Below: Hazel after coppicing.
- From large scale arable farming to the allotment, hazel and ash stems were in demand for bean rods, while the fan-shaped branches of hazel, birch, elm or lime were used for pea sticks.
- Straight sticks in their thousands were required as flower stakes, while larger poles were used as tree stakes.
- Hedge laying – the traditional method of hedge management for containing livestock in the days before wire fencing – was heavily reliant upon coppiced hazel, ash or chestnut to provide the stakes and binding rods necessary to give support and structure to a newly-laid hedge.
- Sweet chestnut, with its natural durability, was the wood of choice for many types of fencing and, with oak and elm, was also extensively used for fence posts.
- Hazel was also much in demand for weaving wattle fences and walls, while split hazel rods were used for thatching spars in their thousands.
- Oak bark was required for tanning (more oak was harvested for tanning leather than was harvested for ship building), while oak timber was crucial in ship building and house building, and was heavily used in roofing shingles, ladder rungs, barrels and cudgels.
- Birch was used for brooms and brushes, horse jumps and cotton reels.
- Ash, with its natural hardness and shock-absorbency was one of our most versatile woods and was commonly used for making tool handles, yacht masts and boat tillers, barrel hoops, crutches, ladders, looms, bobbins, cart shafts, axles, cricket stumps, oars, wheel felloes, aircraft and car bodies, and cavalry lances.
- Small-leaved lime was used for hat blocks, spoons and ditching shovels.
- Hornbeam, an inherently hard wood, was used for mallets, piano keys, and cog teeth.
- Willow, with its natural flexibility and durability was used in basket making, coarse screen work, living fences, clog soles and water mill paddles.
- Beech was in heavy demand for the furniture industry, especially in the manufacture of chair legs.
- A variety of wood types were used for making walking sticks, while cleft poles were used as supports for the branches of fruit trees and also made good clothesline props.
- Fascines or faggots, made from the tops or brash from coppicing operations, tied tightly in bundles, were used for riverbank revetment and stabilisation, for forming the base for paths through damp ground and for fuelling bread ovens.
- Wood from coppicing was also much in demand for making into charcoal – most of which now comes from non-renewable, unsustainable overseas sources – which was critical to the iron-smelting and glass-making industries before the introduction of coke.
- Ash from burnt wood was used to produce potash for the glass and soap-making industries.
- And wood that could not be turned into a suitable product was still valuable as firewood.
One of the great advantages to the woodland worker is that coppicing requires only simple hand tools – bow-saws, billhooks and axes - and produces material which can be manually handled. Felling and extraction is also much less hazardous than with harvesting larger timber.
Far from being a destructive process, coppicing rejuvenates the tree - some coppice stumps or 'stools' are hundreds of years old, and form an important link back to the ancient woodlands (ancient woodland is defined as an area of woodland that has existed continuously since 1600). Hazel, for example, is a relatively short-lived tree that will start to deteriorate significantly between 60 and 80-years-old. However, coppicing and rejuvenation will extend this lifespan almost indefinitely. This rejuvenation means that an area of woodland could be harvested again and again through the decades/centuries, providing a constant renewable resource. This growth is faster and more vigorous than new planting because it already has a mature root system from which to grow – a significant advantage over waiting for small individual saplings to grow to a size where they were suitable for harvesting.
Below: Coppicing area after coppicing.
Woodland edges support more species of butterfly than any other UK habitat. Most butterflies have just one, or a small number of plants upon which their larvae will feed, many of which occur in open sunny areas, such as those created by coppicing, woodland glades or along wide woodland rides. Some species of fritillary (such as the heath fritillary) will only inhabit coppiced woodland and have declined because of loss of habitat through neglected woodlands (it is estimated that less than 3% of woodlands are now coppiced). Grayling butterflies are also in imminent danger of extinction due to lack of coppicing. The 2015 State of Nature UK report concluded that 60% of our wildlife was in decline. Part of this decline would seem to me to be linked to the lack of traditional management of our woodlands.
Another advantage of cutting back the understory is that it reveals and enables us to marvel at the magnificent ancient trees commonly hidden in the depths of the woodland.
Traditionally coppice is cut from the beginning of October to the end of February; cutting in spring is avoided as it causes disturbance to nesting birds, and results in trampling and damage to spring flowers, and summer-cut material is thought not to be as durable as material cut in winter.