History
Ancient woods were very valuable properties for their owners, as a source of wood fuel, timber (estovers and loppage) and forage for pigs (pannage). Hazel was grown for coppicing, the branches being used for wattle and daub in buildings, for example. Such old coppice stumps are easily recognised for their current overgrown state, now that the practice has largely disappeared. Ancient woods were frequently Royal Parks and hunting grounds and given special protection against poachers, for example. The forest law was very strictly enforced, although various ancient rights to collect firewood are still extant. In English law, it was illegal to assart any part of a royal forest. This was the greatest trespass that could be committed in a forest, being more than a waste: for whereas waste of the forest involves felling trees, they can grow again; assarting involves completely rooting up all trees — the total removal of the forested area. Ancient woods were well-defined, often being surrounded by a bank and ditch, so that they could be easily recognised. Such indicators can still be seen in many ancient woodlands. Many ancient woods are described in the Domesday Book, as well as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, such was their value to early communities.
Read more about this topic: Ancient Woodland
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)