Where to see UK rainforest

A bright green fern sprawls across the floor of a UK rainforest, with moss-coated trees in the background

Coed Crafnant rainforest © Ben Porter

Where to see rainforest in the British Isles

Great places to see rainforest

The word rainforest may conjure images of tropical locations, but many people would be surprised to learn we have rainforests here in the British Isles. They're known as temperate rainforests, which grow in cooler climates from the UK to New Zealand, Chile to China. The UK's rainforests are vibrant green places, full of life. Lichens and mosses coat every surface, and the magnificent trees shelter the nests of declining birds like redstarts and pied flycatchers.

There is life everywhere you look, from ferns flowing across the forest floor to the verdant mosses clinging to the bark of gnarled and ancient trees.

A scene from the temperate rainforest in Wales, with mossy oaks rising from a sea of ferns

Temperate rainforest © Ben Porter

A shaft of sunlight filters through the canopy of a UK rainforest, lighting up a vibrant green patch of moss growing on a piece of dead wood

Deadwood and moss in a UK rainforest © Ben Porter

A stream flowing through a rocky gorge in a Scottish rainforest, surrounded by mosses, trees, and lichen-covered rocks

Temperate rainforest © Peter Cairns/2020VISION

A pale orange mushroom, with a short cap draped across a slender, curving stalk, pokes up from a carpet of lush green mosses in a UK rainforest

Moss and marasmius mushroom © Ben Porter

Pied flycatcher ©Richard Steel/2020VISION

Find a rainforest

Temperate rainforest once covered large swathes of the west of the British Isles, but over centuries it was cleared for timber, farmland, settlements and other developments. Now only fragments remain. Work is underway to restore our rainforests, expanding and creating more of this precious habitat. You can find temperate rainforest in...

Wales – in Ceredigion, Powys, and Gwynedd, including Coed Crafnant
Scotland – the Highlands and Argyll, including Ballachuan Hazelwood
England – in the Lake District and Dartmoor, including Marsland nature reserve
Northern Ireland – in the glacial valleys of Antrim including Glenarm and Straidkilly nature reserves

What to look for

Our rainforests are special places to visit at any time of year, thanks to the spectacular abundance of plants, lichens and fungi that grow on the trees. In spring they come alive with birdsong. As well as the familiar sounds of birds like chaffinches and blackbirds, you could be lucky enough to hear the cascading song of a wood warbler, or the short, varied verses of a redstart.