Hooke Park is a 143-hectare mixed woodland in west Dorset containing plantations of evergreen conifer and deciduous broadleaf trees as well as areas of Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland, meaning this land has been covered with trees since at least 1600 CE. Evidence of a forest here dates back to the Domesday Book. The woodland currently contains large areas of beech, traditionally used for furniture-making in the UK, and Norway spruce, which is the leading structural and general-use timber in Europe. These species are accompanied by smaller quantities of oak and ash, as well as other deciduous trees such as alder, hazel, sweet chestnut and willow, alongside conifers including Sitka spruce, Corsican pine, sequoia, Douglas fir, larch and western red cedar. The woodland ecosystem at Hooke Park has long been home to a diverse range of plant life – rich communities of ground flora can be found in the shrub layer below the trees’ canopy; under remaining areas of coppice; on the sides of streams, rides and roads; and on ancient boundary banks and the fringes of clearings.

Hooke Park sits in a landscape notable for its varied geological features, from the fossil-rich cliffs of the nearby Jurassic Coast to the limestone and marble that is quarried from the Isles of Portland and Purbeck. The woodland itself lies in an area of landslips that occurred following the last ice age around 10,000 years ago. As a result, its underlying geology is mixed, comprising loose, fine greensand on top of layers of gault – a sandy clay – above an underlying layer of denser fuller’s earth clay. Where streams have formed gullies in the hillside at Hooke Park, these clay deposits have been exposed and can be collected for use in experimental building projects and material research.