Thetford Forest is England's largest lowland pine forest, covering 19,000 hectares – but it is not an ancient woodland.

It owes its origins to the First World War, when Britain had difficulty in meeting the wartime demand for timber.

To ensure the country would not find itself facing another shortage in times of war, the Forestry Act of 1919 created the Forestry Commission with responsibility to develop a new public forest estate to produce timber.

In Breckland, the first land to be bought was a small area near Swaffham in 1922, and by 1934 the Forestry Commission had acquired all the land which it still holds today.

Most of the area was initially planted with Scots Pine which grows well in the adverse soil and climate conditions, though now Corsican Pine is more dominant because it produces a higher volume of timber per acre and is more resistant to disease and pests.

In the 1930s, 'labour camps' were set up at West Tofts, Cranwich, Weeting and at High Lodge, where the forest's Visitor Centre now stands. The camps were run by ex-soldiers to house the unemployed whose dole money was only paid if they attended. The men worked in gangs, putting in forest infrastructure, often in isolated and rough conditions and with strict discipline.

During the Second World War the site became an army camp and, with most of the fit and able men called up to fight – just at the time when those first plantings needed thinning and pruning – teams of women were recruited who became known as Lumber Jills.

Until the 1980s, all the forestry work was done manually – but nowadays the process of thinning, stripping the lateral branches, felling, measuring and cutting is carried out with machinery. The wood is eventually used for fence posts, decking, telegraph poles, furniture and woodchip for paper and fuel.

Today, the Forestry Commission manages the forest by balancing the needs of timber production with those of wildlife, people and archaeology.

High Lodge, built in 1992, is the recreational hub for more than 400,000 visitors a year. The forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a European-designated Special Protection Area (SPA) for its biodiversity, and especially for its nesting nightjar and woodlark.

It is important for its archaeology too – 10,0000 years ago, Neolithic people were working with flints on the site, and Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds are increasingly being discovered as plantations are felled. The rabbit warrening industry dominated the medieval landscape – the warren banks and lodge sites can still be seen all over the Brecks and particularly in Thetford Forest.