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Wood, Trees and Axes, Dogs

Our woods has lots of trees, It’s a wood connected to a  larger woods. Hoddesdonpark Wood is a superb 62ha Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland located a few miles south of Hertford. It is part of the Broxbourne Woods National Nature Reserve (NNR), one of the largest and most northerly expanses of sessile oak / hornbeam woodland in Europe. Its structure and comparative rarity has given it European importance and has been designated a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), qualifying as sub-Atlantic and medio-European oak or oak- hornbeam forest of the Carpinion betuli (Oak-hornbeam forest). Hoddesdonpark Wood has a long and deep history. First mentioned in 1277, it was created by the Brassingburn family who owned much of Hoddesdon during the middle ages. In 1494 Thomas Brassingburn passed it on to William Say, his wife's brother before it became the property of the manor of Baas but remained in the property of the Cecil's who owned most of the woodland in the area. Much of the landscape however is older still, probably Roman or even Pre-Roman and shares its western boundary with one of the great Roman Roads, Ermine Street. There is also an ancient moated site designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) by English Heritage, dating back to around the 13th century. There are some surprisingly complete historical records available for Hoddesdonpark Wood. We know for instance that in 1595 a lease was offered which prescribed the  rotational felling of the woodland. The 'Underwood' was to be coppiced every ten years with sixteen of the best and fairest trees or saplings being maintained on every acre. This coppice-with-standards system was practised for many centuries with the underwood being offered to local villagers and the standard trees being used by the estate or sold to city timber merchants. There is evidence that local people would not only cut wood from their areas but also turn out their cattle to graze. Some of the retaining wood banks are still evident today and recent research suggests that some of these wood banks, especially those aligned N-S or E-W may well date back to the late Iron Age. The cutting rotations became more sporadic during the agricultural recession of the 1880's and had almost disappeared by the 1920's. We now own part of this woodland and are returning it back to it’s working state by coppicing it for materials to be used in buildings, for firewood and charcoal. We are now  part of these woods and it’s history. .