undertake surveys of woodland and wooded landscapes. As an enabling tool for volunteers, it is mostly successful. Throughout, the book is well illustrated, though some of the photographs are a little small for illustrative purposes. In general, the text is clear, simple and set out well. The spiral binding allows ease of use, though the size and content of the manual is not suited for use in the field.

The manual is divided into six sections, including one on the nature of woodland heritage and others on how to carry out documentary research and field surveys. The section on field surveys covers both archaeology and ecology. The simple guide to documentary research provides a good introduction to historical methods. Whilst it introduces the reader to sources such as manorial records and Anglo-Saxon charters, its guide to using historical sources is limited to the use of maps. There is a good guide to relevant place-names, and an introduction to some less common woodland names, with an indication of some of the pitfalls in the use of place-names. The guide to field-survey techniques is limited to manual surveys only, but with a short section on using a GPS. The section on photographic survey is too brief, especially as this technique – in particular digital photography – is likely to be one of the main ways that untrained volunteers will record features. It could be improved by including, for example, the do’s and don’ts of digital enhancement and how to create a suitable photographic data-retrieval system.

The manual contains a series of templates for recording forms, and these should prove very useful for volunteer groups, as should the guidelines for writing a report and on developing conservation management plans. Indexing would have helped navigation around the manual, as a number of subjects are scattered across separate sections – for example, the relevance and use of ecological indicators is revisited at a number of points. In addition, the recording forms and their user guides are all placed in appendices, whereas they might have been more readily appreciated at the end of the relevant sections. Conversely, there is no total bibliography at the end of the book, though there is a list of useful books, contacts and websites. Each section has its own list of selected reading and references, in addition to the relevant appendix, and the reader must look through the whole manual to gain a full appreciation of the recommended sources. The manual is not meant to be read from beginning to end, however, but is intended for reference. To this end, the inside back cover has an easy guide answering specific questions and topics within the manual.

It is a book that all archaeological practitioners should consult for its information on biodiversity, woodland management practices and modern forestry conservation management. It is also a useful guide for non-archaeologists to use in ensuring that the historical value of woodland and its cultural heritage features are respected as part of woodland management practice. In general, the manual meets its aim of guiding volunteer groups to understand and record woodland and wooded landscapes, certainly at a basic level. It provides example descriptions of the type of archaeological features that can be found in woodland, but should, perhaps, be used in conjunction with other field guides to aid the inexperienced with recognition and interpretation.