The Wood for the Trees

by Richard Fortey

  The old road below our wood was turnpiked in 1736, but followed the traditional route, which can still be walked today; beyond Bix it traces the valley bottom towards Nettlebed, and becomes very boggy very quickly in wet weather—four-wheel-drive vehicles from local farms struggle along it. I cannot imagine that the route was greatly improved when the tollhouse was set up in 1772. The new roads were far from popular. As Cecil Roberts describes it: “Disturbances and protest meetings broke out all over the country against the extortions of the Turnpike Trusts. Soldiers had to be called out. Two men were hanged at Worcester, and one, after being hanged at Tyburn, threw back the coffin lid as it was being screwed down.”12

  Late-eighteenth-century tollhouse at Bix.

  Only the wealthy could afford to travel long distances. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a brand-new, straight road from the Fair Mile to Bix was cut along the same line the main road follows today, leaving the old road up the hill to dream in its ancient holloway. Later, another new, direct road was cleared through the woods to Nettlebed. Road surfaces of crushed chalk were hardly adequate, and were replaced by firmer gravels; drainage was improved, so that washouts became less frequent. Secure roads with better oversight meant that highwaymen could be pursued more effectively and brought before the justices of the peace. This has been attributed to the pursuit of offenders by “the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds [which] was not the sinecure that it is today.”13 This particular Crown office dates from medieval times, but is now awarded to Members of Parliament who wish to resign, as a ruse to allow them to leave public service—the law makes it impossible to hold two Crown appointments at the same time. The House of Commons Information Office tells us that the seventeenth century was already “a hundred years after any records of [the Stewards’] administration cease.” So it is likely that the demise of the highwayman was more a matter of local vigilance and better roads. By the nineteenth century there were still poachers in our woods, but the pistol-toting rogues who had haunted the route across the Chiltern Hills had vanished forever. The regular clatter of the hooves of horses pulling post chaises would now carry up the valley sides to mix with the soughing of the branches in the wind and the cawing of surprised crows up among the lichens.

  Lichens

  No space available for life is wasted. A high wind has been through the wood overnight, and has brought down twigs from the highest boughs of the trees. All the twigs are decorated. I have only to pick them up from the ground, for the wind has done my sampling for me. Some carry bright-green patches, and others greyish, crimped crusts resembling frayed paper. One piece of ash is covered with golden-yellow wrinkled decoration: a series of discs fixed like imperfectly finished appliqué, rougher and more orange-hued in the centre of the highly irregular patches. A cherry twig carries what looks much like bunches of seaweed that have dried a little after the tide has gone out.

  All this natural bunting is lichen, which likes to grow in the wetter, winter half of the year. More than a dozen kinds grace the wood, and when they are dry they are readily added to the collection. Leafy-looking lichens live on the higher branches near Grim’s Dyke, although I have found them on low shrubs along the track into the wood where there is more light, and particularly on elderberry, which they seem to love. They apparently feed on thin air, because there is no soil for them on twigs, nor do they steal anything from their hosts, other than a place to sit. They dine on dust, and drink rainwater. Lichens are a close collaboration between a fungus and a photosynthesising partner—usually an alga or blue-green bacterium (sometimes both)—so they provide another example of symbiosis. It is a strange thought that such cooperative behaviour is so important at both ends of the tree: in the roots as mycorrhiza, and up aloft in lichen-decked branches. Lichens dress the bare twigs, dappling here, frilling there. The algal partner steals its nourishment from the sun, and the fungal threads that wind between and around the plant cells provide other nutrients. It is hardly surprising that lichens grow so slowly, but they can afford to take their time. They endure drought more effectively than almost any other living organism. Water brings them back to life, and when there are no leaves on the trees, there is additional light, so these inconspicuous piggybackers prosper while other species go into hibernation.

  I examine the bright-yellow lichen with my hand lens to discover groups of tiny, intensely orange cup-like structures towards the middle of the patch. On the gold shield lichen (Xanthoria parietina) the minute spores of the fungal partner are borne in these cups.14 The yellow pigment provided by the fungus protects the algal partner from ultraviolet radiation. It’s a real quid pro quo. A smaller grey, finely branched and crimped lichen makes less defined masses further along the same twig. It is not surprising to find Physcia tenella near the gold shield lichen, because both can tolerate high nitrogen levels. A grey, leafy shield lichen (Parmelia sulcata) also lives among them. These species can regularly be found together in urban environments.

  Lichens are nature’s chemical bellwethers. Their unrelentingly exposed lives mean that they incorporate whatever the atmosphere can throw at them. Nitrogen is concentrated by excessive use of fertilisers in modern farming and by pollution in cities. Many lichens cannot cope with this element at all—now, such choosy species tend to live in the west of Britain, where the pure sea air keeps them happy. When highwaymen lurked in the woods, the same species would have been comfortable growing in the Chiltern Hills. Subtle changes in the atmosphere do not register with human nostrils, but lichens cannot be fooled; they can taste micrograms, and they can smell molecules. Mankind’s influence infuses the air itself.

  Other lichen species in the wood point to recent improvements in the environment, so it is not all bad news. Glossy grey-green leafy lichens called Punctelia subreducta may have reappeared because of reductions in levels of sulphur dioxide. Usnea subfloridana produces dangling bundles of fine, grey-green whiskers very sensitive to the same industrial pollutant; this lichen is reminiscent of “Spanish moss” that hangs from almost every tree in the Florida Everglades (though it is botanically unrelated). The appearance of both of these lichens may well reflect the great reduction in coal-burning over the last fifty years—in other words, “cleaner” air.

  Only a few lichens, like the fresh-tinted greenshield (Flavoparmelia caperata), are worldwide in distribution, streetwise survivors in any situation. On our wild cherry twigs oakmoss (Evernia prunastri) sprouts miniature, grey-greenish “shrubs” made of dense clusters of forking shoots. This species has been harvested as a perfume base, and used as an “antiseptic, demulcent, expectorant, and restorative” (i.e., cure-all) by herbalists. Even apparently smooth beech branches carry inconspicuous greyish crusts that betray their lichen affinities when their little reproductive cups—blackish rather than orange—are identified under a lens (Amandinea, Arthonia and Lecania species). Lichens, in short, thrive just about everywhere in places where other life is daunted. They also make a mini-ecosystem of their own: three species of footman moths trapped by Andrew Padmore use lichens as larval foodstuff. And they are inextricably linked into the wider world: into subtle changes in the atmosphere, into agricultural practices, or even political decisions about energy supply made by people in offices who rarely venture into woods. By Georgian times, trade routes connected the owners of our wood to the New World, and new turnpikes linked it more closely to London and Oxford, while high in the beech and cherry trees lichens were already there, as perpetual sentinels, alert to invisible changes still to come.

  * * *

  * We finally succeeded in beating them to it in 2015.

  10

  January

  Second Felling

  It is eight o’clock on an unseasonably mild morning, and dense mist pervades the trees; the open fields beyond the wood have apparently vanished. A discomfited buzzard flaps away into invisibility, with a scream. Martin Drew arrives in his Range Rover, ready to take down two wild cherry trees around the big clearing. One is at its peak
for harvesting: a fine tree vying for space with the beeches, and as tall as any of its rivals. We had to get permission for felling from Natural England. The other is the sickly tree I had noticed earlier in the year: its sparse leaves had fallen early, and there are signs of fungal infection under the bark. Martin tells me that its heartwood will still be fine.

  The best trajectory for both trees when they fall is a matter for an experienced woodsman. Martin is a man of few words but careful contemplation. He stares intently at the doomed cherries, making calculations. He decides to fell the sickly tree first. The back of his vehicle hides several serious chainsaws, and exactly how and where these cut into the base of the tree determines where it comes down. The buzzing and grating saw moans and complains as it gets to work, silencing or outcompeting any songbirds that might have been fooled into thinking that spring had come early on this oddly warm day. A mighty crack and then the cherry tree falls down in a few seconds, collapsing across the public footpath. It is as well Jackie and I had acted as guards to keep walkers clear. As it falls, the trunk effortlessly breaks off a substantial beech branch in its way—quite cleanly, like an amputation. Now it is the turn of the big tree, all eighty feet of it, and most of it polished trunk, straight and noble. It must contain a good quantity of fine timber. Martin slices obliquely at its base to try to direct its fall into the open part of the clearing. It would be difficult to extract if it got snagged with any of its neighbours. The grinding noise of the chainsaw goes on and on, like those dentists’ drills you fervently wish would stop. Then there is a sudden wrench and a crack, and the felled tree is down perfectly and in place: there is hardly time to photograph the event. The leafless high branches derived from its crown break and settle down with the briefest of sighs. The end of decades of photosynthesis is recorded with a bang and something of a whimper.

  Martin’s silent colleague has arrived, driving a huge tractor that pulls a cradle. The machine is equipped with a powerful mechanical grabbing arm. The smaller branches—many of them as thick as my leg—are cut off from the main trunk with the chainsaw; it is a matter of a few seconds per slice. It is hard to dislodge an image of the deliberate dismemberment of an animal. The twigs are richly covered in bright-green and greyish lichens that only a few minutes earlier were open to the sky; it was a garden up there. Next, the trunks themselves are sliced into three massive pieces. The grabber lifts each length with ease, and swings them up into the cradle. I am reminded of a fairground game that we used to play for a few coins; my children always wanted to win the big prize when a miniature grabbing crane swung into action, dipping and clutching over a pile of toys and gaudy watches. (Nobody ever won the big prize.) The process of gathering our timber seems as effortless. The two trees don’t even fill the cradle.

  The stumps remain behind. With their buttresses sliced through, the bases resemble huge starfish stranded on the floor of Grim’s Dyke Wood. The heartwood is a wonderfully warm pink colour, almost like boiled ham, while the sapwood tends towards orange; the fleshly comparisons remain ineradicable. Some of the offcuts will provide us with firewood for a year or more. After they have been cut into rounds I will split them at home with my beetle and wedge into usable logs. The thinner twigs will decay back into the soil in the wood.

  Jackie and I follow the trailer at a dignified pace to Martin’s sawmill at Culham, on the plains beyond the Chiltern Hills. This time our felled trees are going to be used for something other than firewood. The sawmill is tucked away behind the European School, and in sight of the remaining cooling towers of the Didcot Power Station, with large fields beyond; such a different landscape from the wooded flanks of the hills where the cherries grew to their lofty maturity. The yard, however, is just as it should be. It is piled high with tree trunks in every state: gnarled old oaks stacked higgledy-piggledy alongside beech destined to become firewood; hoppers spilling over with logs for burning. Rank upon rank of previously planked trunks are arranged around the yard in batches for future clients to convert into floors or furniture. The best length of our finest cherry is sliced by a travelling bandsaw with the ease of a cheese wire cutting through a round of Cheddar (I notice the equipment is labelled “Tom Sawyer”). The cutting grind of the saw is certainly deafening, but lacks the complaining tone of the chainsaw. Martin’s earmuffs protect him from the worst of it. Sawdust has blown into a dune downwind of the contraption. Martin rides his machine as would a bus conductor the platform of an old London double-decker bus. The finest log can be cut into the thinnest planks—a mere 30–40 millimetres at best—but several thicknesses are extracted from the same length of timber. Martin controls the thickness by twiddling on a gauge at each cut. After they are sawn, the planks finish up lying on top of one another like a stack of playing cards. The sick cherry does indeed have intact heartwood, but it was pocked and slimy under the bark; it would not have survived another season. Fine sawdust blows into my eyes, and it is time to retreat.

  After planking comes seasoning. Cherry is a very “wet” wood, and the raw planks will take some time to become useful timber. Much of the timber that Martin mills remains on site to dry out in his yard, but we decide instead to return our cherry trees to the wood from whence they came, so that we can watch the maturing process at work. In the old, self-sufficient days, timber for use at Greys Court would probably have been seasoned in this way well before use. We follow the trailer back to Grim’s Dyke Wood, but this time it is laden with slices.

  Planks cannot simply be laid out to season. Instead, the log is reconstructed, in its separate slices, but with pegs inserted between each plank to keep them apart and allow air to circulate. Martin tells me that the tree is now said to be “in stick.” Poplar wood is employed to make the pegs (“no good for anything else”). The outer part of the sliced tree is just a curved edge covered with what remains of the bark, and this slice remains on top as a kind of umbrella to keep rainwater off the planks below. The overall effect is rather curious, both a deconstruction and an expansion of the original tree trunk. We decide to stack our wood “in stick” in the Dell, where it is protected from the common view by untidy holly trees, just in case somebody takes a fancy to a plank or two. A few of the best slices go to Philip Koomen, to his workshop in the deepest part of the Chiltern Hills, where he has a kiln that can take out the last few per cent of moisture from the timber before he makes the cabinet to house the collection.

  Saved by the Chair

  As a network of new canals spread across England during the first half of the nineteenth century, bulk transport of goods and raw materials became easier than it had ever been before. The installation of modern pound locks and better towpaths helped Thames trade in equal measure. However, these indubitable improvements could well have spelled the end of the Chiltern woodlands. Demand for firewood in London fell as coal from the Midlands and the North became readily available to supply domestic and industrial purposes. The first lichens to choke on sulphur must have turned a crispy brown colour at this time. The staple “crop” that had maintained beech woodland for centuries was no longer in demand. Many of the beech trees now had the chance to grow into finer specimens. Recall that John Stuart Mill had noticed “real woods, not copse, that is, they are not cut down for fire-wood, but allowed to grow into timber, though not to any great age,” when he walked through our patch in 1828.

  A curious account was published almost half a century later by William Black, a once-popular writer now sunk into an obscurity to rival that of Cecil Roberts. The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton is a travelogue dressed up as a novel,1 and Black, who was an artist, creates word pictures of the various places visited by the eponymous carriage. The book describes the drive from Henley to Oxford as “one of the finest in England.” The phaeton leaves Henley by “the Fair Mile, a broad, smooth highway running between Lambridge Wood and No Man’s Hill [part of the Fawley estate] and having a grassy common on each side of it.” The writer clearly had a map in one hand and a notebook in the other, and we
are left in no doubt about the improvements to the Bix Turnpike since the previous century.2 Towards Nettlebed the phaeton “plunges into a spacious forest of beeches,” which could be a description of this stretch of the route as it appears today. The woods had changed, and if they could not make money, they may have faced an uncertain future. The fate of the trees in the grand parks like Fawley Court was assured for the time being, but they were stage props in a designed landscape rather than part of a commercial enterprise. The spectre of mattock and grubber loomed over the woods that had survived all previous threats since the Norman Conquest.

  Woodlands were saved by carpentry. We know from Daniel Defoe’s description and from the Stonor papers that chair-making was already a significant trade in the eighteenth-century Chilterns. During the nineteenth century it burgeoned. Factory assembly of the finished articles hugely increased productivity, and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire (nine miles north-east of Henley) became the rapidly expanding centre for a new industry.3 Beech was the standard material for legs and stretchers. Other timbers like ash, elm and oak had their parts to play, but beech was the workhorse of the common-or-garden chair, and beech was drawn in from miles around. Ordinary folk could afford beechwood chairs; they are still common items at country auctions, and sell for next to nothing. Between 1800 and 1860 the number of workshops in High Wycombe grew from about a dozen to 150. By 1875 the output was reported to be 4,700 chairs every day. I cannot help wondering how there could have been enough bottoms to sit on all those chairs. Perhaps people went out in the evening to sit on extra chairs away from home. In 1873 the American evangelists Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey proved such an attraction that 19,200 chairs were ordered from High Wycombe to accommodate the posteriors of the faithful or the ready-to-be-persuaded. It is a strange thought that this source of comfort for numerous Methodist behinds originated less than two miles away from Sir Francis Dashwood’s diabolical dungeons at West Wycombe. A higher-class and more complex design familiar as the Windsor chair spread around the world, and especially to Moody and Sankey’s homeland. These popular seats provided comfortable repose for many an honest member of the bourgeoisie. That they were well-made is proved by the fact that there is one in every antique shop.