Chapter VII: The Trees of the Forest

After the end of the glacial period, the first of the trees to obtain firm lodgment in the soil would be the hardiest kinds, such as the birch, elder, aspen, and willow, together with the more sturdy shrubs, such as the holly, juniper, blackthorn, whitethorn, and gorse. As time advanced, the more gregarious kinds, such as the oak and hazel, so abundant among the fossil flora, would follow; whilst other trees, such as the beech, ash, hornbeam, and sycamore would gain foothold in their respective localities. Most of the other trees that have been for many centuries of common occurrence in this country, such as the English elm, sweet chestnut, lime, and poplar, were introduced during the Roman occupation.

Our earliest known forest laws paid great attention to the preservation of timber, more especially lest their destruction or the disturbance of the woods should be prejudicial to the king’s game. The forest law attributed to Canute states that anyone touching wood or underwood in a royal forest, without the licence of the forest ministers, was to be held guilty of a breach of the chase. Anyone cutting an oak or other tree that bore fruit for the deer was to pay 20_s._ to the king in addition.

Henry II., by the Assize of Woodstock, ordained that foresters were to be held responsible for the destruction of demesne woods. The sale of any of the king’s wood without warrant was prohibited.

In most forests, tenants, as well as privileged persons in the vicinity, had limited rights to housebote, haybote, and firebote, or to one or more of these privileges; that is to say, wood necessary for maintaining their houses, mending their hedges, and supplying their hearths and ovens with fuel. Thus, in addition to the claims of ordinary tenants, the abbot of Darley, the parson of Duffield, the parson of Mugginton, the heirs of Peter Nevill, the heirs of Cardell, the heirs of Bradburn, the heirs of Kniveton of Mercaston, the heirs of Bradshaw, and the heirs of four other families all claimed and used the liberty of having housebote, haybote, and firebote in Duffield Frith.

With regard to the question of the vert of the forest, sometimes called by the picturesque English term of “green hue,” it included all trees, whether bearing deer fruit (such as acorns and beech mast) or not, as well as underwood. That which grew in the demesne woods of the king was, according to Manwood, “special vert,” and the damaging of it was a greater offence than the interference with other vert in private woods within the forest; but of such distinctions the records of the local courts or eyres contain but little trace. In all cases, however, the penalties were more severe on those who dwelt outside the forest. Anyone using wagons to take timber out of demesne woods not only incurred a fine in proportion to the value of the timber, but, if the offence was repeated, also forfeited both wagon and team. Instances of this are cited in the account of Pickering forest.

In 1287, as stated subsequently in chapter xvi., the justices drew up special vert by-laws for Sherwood forest, which are of much interest and precision.

If the regarders reported that a wood in private hands had been wasted, the Crown had a right to take it into its own hands, provided the justices in eyre confirmed such presentment. There are various instances of the Crown seizing such woods in the forest of Essex during the reign of Edward I.; and in 1323 the prior of Bermondsey had his wood seized by the Crown on account of waste. Such woods were usually redeemed on payment of substantial penalties.

The connivance of forest officers in vert offences was frequently brought before eyres by the reports of the regarders, notably in the case of Pickering.

The oak, as might naturally be supposed, was the chief forest tree in every part of England, and its timber was the most valuable. The special grants of timber from royal forests that were so frequently made by our kings, from John to Edward III., almost invariably specify that the wood was oak. Such grants were largely made to religious houses, both for their conventual buildings and their churches; they were also made from time to time for the repairs or the erection of mills, bridges, castles, and manor houses. The trunks of these oaks were, for the most part, sent whole to the recipients, but occasionally the master forester had orders to supply so many rafters, joists, tie-beams, or other roof timber ready for use, and not infrequently shingles ready-trimmed for roofing, or trees suitable for such a purpose. The selection of the trees for timber purposes was usually left to the master forester or keeper; but in some cases, particularly where a river ran through a forest, it was suggested in the warrant that trees should be felled which were most convenient for carriage.

Gifts of dead trees for firewood were fairly common, particularly to the religious houses, whilst a great number of monasteries obtained chartered rights of sending carts into the forest on particular days or at special seasons to obtain fuel for their fires or ovens.

Oaks were also the usual trees assigned as a perquisite to the various officials at the time of holding an eyre; and they were also the “fee-trees” assigned yearly to certain forest ministers.

When the master forester of Duffield drew up his list of trees felled through divers orders of the Earl of Lancaster for the year 1313-14, they amounted to sixteen oaks (_quercus_) and six _robura_. The precise meaning of _robur_, and in what it differed from _quercus_, is by no means easy to ascertain. The two terms appear side by side in almost every old forest account throughout England. Mr. Turner gives an interesting dissertation on this (_Pleas of the Forest_, 147-8), wherein he cites many uses of the word robur; it is there considered that it is equivalent to a pollarded tree of oak or any other kind. A wider range of references, and particularly those of a later date than the thirteenth century, would, we think, qualify much that is there stated. Probably it may usually mean an oak which has been pollarded; but is it not possible that quercus and robur, at all events in some forest rolls, were the two indigenous varieties of oak, _sessiliflora_ and _pedunculata_? The old foresters could scarcely have failed to notice the difference of their appearance, and particularly the decided difference of texture in their timber. The word “roer,” as an English form of robur, occurs in the later forest accounts of Clarendon and other south of England forests, and it will therefore be adopted for subsequent use in these pages.

The sweet chestnut (_Castanea vesca_) has given rise to considerable and warm discussion as to its claim to be an indigenous tree. On the whole, the soundest opinion seems to be that it is of foreign importation at an early date. The oft cited supposed quotation from Fitzstephen, originated by Evelyn, alleging that there was in his days a great forest of chestnuts near to London, turns out to be an invention, for the chestnut is not even mentioned in the particular passage. The idea also, at one time so current and still confidently held by a few, that chestnut wood forms the roofs of many of our oldest churches and at Westminster Hall, proves on examination to be a fable. In all these cases the wood is in reality the close-grained oak of the sessiliflora variety.

There was, however, at least one place in England where chestnuts grew in abundance, and had attained considerable size as early as the twelfth century. This was in the forest of Dean. The tithe of chestnuts in that forest was granted by Henry II. to the abbey of Flaxley. This chestnut wood was evidently much prized and esteemed a great rarity. The old name for Flaxley, as mentioned in the foundation charter, was the valley of Castiard, a place-name probably derived from the presence of the chestnut trees. In the regard of the forest of Dean, taken in preparation for the eyre of 1280, it was presented that the wood of chestnuts had much deteriorated since the last eyre through the bad custody of Ralph Abbenhale, the forester-of-fee of the baily of Abbenhale. The regarders found there thirty-four stumps of chestnuts that had recently been felled, of which Robert de Clifford, the justice, had had two for making tables.

There is mention made in a New Forest account roll, _temp._ Ed. III., of a chestnut wood (_bosco de castaneariis_).

The lime, or linden tree (_Tilia Europæa_), is considered by some to be indigenous to England, whilst others regard it as an introduction of the Romans. It obtains occasional and interesting mention in forest proceedings and accounts. It was chiefly valued, as it is in some parts at the present day, for its inner bark, which was largely used for the making of mats and cordage.

This bark was termed bast or bass; hassocks covered with these bark strips, and fish mats are still often called basses. In Duffield Frith, where the limes were numerous and specially guarded, the regulations provided that “every keeper of wardes shall have a baste rope of them that bee layd to basting when the basting falls in their office, and all the wood that the basters cut the first day is the keepers, and the residue that is cut after in common to the king’s tenantes.” By another ordinance, the tenants were entitled to the small boughs of linte or lime trees blown down by the wind to the value of half a load, and also to “the linte in baisting time,” which was common to them after the first day.

Among the claims made by the tenants of Needwood forest was that of “hoar lynte.” This was the term used in other parts, as well as in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, for the white wood of the lime tree after the basters had stripped it of the inner bark.

In the time of Philip and Mary, the parker and sub-parker of Redlington park, in the Rutland-Leicester forest, were presented for felling three lime trees (“Le lyneray trees”) worth 6_s._ 8_d._ each.

The maple (_Acer campestre_) was known under the name of _arabilis_ in the earlier forest proceedings, where it is of fairly frequent occurrence; but towards the opening of the fourteenth century the English word maple, in such forms as “mappill,” “mapull,” and “mapeles,” begun to take its place, and occurs many times among the smaller trees or undergrowth in the sixteenth century.

The most interesting entry in the receipts for Colebrook ward, Duffield Frith, for the year 1313-14, is the large sum of £12 18_s._ 6_d._ from the sale of wood for making bowls (_bolas_). Common bowls were made of various woods, but the beautifully polished non-porous bowls of well-marked maple wood fetched a high price, and were often strengthened and adorned with bands and plates of silver. Suitable wood for the making of these “masers” was doubtless found in Colebrook ward. In the hedgerows of this part of old Duffield forest, and in the present parks and woods of Alderwasley, maple trees still grow to an unusual size.

MAPLE TREE, BOLDRE CHURCHYARD]

It is but rarely that the maple is found in England of any size. William Gilpin, the author of _Forest Scenery_, says of it: “The maple is an uncommon tree, though a common bush.” The finest maple tree in the kingdom is the one in Boldre churchyard (Plate XII.); it stands appropriately over Gilpin’s grave; he was rector of Boldre for twenty years, dying in 1804.

The beech is named with a fair amount of frequency in forest accounts; there were beech woods of some size in Windsor, Pickering, Northamptonshire, and Clarendon forests, and it is often named in Hampshire records. The Windsor records show that beech was used for shipbuilding purposes.

The birch, alder, crab-apple, hornbeam, ash, blackthorn, whitethorn, and holly occur from time to time. The hazel was common everywhere; in Pickering it was sufficiently abundant to make the nut geld, or payments for licence to gather nuts, an item of some importance in the forest accounts. The elm is of very rare and late occurrence.

The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. proved a severe blow to the woods in the forests. A large number of these woods, some in almost every forest, had belonged to the religious houses. No sooner had they passed to the Crown or into private hands than the greater part of them were cleared of timber. In 1543 an Act for the preservation of timber was passed, the preamble of which laid emphasis on its great decay and likelihood of scarcity, as well for building houses and ships as for firewood. It was enacted that in copse of underwood, felled at twenty-four years’ growth, there were to be left twelve standrells or store oaks on each acre, or in default of oaks, so many elm, ash, or beech, etc. When cut under fourteen years’ growth, the ground was to be enclosed or projected for four years. Wood cut from fourteen to twenty-four years of age was to be enclosed for six years. Cutting trees on waste or common lands was to be punished by forfeiting 6_s._ 8_d._ for each felled tree. This and other Acts of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. were extended and confirmed by the 13th of Elizabeth cap. 25. A later Elizabethan Act provided for the whipping of idle persons cutting or spoiling any wood, underwood, or standing trees, provided they could not pay the fine.

Certain Elizabethan forest surveys, such as those for Duffield Frith, give the fullest possible particulars as to forest timber and undergrowth, enumerating every tree.

A survey of the timber of the Lancaster forests taken in 1587 supplies much detailed information. Quernmore forest is described as having a circuit of six miles. In it was Easton wood of six acres, set with alder, hazel, and whitethorn of forty years’ growth, worth 10_s._ the acre, and also containing five score small sapling for timber trees, worth 5_s._ each. In another wood, called New Kent, were forty dotard oaks for firewood, worth 2_s._ each; and forty small saplings, worth 5_s._ each. Dickson Carr, “sundray besett with aller (alder) of an evil growth,” was to be got up and new planted. Details are also given of four other small woods within the park, and there were in addition 140 dotard oaks, worth 2_s._ each, standing about in different places.

Full particulars are also given of Quernmore forest, outside the park; the largest wood, Hollinhead, was four miles about, and contained 100 saplings, worth 6_s._ 8_d._ each; on Rowend Hill were 128 oaks, worth 7_s._ each; at Ashpotts were alder and hazel of twenty years’ growth, worth 4_s._ an acre; and on another hill 212 small saplings, at 5_s._ each, etc. This timber was reserved for the repair of Lancaster Castle, and of the tenants’ houses, when they had need, on the testimony of six sworn men, and of the fish garths and weirs on the waters of the Lune. From 1577 to 1587 eighty timber trees had been supplied for the repair of that castle at an average value of 6_s._ 8_d._ a tree. Three hundred and fifty trees had been used in that period for firebote and housebote of the tenants, eighty for fish garths and weirs, twenty for park gates and dogstakes, and forty dotard trees for fuel. A single fee-tree, in addition to 2_s._ worth of fuel wood, was also granted yearly to the auditor, receiver, surveyor, head steward, clerk of the court, woodward, and axe-bearer.

In Wyersdale, this survey shows that there were a good many ash and birch trees, as well as holly, alder, blackthorn, and whitethorn. The tenants were entitled to the wood they required for repairs on the testimony of six sworn men.

_Spyre_, or _spire_, is a word found in some of the later wood accounts; it denoted a young upstanding tree, and is still occasionally used by woodmen.

The term _blestro_, or _blettro_, occurs frequently in earlier attachment court rolls (_e.g._ Plate III.); it means a sapling, usually of oak. _Stubb_, or _stub_, in like records, appears to signify a dead or decaying pollarded tree, and not a mere stump.