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Woodland Management in Hampshire, 900 to 1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2011

ALAN ALBERY
ALAN ALBERY*
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Abstract

The coppice and underwood trades in north Hampshire lasted almost unchanged for over one thousand years, yet the conspicuously wooded landscape of today is no more than three hundred years old. The landscape is an outcome of the enclosure of the common fields and replacement of their temporary dead-hedges by permanent living hedges, together with a radical reorganisation of the methods by which both wood and timber were grown, managed and marketed. These processes abolished the old extensive, open landscape, comprised of coppices, underwood, timber and rough grazing: the land-use system now termed wood pasture. It created the closed landscape of intensively managed woodland that prospered between 1750 and 1870. Evidence is drawn from the records of Crown, church, college and lay estates, besides contemporary comment, interpreted in the light of experience in restoring and managing an area of wood pasture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , October 2011 , pp. 159 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

Notes

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29. Ibid, p. 34.

30. Gras, Crawley, p. 592; pp. 320–25 list underwood receipts under Lord's Income.

31. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E4/20.

32. Gras, Crawley, pp. 592, 588. Presuming the bushes at that time to be principally blackthorn, gorse, and juniper, which are extremely difficult to control even with the help of sheep, this is a good example of medieval pragmatism. The inhabitants have a free but controlled source of fuel, whilst the owner receives free labour to keep the scrub in check.

33. Ibid, pp. 597–622.

34. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E2/11 Indenture for Cowdrey's Copse, 1596; Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E8/2/46/12; Hackwood Estate 19M61/335 and -/342.

35. Mark Page, ed., Pipe Roll, 1301–02; and Pipe Roll 1409–10. The uses by individual manors are listed throughout.

36. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E13/2/64.

37. Hampshire Record Office: Hackwood 10M57/E1.

38. Close Rolls, 1237–1242, 24 Henry III 1240 (London, 1911), p. 216; Close Rolls, 1247–51, Henry III 1251 (London, 1927), p. 394; Close Rolls, 1256–58, 42 H III 1258 (London, 1932), p. 233; and 1259–61, 43 Henry III 1259 (London, 1934), p. 367, are representative of several entries for the period; Close Rolls, 1234–37, 19 Henry III (London, 1908), p. 95; Close Rolls, 1247–51, 35 Henry III 1251 (London, 1922), p. 409.

39. National Archives, E178/2049: Pamber Forest Survey 38 Elizabeth 1595–1596.

40. Monteath, Forester's Guide, p. 168.

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43. National Archives, E178/2049 Pamber Forest Survey 38 Elizabeth 1595–1596.

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52. McGowan, ed., The Jacobean Commissions, p. xiii.

53. Ibid, pp. 72–4.

54. Hampshire Record Office: The Third Report of the Commissioners appointed to Enquire into the State and Condition of the Woods and Forests and Land Revenues of the Crown, 11th December 1787, p. 87.

55. Hampshire Record Office: Sir Henry Whithed's Letter Book, Vol. I, 1601 – 614 (Winchester, 1976), p. 89; Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton Estate papers 19M61/1688; Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E6/105/11.

56. Godwin, Civil War, p. 346.

57. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E6/161.

58. Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton 19M61/1688, and -/360.

59. Wood, Michael, Domesday: A Search for the Roots of England (London, 1987), p. 109Google Scholar; Gras, Crawley, p. 231; Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton 19M61/231 and -/341.

60. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E8/2/25.

61. Sir Henry Whithed's Letter Book, p. 47.

62. Hampshire Record Office: B3364, Eric Lundquist, ed., Sir Richard Paulet's Diary (1610), pp. 141–45.

63. Munby, Julian, ed., Domesday Book (Chichester, 1982), p. 2.12Google Scholar.

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67. Richard, and Muir, Nina, Hedgerows: Their History and Wildlife (London, 1987), p. 28Google Scholar. Calculated from sixty-four cartloads used to make 99½ perches (547¼yards) at Farnham Castle in 1231.

68. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E61/167; Edward Lisle, Observations in Husbandry (Farnborough,1970), Volume II, p. 268.

69. Gras, Crawley, p. 588.

70. Wood, Domesday, p. 109.

71. Gras, Crawley, p. 243.

72. Hampshire Record Office: Beaurepaire Estate, 48M50/9 personal account book of Thomas Brocas April 1680-March 1681, 13th May 1680.

73. Mark Page, ed., Pipe Roll 1409–10, p. 80.

74. Malden, Walter J., Workman's Technical Instructor (London, 1895), p. 156Google Scholar.

75. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E13/3/74.

76. Gras, Crawley, pp. 167–77.

77. Hampstead Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E1/1/15. In 1635 Henwood covered 146 acres 3 rods 15 poles. In 2008 it covered 140·2 acres (Herriard Estate Map).

78. G. B. Grundy, ‘The Saxon Land Charters of Hampshire’, The Archaeological Journal, LXXXIV (1927), pp. 261–2: Stenton, Sir Frank, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1988), p.283Google Scholar. Anglo-Saxon Charter CS 625, used by Grundy, was written in 909 CE, and includes a description of Winchester Cathedral's Overton manor outlier that covered the southern areas of the contiguous modern parishes of Pamber, Tadley, and Baughurst that, after 1066, formed part of Pamber Forest. Stenton used CS 625 when concluding that this ‘wooded country’ of north Hampshire was ‘divided between a small number of large “folks” and used in accordance with their ancient customs’, i.e. wood pasture.

79. Maine, H. J. S., Ancient Law (London, 1861), p. 150Google Scholar.

80. Hampshire Record Office:16M79/2, Reverend William Bingley's General Notes arranged from Collections for the History of Hampshire, Vol. 2 1807–1813, Pamber Manor; 42M87/4 Case of ye Free Franchisers of ye Manor of Pamber, Inhurst, and Ham. Pamber manor was a legal fiction created by the Franchisers in pursuance of their individual claims of land and rights within Pamber Forest.

81. Great Pipe Roll, Henry III 1241–42, (Yale, 1918), p. 272, lists purprestures (land enclosed and built on) in Pamber Forest in the early thirteenth century, adding to the large 909 CE enclosure made by Winchester Cathedral. The acreage is calculated by subtracting the 1500 acres of land cited in the 1611 survey of the Forest from the 2000 acres of the thirteenth century parish. In fact, Pamber was extra-parochial, because it had no church, no manor, and no common fields. See P. Hase, ‘The Development of the Parish in Hampshire’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, 1975), p. 321.

82. Loades, David, The Life and Career of William Paulet (c.1475–1572): Lord Treasurer and First Marquis of Winchester (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 36, 184Google Scholar.

83. Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby E53–58, Grant made 22nd May 12 James I, and Pamber inhabitants’ Petition to the Privy Council 1616.

84. Ibid., Survey of Pamber 1652. Calculated by subtracting this acreage from the 1611 acreage.

85. Thompson, E. P., Customs in Common (London, 1991), p. 110Google Scholar. See also n. 5 above.

86. Hampshire Record Office: Oakley Estate Title Deeds 1707 (312M87/T1/9) and 1835 (T63); Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby E131, Wither Bramstone's claim, as Lord of the manor of Wyford [sic], to the soil of commons and waste lands within the Tything of Pamber. Wyeford was an independent manor formed by the Normans out of land at Pamber and Tadley taken from the original Overton outlier.

87. Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby T102 Map of Pamber Forest 1720; HRO: Q23/1/2 Pamber Enclosure Award in Book of enrolments at Sessions Easter 1814-Midsummer 1830.

88. Thompson, E. P., Whigs and Hunters: The Origins of the Black Act (London, 1975), pp. 102,108Google Scholar.

89. See note 5 above.

90. Hampshire Record Office: Q23/1/2 Pamber Enclosure Award. Although the Award ratified the unofficial enclosure of 1720, its main purpose was to extinguish the commoners’ rights. Frame Green was so named after the ‘frames’ or patterns that were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to pre-shape the knees before their transport to London.

91. Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby E53, Case – with Mr Wilbraham's Opinion 1763; E58, Account of Coppices at Pamber 1758–1815.

92. Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton 19M61/1482; Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E11/101.

93. Reverend Wilkinson, John, The Farming of Hampshire, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 22:2 (London, 1861), p. 308Google Scholar.

94. Cobbett, William, Rural Rides (Aylesbury, 1983), p. 65Google Scholar. The conifers were initially used for hop poles but increasingly by the nineteenth century for pit props.

95. Baker, Denis, Agricultural Prices, Production and Marketing, with special reference to the Hop Industry: North-east Kent, 1680–1760 (London, 1985), p.473Google Scholar; Worlidge, Systema Agriculturæ, p. 133.

96. Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby T115 Deeds relating to a field in Pamber 1713–1782.

97. Baker, Agricultural Prices, pp. 493, 503.

98. Ibid, p. 605; Edlin, H. L., Woodland Crafts in Britain (London, 1949), p. 49Google Scholar, gives over 2000 poles per acre of hops; Richard Filmer, Hops and Hop Picking (Shire Publications Ltd, 1992 reprint), p. 23, gives 4000 poles per acre.

99. Baker, Agricultural Prices, pp. 493, 503. Baker's only figure is three loads (thirty nine hundredweight) to dry ten and three quarter acres of hops in 1749; Armstrong, Lyn, Woodcolliers and Charcoal Burning (Horsham, 1978), p. 74Google Scholar, gives a load as thirty sacks containing three bushels each. This computes to thirteen hundredweight to a load. It takes five to seven hundredweight of wood to produce one hundredweight of charcoal.

100. C. D. Begley, Growth and yield of Sweet Chestnut Coppice, Forestry Commission Forest record No. 30, gives 421 to 810 stools per acre; Rackham, Oliver, Ancient Woodland, (London, 1980), p. 334Google Scholar, gives seven poles to a stool at eighteen years.

101. Close Rolls, 36 Henry III 1252 (London, 1927), p. 56.

102. Joseph Cullom's Wood Book, 23rd March, 1863. Unpublished. Privately held by the author.

103. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69E14/56.

104. Money, Walter, A Royal Purveyance (Newbury, 1891), pp. 55–111Google Scholar; National Archives, E178/2049 Pamber Forest Survey 38 Elizabeth 1595–1596. Entries throughout the twelfth century Pipe Rolls, in the form xs [ten shillings] de firma de Penberga (Pamber), could be an oblique reference to the Crown leasing the Pamber coppices to a local buyer, hence their ‘well preserved and kept’ condition over time, in contrast to the lack of any coherent Crown policy of management of the timber on the plains.

105. Camden, Brittania, description of Hampshire, 1610 translation, p. 272, www.geog.port.ac.uk; National Archives, E178/2049: Pamber Forest Survey.

106. Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton 19M61/338; six and a half tons brought overland from Reading to Sydmonton House in 1692.

107. National Archives, E178/2049, Pamber Forest Survey; HRO: Herriard

4M69/E11/97; Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/E4/20; Messrs Bulbeck and Godwin accounts 28M64.

108. Hampshire Record Office: Herriard 44M69/G/3/426.

109. Berkshire Record Office: D/Eby E53, Case – with Mr Wilbraham's Opinion 1763; D/Eby E58, Account of Coppices at Pamber 1758–1815.

110. Herriard Estate Wood Book 1776–1903. This is held by the Estate office. Seen by kind permission of the owner, Mr J. T. L. Jervoise.

111. HRO: The Vyne 31M57/602 and -/604.

112. J. D. Young, An Economic History of Woodlands in Southern England, p. 45.

113. Hampshire Record Office: Sydmonton 19M61/1320; Thomas, Keith, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (London, 1983), p. 200Google Scholar. I am grateful to Professor E. L. Jones for this reference.

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115. Faye, Deirdre Le, ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford, 1995), p. 193Google Scholar.