The doomsday book makes it clear that by 1086, England was not very wooded. It had many hamlets, half tree covered, full of roads, fields and villages. Wood pastures were used with the seasonal pasturing of pigs. Place names were beginning to be used as woodland was now seen as valuable property, for timber, pasture and land. Woodland areas were now being managed much more intensively than ever before.
During the Medieval ages woodland was much more documented. Place names became well established and most are still with us today. Coppice cycles were usually from four to eight years. Timber was collected at irregular intervals, when needed.
By now woodland was giving land owners a higher return than from arable land. Boundaries were defined from banks and ditches, usually with a fence or hedge. This kept out trespassers and animals wanting to feed on new shoots. Most houses were constructed from timber, mainly wood, except for the poor houses. So these were in demand and carpenters used each trees’ individual shape ingeniously, to fit them together. Although many of the larger constructions were made from imported mature oaks, from hedgerows or pine from Norway.
These uses of woodland created a good economy and land owners only needed to maintain boundaries. This protected woodland from other land uses from 1350 until 1850.
Economic effects.
Woodland economy rose and fell throughout history, but usually the physical form of the woods matched the economic trends of decades before. Such as, when oak prices raised because of railway lines being constructed, coal could now be shipped easily to the countryside and towns, so timber was seen less as an energy producer or for heating. A short lived boom in agriculture in 1840 led to clearing of woodland followed by new secondary woodland growing back, but ancient woodland being destroyed.
The nineteenth century broke the link between woods and plantations. Failures in large scale plantations of conifers failed and damaged soils, leading to moorland being created, as in the south welsh mining valleys.
Many trees were felled for the world wars and coppicing declined. Non renewable energy sources were being used instead of wood and even paper was brought in from overseas.
Many woods were also being privatised and turned into upper class gamekeeping areas. People were not, therefore, apposed to its destruction.
But the biggest threat came from agriculture around the 1940’s. Many woods were cleared by this or damaged from replanting. This lead to the forestry commission taking some woodlands and turning them to moorland, ready for plantations, usually conifers.
This crude replanting destroys the trees and herbaceous plants of a wood by evergreen shade and heavy leaf litter. Over the past 30 years more ancient woodland has been destroyed than in 400 years previous.
Now
Now things have changed. Thanks to agricultural recession, woodland conservation and new attitudes to forestry many ancient woodlands are being preserved and allowed to re-grow.
Most woodland is on land that is bad for anything else except trees. Steep slopes, poor drainage high ground, plateaux, infertile sands wet clays. Many characteristics of ancient and medieval woodland can be seen today. Where they meet roads, trenches were dug, to deter highwaymen, with the wood bank back from the road. Ancient woods have a zigzag or sinuous outline, visible on maps. These lines were set out on the ground in the 1700’s, rather than in an office.
Coppice stools form some of the oldest trees in woodlands today, as well as a few hedge trees. Oaks may look artificially placed, as they were treated as timber by a woodsman.
Many modern plantations can be seen around the UK and are obvious. Straight edges, sometimes with enclosed areas, for grazing shelter. Artificial shapes and sizes and usually only of one or two species. Some of the modern replanted woodland also has these characteristics, along with straight hawthorn hedgerows as boundaries.
Ancient woods have distinctive floras, unlike more modern woodland, where these grow with more difficulty. Small leafed lime is evidence that a wood is ancient.
Some Wood pasture forests still survive today. These are evident from a straggling border, no trenches near the roads, pollarded trees at intermittent numbers in the forests. Mainly inhabited by deer in national parks, they can create a truly beautiful setting. Sheep, deer and pig grazing can also creative a feature of dense upper foliage and sparse lower leaves. It is also true that pollarded trees last longer, and so many ancient trees have this feature and a distinctive look.
Boundaries and Fields
Something of massive importance and a key distinctiveness in the English landscape are the hedges, boundaries, fields and patterns. They also have many uses and can come in many forms. Dry stone walls, ditches, hedges, fences, brick, concrete. They confine livestock, create landmarks, define property boundaries, rights of way, create sources of wood, timber, herbs, fruit and can provide shelter.
In Cornwall and Devon you get a distinctive feature often called ‘Devon hedges,’ which are composed of an earth and stone bank, covered with bushes and trees. Hedgerows are something seen all over the UK but vary in styles and plants. They are crafted and man made, but sometimes are produced naturally when new shoots are not grubbed out around old fences or ditches. Sometimes a feature known as ‘ghosts’ of woods leave there boundaries as hedges.
Traditional hedge management in England is of coppicing hedges as if they were wood. By bending stems over and securing them, they send up new vertical shoots, forming an impenetrable barrier. The process needs to be repeated every 20 years, otherwise large bowed trunks will form. Also if a regular management of pruning is not done the hedge will grow out and form into trees. These can be seen in England and America. It is a feature of a neglected hedge, that probably isn’t needed any more. The other extreme is of mechanical ‘whacking’ of the hedge, to prune it. This is very untidy and damages the hedge, reducing the life. This is seen a lot in England now, where farmers try to keep the traditional hedgerows with the minimum of effort.
Through History
Anglo-Saxon hedges existed, mostly, in wooded areas around the time when property of woodland became important. Field strip cultivation had already been introduced on a limited basis. The distribution of hedges and hedgeless areas, corresponds to the distinction between ancient and planned countryside today.
Open field farming was quite different than anything seen before. The arable land of a town was divided into many strips. These were aggregated into furlongs and fields. Crop rotations were then carried out in the field strips. Animals were left to graze in the weeds of all the fields after the harvest and cultivation of the fields was a collective process of the farmers. Hedges were few and did not from enclosed circuits. A distinctive feature was that they followed the curves of the land and jutted up against another succession of strips, at a different angle.
In the 1700 these methods grew out of fashion and field began to get enclosed, as well as parish boundaries. Medieval times saw the introduction of much more hedges and a clear distinction between ancient, open field and new farming techniques. By the late 1600’s the planting of quick growing horns as hedgerows enclosed open field patterns and the use of dry stone walls became more evident.
Hedges were now in demand for wood for fuel, and over the next century the need for field boundaries for legal reasons meant that many hedges and walls were drawn up and applied to the English landscape, creating square fields in a grid iron pattern.
An interesting feature was discovered in 1970 regarding the age of a hedge. Hooper’s rule states that the age of a hedge relates to the number of species found in a 30 yard section. Devon, medieval hedges have 5 or 6 and parliamentary hedges only have one or two. This could be from the initial growers, when in the past many species were used to ensure a good hedge. Or it could be from the age- that over the years a hedge pick up more speck through animal transportation of nuts. Anomalies occur further north and on harsh soils, where most varieties wont grow.
Characterising hedges and walls.
Since 1700 most hedges and walls run in straight lines. They are very easy to distinguish from medieval boundaries, which took into account landform and features. Some straight boundaries may have a section of curve or meander. This will have resulted from the rearranging of fields and re use of sections of the original hedge.
A hedge that cuts across a ridge and furrow (used in early open field farming) must have existed after that was in use, also hedges that follow a headland but leave no room for turning the plough. The structure of a hedge also holds clues. A post 1800 hedge can still have its original row of hawthorns intact and an ancient hedge still has coppice stools or pollard trees.
Here is a quick run down of hedge types and dates mainly for my reference (Using Hooper’s rule.). Two species hedgerows usually consist of hawthorn with ash, oak, briar or blackthorn.
Maple and dogwood may be the forth or fifth species of Tudor age.(1500).
Hazel and spindle, not good growers, are signatures of medieval age.
Hawthorn grows in nearly all non elm hedges, apart from the most ancient.
Walls are more difficult to age, but can be done by the patterns they form. For a more exact dating lichen density can be recorded, but acid rain and environment must be considered. Walls also contribute towards the character of an area by the stones unique colour, shape, method of building and maintenance. Devon has some rugged walls with lichen covered, granite ‘football boulders’. But gritstone walls in the peak district, are much neater, with flatter rock and clean of lichen, due to acidic conditions.
Other land
I’ll quickly give a brief mention to some aspects of other land such as heaths, fens, moorland, highways and rivers.
Heaths and grassland covers approximately 2 percent of the UK, but in small patches. It is a good example of semi-natural vegetation. Composed of many varieties of wild plants, yet they would have difficulty surviving without human interaction, such as mowing and grazing. Burning in some heaths and heather land rejuvenates them if done regularly, as they have a finite life span. They can create some beautiful areas, with meadows of stunning variety, as some near me, notably in the lizard, Cornwall.
Often these areas form in places too high, or dry for trees, or grazed too much.
Many of these grasslands formed around 1300’s, during a period of less intense agriculture, with land being set aside and turned into public pasture ground after the black death. Sheep grazed on these lands, which was important to the rising wool and cloth trade then.
After 1500 there came irrigated water meadows, which became fashionable in 1630’s. These had many uses for drainage and grazing increased, as well as crating nitrate and phosphate.
Yet the Agricultural Revolution worked against heathland, by allowing these soils to be cultivated by new techniques. Writers attacked heaths as dreary and useless, and this saw a decline in them. But legalities and harsh soils meant many were spared. Afforistation was also a big threat and the forestry commission destroyed much heathland thorough this in the 1900’s. Also a decline in rabbits through disease led to tree growth.
Many factors have seen the decline of heath and grassland. Now in a fragmented state, conservationists are trying to revive it with difficulty. Traditional methods seem most successful and many grasses now have few species.
Moorland can be inked to heaths, but usually grows on very wet ground, bogs and marshes. A wet climate presses and blackens plant remains, into a layer of peat. High rainfall also leaches out nutrients and encourages plants that grow on infertile soils, such as heather.
Moors are not easily colonised by trees. Peat expands over the years and creeps under the trees, stopping future generations. Over the years leaching due to rainfall, peat movements, felling, grazing and cultivation have speeded the conversion of some wildwood into moorland. Management of moorland over the years is not seen much, peat was used as fuel by some industry such as tin mines and casual burning is seen, but that does not destroy the moorland.
Now moorland, which have thrived in the past , are conserved under national parks. But some are still seen as expendable. The ‘wet-dessert’ idea of moorland is in some minds, and aforistation is their answer. This is seen as profitable and creates better habitats, but in reality it is very damaging and mass woodland of plantation pines are created, which look totally artificial and sometimes fail and die. Yet moorland is still seen as a retreat from the cities and should be protected. In my opinion it is a truly unique and beautiful landscape that is seen at its best in this country.
Conservation
The public conservation agencies employed, such as English Heritage, English Nature, and their Scots and Welsh counterparts still suffer from some lacking in government support, but things are better now for them, than they have been. The National Trust are also conservation experts in the UK, with particular attention to historical elements.
Conservation now seems to be over dependant on money. It is sometimes seen as the answer to all problems and this can have a damaging effect. Governments are also much more involved in conservation too, but these things are short term and when the governments change, the money goes and it can all be wasted.
Land uses have a big impact of conservation. When people learnt how to manage estates from their fathers things were okay, but now the industries are made of professional who move on, skills are not passed them on.
Management plans were implemented to try and share knowledge of following generations, but they were too bulky and not informative. They recorded success, but forgot about failures. Re planting of ancient woodlands, which had a damaging effect in the 1860’s was repeated again in the 1960’s. We didn’t learn.
Yet I also see a lot of public concern for moorland and our vanishing countryside. This is encouraging and I hope we don’t let our unique landscapes disappear, or get changes into a single, uninteresting landscape.
An Environmental history of Britain, by I.G. Simmons.
Pages: 202-209, 218-220, 234-236, 258-270, 291, 297-299, 323-325
The Illustrated history of the countryside, by Oliver Rackham.
Used for: Research for countryside processes and general history.
Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 16.
Pictures copied from pages 31 and 32.
Britain’s changing countryside, by Mary C Morris
Chapters 2 and 3
