The Woodland Trust's founder was retired farmer and agricultural machinery producer, Kenneth Watkins. Concerned about the rapidly disappearing small broadleaved woods, spinneys and copses which had been plundered during the 2nd World War or planted with softwoods, he started the Trust with the assistance of three friends in 1972 and built up the Trust’s membership with his wife, Mary, from their farm in Devon.
The first woods the Trust acquired were in the Avon Valley in the south-west of England and soon the Trust owned over 40 hectares (100 acres) there. However, Kenneth always had plans to expand the Trust outside the South West region. By 1977, the Trust’s landholdings had increased to over 22 woods, within six different counties. And, by 1978, the Trust had announced its intention to operate UK-wide. At the same time it took on its first full-time employee, John James, as development director. In 1981 the Trust’s headquarters moved from Kenneth’s kitchen to a new office in Grantham, near where John lived.