Glade
Our Mission

Reconnecting the UK with its wild green spaces

Thousands of woodlands, nature reserves, and parks are within walking distance of most UK homes — yet most people couldn't name one near them. Glade changes that.

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The problem

Nature is closer than you think — but harder to find than it should be

England has over 1.3 million hectares of woodland. Natural England estimates that around 3 million people in England lack meaningful access to green space — not because the space doesn't exist, but because finding the right spot is needlessly hard.

Fragmented open datasets, no unified discovery layer, and poor mobile tools leave the local ancient woodland, the reservoir trail, the dog-friendly forest invisible. We're building the layer that makes them findable.

1.3M+
hectares of woodland in England
National Forest Inventory
3M+
people without nearby green space access
Natural England
57%
of UK adults visit nature less than weekly
Natural England MENE
90%+
of locations Glade shows have no Google Maps entry
internal audit
Sunlight filtering through woodland trees
5 min
average walk to a Glade-listed green space from most UK town centres
We believe everyone deserves to find their forest — the quiet clearing, the ancient oak, the reservoir path at dawn.
The Glade mission
How we do it

Built on three principles

Open by default

Every boundary, trail, and facility comes from openly licensed public datasets — National Forest Inventory, Ordnance Survey, Natural England, OpenStreetMap. No proprietary lock-in. No walled gardens.

Intelligently surfaced

We don't just dump data on a map. Glade enriches each location with activities, facilities, photos, and nearby events — so you arrive knowing what to expect.

Free forever

No subscription, no account required. Public funding built these landscapes — open data should describe them. Access to nature information should be as free as access to nature itself.

By the numbers

Building the layer the UK's green spaces deserve

5,000+
Green spaces mapped
woodlands, parks, reserves, reservoirs
3,000+
km of trails
walking, cycling, horse-riding, MTB
15+
Open datasets
from Forestry Commission to OS
£0
Cost to use
no subscription, no account needed
Fern-covered woodland floor with dappled light
What's coming

Every visit starts with knowing where to go

We're building toward AI-generated location overviews, community trail condition reports, and seasonal access alerts — so every Glade page tells you not just that a place exists, but whether it's worth visiting on a wet Wednesday in November.

Trail conditionsSeasonal accessWildlife sightingsCommunity reports
Open data

Built on 15+ openly licensed public datasets

Every piece of information on Glade — from ancient woodland boundaries to cycle trail waypoints — comes from government datasets, national bodies, and the OpenStreetMap community under open licences.

This means the data is freely reusable and attributable. When open data improves, Glade improves — automatically.

View all data sources and licences
National Forest Inventory
Forestry Commission
OS Open Greenspace
Ordnance Survey
Ancient Woodland Inventory
Natural England
Open Access Land
Natural England
OpenStreetMap
OSM contributors
Forestry England Trails
Forestry England
OS Open Names
Ordnance Survey
Historic England
Scheduled monuments
OpenActive
Activity operators

All datasets used under OGL v3.0, ODbL, or Creative Commons licences.

What's next

The road ahead

Glade is live and growing. Here's what we're building.

Live

Location discovery

Search by postcode, browse by type, find accessible and dog-friendly spaces near you.

Live

Trails & paths overlay

Public rights of way, named routes, NCN cycling trails, and MTB routes on the map.

Live

Nearby events

Outdoor events and activities shown for each location and search area.

In progress

Bookable activities

Guided walks, cycling tours, and nature sessions via GetYourGuide and activity partners.

Planned

Seasonal access alerts

Ground-nesting bird closures, deer stalking seasons, winter flooding — automated alerts from land manager feeds.

Planned

Community trail reports

Short-form condition updates from visitors — muddy paths, fallen trees, accessible route changes.

A sunlit forest path stretching into the trees

The quiet clearing. The ancient oak. The reservoir at dawn.

Your forest is waiting

Enter your postcode and discover what's been hiding in plain sight all along.

Find your forest