A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



execution.' It reaffirmed the previously enacted orders, and formally laid down the procedure for 

 future systematic enclosures to be made under royal commissions. About this time and previous 

 thereto the Statute Book is full, more especially between the years 1796 to 1800, of private 

 Acts of Parliament for enclosing open fields, commons, and waste grounds ; and common lands 

 were then often planted with the oak trees now in their full maturity. 



What the hedges and the private woodlands were like, and what the general method of arbori- 

 culture was throughout the county about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the 

 nineteenth centuries, we have a fairly good idea of from Marshall's Rural Economy of Gloucestershire 

 (1789) and Rudge's General View of the Agriculture of the County of Gloucester (1807). According 

 to the former i the chief hedgerow trees in the Vale of Gloucester were then elm and willow, there 

 being few of oak or ash. ' Hedgerow timber is universally lapped ; few, however, are headed, low, 

 in the pollard manner, except willows, which . . . are here considered in a degree necessary to 

 every farm.' The elm being of superior growth ' the color of iron ; and in some instances almost 

 as hard . . . the Bristol shipbuilders have a supply of keel-pieces from this quarter ; and I know 

 no country which is so likely to furnish good ones.' He speaks of coppices in the Vale (on poor 

 clay ' not worth as arable land more than 8s. an acre ; not estimated in this country at more than 

 5;. an acre ') as often of high value. ' The species of wood is principally oak, ash, and maple ; with 

 some sallow, hawthorne, and hazel. The uses to which it is applied are principally rails, hurdle 

 stuff, hedging materials, and fuel. The age of felling twenty years. And its estimated value at that 

 age, twelve to fifteen pounds an acre. It growth is uncommonly luxuriant ; the stools are thick upon 

 the ground. . . In the latter stages of its growth it is the most impenetrable thicket I have seen ' ; 

 while he recommends ' that many of the cold swells which occur in different parts of the Vale might 

 be planted with great profit.' Of the remnants of the old woods and of the newer plantations on the 

 Cotswold he, however, gives a poor account, 2 and points out that ' a spirit of planting has never 

 been generally diffused ' in that region. 



The somewhat later details supplied by the Rev. Thomas Rudge, B.D., 8 in 1807, are even 

 more interesting. They form a chapter of one of the volumes then ' drawn up for the consideration 

 of the Board of Agriculture,' which practically constituted an official survey of rural economy 

 throughout the various counties in England, carried out by many local experts. He states that 



on the Cotswolds beech and ash are the principal trees of the woods : beech, indeed, seems the 

 natural growth of the soil, and probably at a remote period covered the greater part of this portion of 

 the county. The principal woods now remaining in the interior of this district are those of the late 

 Lord Chedworth, at Compton and Stowel ; of Lord Bathurst, at Cirencester ; and of the bishop of 

 Durham at Rendcomb ; but the declivities of the hills which border the Cotswolds towards the Vale, 

 almost along the whole extent, and particularly from Birdlip to Wotton-under-Edge, are covered with 

 the most luxuriant beeches, which present to the Vale a continued verdant screen. The most extensive 

 are those of Sir William Hicks, at Witcomb ; Mr. Sheppard, at Hampton and Avening ; Mr. Kingscote, 

 at Kingscote ; but above all, in extent as in beauty, the magnificent woods at Spring Park, and on the 

 Frocaster and Stanley hills, belonging to Lord Ducie. As these beech-woods reproduce themselves from 

 seeds self-sown, they generally come up so thick as to require to be constantly drawn from the first 

 twenty or thirty years. The remaining trees then stand for timber, and are supposed to come to their 

 perfection in seventy or eighty years. Woods of the best timber will then be worth from 80 to 100 

 per acre. 



In the Vale there are but few tracts of woodland left : the principal belong to Lord Berkeley, near 

 Berkeley ; Lord Liverpool, at Hawkesbury ; and Lord Ducie, at Tortworth. In the park of the latter, 

 as in the adjoining chace of Micklewood, there are remains of the Spanish chestnut, so considerable as 

 to authorize a conjecture that, in times not very remote, this formed a considerable portion of the 

 timber of this part of the county ; but above all, as a testimony of this fact, must not be unnoticed, the 

 venerable chestnut tree growing in the garden at Tortworth-house, mentioned by Evelyn, in his Sylva, 

 as being known to be 500 years old in the reign of King John. The tree, even now, makes a good 

 appearance in branches and foliage, is in high proof, and in 1 804 bore a considerable quantity of fruit. 

 It was measured in 1791, and found to be 44ft. and 4 ins. in circumference.* 



He points out also that the elm-tree throve in almost every district, while the oak grew 

 with much vigour in several parts of the Vale, particularly within the hundred of Berkeley. The 

 great oak of Boddington, 6 burnt down in 1790, was a fine example, its girth at the ground 

 more than 54 ft., and at its least dimensions 36 ft. The greatest extent of arm was 24 ft. from 

 the stem. The principal oak-growing district, however, as we have already noticed, was the 

 Forest of Dean. 



Mr. Rudge draws particular attention also to the birch-trees of the forest, 'as in no 

 place are they found more remarkable for size or beauty,' while the holly also grew in the forest 



\ P- cit - ; 42-7- ' Op. cit. ii, 25-7. Op. cit. pp. 239-49. 



Marshall disputes the accuracy of these figures, see Planting and Rural Ornament (1796), ii, 127. 

 4 Marshall, op. cit. ii, 299. 



276 



