England’s Working Forests & Woodlands:

The Difference Between Coppiced and Pollarded Trees

Many of England’s surviving forests and woodlands have been heavily worked throughout historic times, as revealed by the way trees were cut.

Coppicing and pollarding are two techniques of woodland management, begun by Neolithic farmers, used throughout history, and now being revived through woodland conservation efforts.

Definition of Forest in England

A forest in England is not just a collection of trees. Historically, it was a Medieval legal term whose definition had nothing to do with the flora but everything to do with fauna! A Forest was a designated area for deer kept by the king or another lord of the manor for feasts and gifts. Moreover, it incorporated much more area than the deer’s habitat, including associated villages, grasslands, and infrastructure such as roads and ponds. Each designated Forest had its own special laws and an administrative body to uphold them.

The idea of designated Forests was apparently introduced by the Normans after 1066. The Domesday Book (1086) first records the existence of Forests, and in the early 13th century 143 were known, but the Magna Carta of 1216 forbade further Forest creation (Rackham 1986:131). A legal Forest may or may not have included woods (deer can inhabit moors, heath or marshes), and of course many woodlands existed outside legal Forests. Whether woods were within a Forest or not, commoners had rights to exploit them for firewood, for wood to make tools and artefacts, and to graze animals. Forest Law survives somewhat in New Forest, Epping Forest and the Forest of Dean, but serves the villagers rather than the Crown or landowners (Rackham 1986:146).

The Enclosure Act of 1777 spelled the end of many Forests, but the modern conservation movement did not start until the late 19th century in order to save Epping Forest from the depredations that nearly destroyed nearby Hainault forest in the 1850s (Rackham 1986:139). However, modern conservation efforts have had equivocal results (see the Hainault Forest website below).

Coppiced Woods

New branches of coppiced trees

Where commoners had rights to exploit woodlands — whether in a Forest or not — they often continued a practice known from Neolithic times: that of coppicing trees such as hazel, oak or alder in order to regularly harvest the regrowth every five to six years. Coppicing involves cutting a tree at or below ground and allowing new shoots to grow from the ‘stool’ (stump) for several years before harvesting branches of the desired circumference. Branches can be culled individually or all harvested at once. Coppicing has been revived in post-war Britain as a woodland management technique.

Coppicing, however, does not mix well with grazing animals, since new shoots are immediately eaten. One strategy to keep animals away from coppiced woods was to enclose the woods with a fence or rampart. When this happened in a legal Forest, it is called a compartmented Forest (Rackham 1980). Woods in which grazing was allowed are known as ‘wood-pasture’; Forests that entail wood-pastures are, by Rackham’s definition, uncompartmented Forests.

Wood-Pasture and Pollarding

To protect trees from grazing animals yet still exploit their wood through regular harvesting, the trees were ‘pollarded’. Instead of being cut near the ground like coppicing, the trees were cut between 2-5m off the ground, so new shoots grew above animal head-height. Epping Forest, an uncompartmented Forest east of London, has been exploited as ‘wood-pasture’, attested by the grand pollarded beech trees still standing there.

Two beech trees pollarded above head height

Pollarding is also known from Neolithic times through the discovery of wood rods used in trackways, but the first mention in historical documents dates from the early to mid-10th century (Rackham 1980:135). The designation of legal Forests did not disrupt this ancient practice but incorporated it into commoners’ rights. In Epping Forest, the wood-pasture system continued until 1860 and pollarding until 1878 on a twelve to thirteen year cycle (Rackham 1980:187, 323).

 

Where to See Pollarded and Coppiced Woods

The Epping Forest Act of 1878 succeeded Forest Law, and a charity The Friends of Epping Forest was formed in 1968 “to represent the varied interests of all sections of the public who appreciate and use Epping Forest,” as stated on the charity’s website. The Friends host many guided walks during the year, including an annual day-long walk the full length of the Forest in September to celebrate the 1878 Act. Loughton & District Historic Society also offers on-line information for six self-guided walks, based on the book by Chris and Caroline Pond, by which many pollarded beeches in the former wood-pasture can be seen in Epping Forest.

Modern coppicing is taking place in Northmoor Hill Nature Reserve adjacent to the Denham aerodrome in Berkshire, a short trip northwest of London [Ordnance Survey map location TQ 034 891]. Here ‘drawing’ is practiced — the culling of individual branches rather than the more usual custom of cutting all new shoots at once.

 

References:

Pond, Chris & Caroline (2002) Walks in Loughton’s Forest. Loughton: Loughton & District Historical Society. Reprinted in 2006.

Rackham, Oliver (1980) Ancient woodland: its history, vegetation and uses in England. London: Edward Arnold.

Rackham, Oliver (1986) A history of the countryside. London: Phoenix Press.

http://www.friendsofeppingforest.org.uk/

http://www.hainaultforest.co.uk/9Forest%20Destruction.htm

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Wooded Dales of Northeastern England:

Visiting Causey Arch near Newcastle

Tucked into a sea of fields, Causey Gill of County Durham houses the oaks of the ancient English uplands. A walk under Causey Arch reveals all.

The journey from London to Newcastle exposes England to be a truly agricultural country. In the north, woods can only be seen in the niches and ravines that form seams between the broad fields.

Agricultural scenery from London to Newcastle

Rolling out of King’s Cross London on the train, through the suburbs and golf courses of the North Downs, we see the sky open up around Peterborough with Constable clouds towering over the fens. The black earth of the former peat marshes, the fenlands, is the best vegetable gardening soil in Britain, but the landscape northwards continues to be overwhelmingly agricultural: a patchwork quilt of fields in a score of green colours whatever time of year. Where are the grand trees of the ancient English wildwoods? In the tiny dales of northeastern England survive the oaks and hazels of the English uplands.

Past York to Newcastle, sheep-studded hillsides and shadows of medieval ridge-and-furrow field systems stretch away from the tracks. In the east, the thin flat ridge of the North York Moors rises from the horizon, while dark clouds pile up on the Pennine Mountains, England’s backbone, to the west.

English histories of landscapes and woods

The deforestation of Britain began some 5500 years ago, in the Neolithic; by the early Iron Age, 2500 years ago, half of the land was agricultural, and by the time of the Domesday Book 900 years ago, woods covered only 15% of the land. The agricultural landscape so obvious to the traveller today has been the face of England for over a millennium. Stands of woods provided building timber and have commonly been coppiced and pollarded as well, forcing the trees to send out new shoots that were harvested for tool hafts, fencing and firewood. In the north, such woods survive in the tiny upstream valleys – so different from upland forest of the south.

Whereas valleys are ‘vales’ in the south, a word originating in Latin and coming into English through French, in the north, valleys are ‘dales’, originating in Anglo-Saxon and related to Dutch. Each of the major rivers draining the Pennines towards the North Sea has its own valley collectively known as the Pennine Dales: Wensleydale, Teesdale, Weardale.

Roddam Dene near
Wooler, Northumberland

Following the rivers upstream in the big dales, the country-side still wears its agricultural cloak, with more sheep and drystone walled field boundaries encroaching on the heather and moorlands that crown the high hills. Beautiful and breathtaking as they may be, these are not  the objective of our travel. To see the forests of northeastern England, head for the gills and denes!

‘Dene’ may have Anglo-Saxon roots as ‘dale’ does, but ‘gill’ is an Old Norse word (ghyll), reflecting the later Viking conquest of northeastern England. Denes and gills are best imagined as ravines or gorges: deep-sided, dark enclaves of native vegetation through which run not rivers or even streams but ‘burns’, another Anglo-Saxon gift to English. Most of these ravines are also criss-crossed by paths — natural routes along waterways — but some are developed as nature areas or local parks. Causey Gill is a case in point.

Causey Arch in Tynedale, 

an industrial archaeology bridge

Causey Arch in wooded
Causey Gill, County Durham

 South of Newcastle, Causey Burn runs north through Causey Gill, eventually flowing into the Tyne in — you guessed it — Tynedale! But what about the placename Causey? It comes from ‘causeway’, a stone bridge built to cross the gill in 1725-6 and now known as Causey Arch.

A marvel of engineering of its time, Causey Arch was built with Roman arch technology under the guidance of a leading northeastern stonemason, Ralph Wood, who took his life by jumping off the 80-foot-high structure before it was completed. For thirty years after its construction, Causey Arch had the distinction of being the longest single-span bridge (100 feet) in the world. It was used, however, for

Old coal wagon from Tanfield Colliery

barely ten years to haul coal out of Tanfield Colliery before the mine was closed down after an explosion and fire in 1740. First hosting double rail tracks for wooden carts pulled by horses (each loaded with 4 tonnes of coal), Causey Arch remains the world’s oldest surviving single-span railway bridge, though now disused.

Today, walking down the gill, one is surrounded by thick, lush foliage under a thin canopy of oaks, silver birch, hornbeam and sycamore maple. The burn has cut through layers of sandstone which line the gill as cliffs in places. A wren scuttles to a fence rail, while great tits and chiffchaffs twitter and buzz from above. A cuckoo calls in the distance. Below grow ferns and fragrant ramsons, betony and a variety of crane’s bill.

Sandstone cliff in Causey Gill

Though woodland areas have remained stable for centuries through careful resource management, many now are threatened by development and overgrazing. If, however, the woods were ever to reclaim British land, it would be a jungle.

–References

Anon. (1995) “Causey Arch picnic area & the Tanfield railway”. Pamphlet, Durham County Council Environment Department.

Rackham, Oliver (1986) The history of the countryside. London: JM Dent & Sons.

Watts, Kevin (2006) “British Forest landscapes: the legacy of woodland fragmentation”. Quarterly Journal of Forestry, May 2006:273-279. 

Floralocale (2005) “Restoring ghyll woods”