Forget New England and head to the Forest of Dean to see spectacular autumn colours

Forget heading to New England to be wowed by autumnal colours - according to the experts The Forest of Dean and Wye Valley is expected to reach peak autumn colour between the last weekend of October and the first week of November and is set to be unmissable according to Visit Dean Wye’s Chief Leaf Peeper, the naturalist Ed Drewitt.

As the annual Leaf Peeping Hotline gets ready to take calls and with the 50-mile circular Leaf Peeping Drive already open, Drewitt says the record summer is the reason, and not in the way most people expected. Met Office provisional figures put summer 2026 as the UK's warmest since records began in 1884, with a mean temperature of 16.5C, and England had its driest July on record with 6.5mm of rain. The national worry was a "false autumn", with heat-stressed trees shedding early and little colour to follow.

In the Forest, the drought did the reverse. Trees in exposed spots dropped leaves in August, but the majority sat on deep roots in soils that hold water far longer than open farmland, and when the rain returned in late August and September they recovered.

"The trees perked up and made up for lost time by staying greener for longer," Drewitt said. "I've been surprised by how green the forest still is compared with 2024 and 2025. As the temperatures drop and the nights draw in, autumn will catch up, and the forest will turn from a palette of greens to a complete covering of orange and brown."

That fits the national picture. Forestry England reported on 13 October that colour is developing "at different speeds in different places" across its forests, with some already orange and red while others remain largely green. The Forest of Dean is one of the late ones.

Beech, birch and hazel are turning now, with beech already golden in autumn sunshine. Sweet chestnut, oak and larch follow as November begins, and Drewitt expects the whole forest to have turned by the middle of the month, storms permitting.

He has also asked visitors to adjust their expectations. The deep reds in autumn photographs from North America come from maples and other non-native species. The Forest's native beech, oak, birch and hazel turn yellow, orange and brown, and anyone hoping for New England will be best placed to visit Cyril Hart Arboretum, where planted maples supply some red.

His main warning is about timing. "Don't leave it too late. If you wait until late November, you may find many trees have lost their leaves. Once every tree has turned, a single windy night can bring the lot down. Visiting in early November guarantees a mix of greens, yellows, oranges and browns together."

For half-term week he recommends Soudley Ponds and Cannop Ponds in afternoon light, where oak, alder, birch, beech and larch reflect in the water, and Steam Mills Lake on a sunny morning. At peak he sends people to New Fancy View, a former colliery spoil heap looking across the Forest towards Cinderford, where the turning sweet chestnut and birch stand against Douglas fir and Norway spruce that stay green all year, and to Symonds Yat Rock above the River Wye.

The season has a second story on the ground. Beech trees are producing a bumper crop of nuts (beech mast) this autumn, following 2025’s exceptional acorn crop from the oak trees, the largest average recorded by the Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar project in 20 years. The beech nuts are providing a feast for grey squirrels, jays, chaffinches and hundreds of woodpigeons. The September rain has brought out fungi, wild boar have turned over the woodland floor looking for them and the fallow deer rut is under way.

Mark Terry-Lush, chair of Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tourism, said: “We call the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley the Leaf Peeping Capital of the UK, and this year the forest has backed us up. The hottest summer on record was supposed to cut autumn short. Instead our trees held on, and they’re about to turn all at once. Come at half-term to see it starting, or in the first week of November to see the whole thing.”

Visit Dean Wye's Leaf Peeping Hotline is 01594 837135, open 10am to 3pm, Monday to Saturday. Its 50-mile circular Leaf Peeping Drive links ten stops across the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley, among them the viewpoints at Symonds Yat Rock and The Kymin, the lakeside paths at Mallards Pike and the woodland at Puzzlewood. Three short leaf peeping walks are published alongside it at visitdeanwye.co.uk/seasonal-guides/autumn.