NOTE ON WORKING-PLAN FOR CHOPWELL WOODS. 6 1 



9. Note on Working-Plan for Chopwell Woods.^ 



" Tempora mutantur et nos in illis." 



When the first forest school in these islands was established 

 in 1885, the authorities at Coopers Hill College naturally were 

 anxious to have a "school forest." After a protracted discussion, 

 the Commissioners of Woods "graciously" agreed to let the 

 College have 800 acres of heath land on the outskirts of 

 Windsor Forest, under the condition that all receipts should go 

 to the Commissioners of Woods, while all expenses were to be 

 met by the College. It was stipulated that not less than j£2oo 

 should be spent annually on planting alone. 



Twenty years later, such a change had come over public 

 opinion that the Commissioners of Woods made over Chopwell 

 Woods, covering 930 acres, to the Armstrong College on more 

 reasonable terms, to serve as a " school forest." 



Mr Annand has now prepared a working-plan for the area. 



The woods are situated within eight miles of the city of 

 Newcastle, at an elevation between 280 and 720 feet above sea- 

 level. In former times they seem to have contained chiefly 

 oak, and part of the timber of which " The Royal Sovereign " 

 was built in the seventeenth century came from these woods. 

 After undergoing various changes, the greater part of the area 

 was replanted with oak between the years 181 2 and 182 1. 

 About the year 1858 it was recognised that the oak had no 

 future, and, on the advice of Mr James Brown, these young 

 woods were cleared away and the area replanted with larch, a 

 little Scots pine being introduced on the high lying exposed 

 parts and spruce in the bogs. If the poor, marshy, clayey 

 portions of the area were unsuitable for oak, they proved more so 

 for the larch. A great many died off, leaving portions of the 

 ground unstocked, except for the stool-shoots of the oak 

 and a few other broad-leaved species, such as ash, alder, birch 

 and sycamore. At present, therefore, the crop consists of those 

 stool-shoots, reduced to a single stem on each stool, and the 

 surviving 50-year-old larches. The Scots pine, occurring 

 in small quantities, is too thinly stocked, having suffered from 

 squirrels and probably also from gales and snow-break. A 



1 " Working-Plan for Chopwell Woods," by J. F. Annand, Lecturer in. 

 Forestry, Armstrong College, 1908. 



