Cropton Forest is an area of 3662 hectares of primarily coniferous woodland with some broadleaf coverage. It is situated approximately 9 km north of Pickering on the eastern fringe of the North York Moors National Park. The forest is a freehold property where planting began in the 1920’s but more significantly over the 1950’s and 1960’s and remains extensively coniferous in composition. Over the past 12 years the more notable changes are the reduction in area of larch and the increase of ‘open’ as an overall percentage. ‘Open’ is mainly split between 37.57 ha of permanent open space designated as SSSI/SPA/SAC at Hartoft Rigg and the remaining 310.73 ha is made up of successional open space associated with conservation and archaeological sites, habitat corridors and streamsides.

The long term vision for Cropton Forest is to develop a mosaic of habitats adjacent the moorland boundary

S1 and S2 border onto damp moorland and thsi is where tHe Small Pearls live

S3 has a forestry junction and appears to be the home of Wall  and  common Blue. 

on entering the forest  at S4 Silver -washed Fritillary are seen  along with low numbers of other widespread species 

More Wall are seen in S9