CHAPTER II 
NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF TIMBER AS CONNECTED 
WITH GREAT BRITAIN 
A BRIEF and retrospective sketch of the history of 
timber, especially in reference to its uses and the impor- 
tant part it has played in the development of Great 
Britain, may perhaps be of interest and form a fitting 
introduction to the several chapters which it is intended 
to devote to a few of the principal woods which are in 
regular use. 
It is on record that, at the time of the Conquest in 
1066, England must have been of a densely afforested 
character, the Domesday Book of 1085 showing that 
in the five counties of Derbyshire, Kent, Sussex, Surrey 
and Yorkshire alone, no fewer than 1,033 woods 
and forests existed. The scattered but rapidly 
disappearing remnants of these forests at the present 
time are some little testimony to the past wooded 
character of the land. To mention only a few in the 
Midland and Southern Counties, we have Sherwood 
forest in Nottinghamshire, Charnwood in Leicester- 
shire, a small and scattered portion of Shakespeare’s 
great forest of Arden in Warwickshire, Whittlebury and 
Salcey in Northamptonshire, Needwood in Stafford- 
shire, Ashdown in Sussex, Waltham or Epping forest 
in Essex, and the New Forest in Hampshire. Besides 
these may be added the several Chases and Warrens, 
such as Cannock, Malvern, Hatfield and Loxley in 
Yorkshire, and others which, formerly well-timbered 
lands, are now but partially wooded. 
Supplies of oak, ash, wych elm, willow, yew and 
other trees must have been abundant in these forests, 
6 
