296 English Coppices and Copsewoods. 



During the sixteenth century, however, the simultaneous 

 shrinkage in the area of the woodlands and the growing 

 demands for timber and smaller wood caused such grave 

 national apprehension as to call for legal measures prohibiting 

 the destruction of the woods and the diminution of the 

 supplies of timber. This consequently led to the passing of 

 the Act for the Preservation of Woods, better known as the 

 Statute of Woods , in 1 543, during the reign of Henry VII L 

 Here again the key-note to the tenor of the whole Act was 

 struck in the preamble, which shows how " The King our 

 Sovereign Lord perceiving and right well knowing the great 

 decay of timber and woods universally within this his Realm 

 of England to be such that unless speedy remedy in that 

 behalf be provided, there is great and manifest likelihood of 

 scarcity and lack as well of timber for building, making, 

 repairing, and maintaining of houses and ships, and also for 

 fuel and firewood for the necessary relief of thg whole 

 community of this his said realm. . / 



The main provisions of this Statute of Woods, the greatest 

 Arboricultural Act which has ever been passed in Britain, 

 were that after Michaelmas, 1544, "in and upon all and 

 singular several woods, commonly called coppice woods or 

 underwoods, which .... shall be felled at twenty- 

 four years' growing or under there shall be left standing 

 unfelled, for every acre of wood that shall be felled within 

 the said coppice, twelve standils or storers of oak." Failing 

 oak, then the twelve storers per acre were to be made up of 

 elm, ash, asp, or beech, likely to prove and to be timber 

 trees. These storers were in reality intended to be double 

 stores or stems reserved to attain the age at least three falls 

 of the coppice, because it was expressly laid down that 



" (4) the same standils or storers to be of such standils or storers as have been left 

 there standing at any the felling of the same coppice woods or underwoods in times 

 past ; and in case there be no such standils or storers there standing, which were there 

 left at the last felling of the same coppice or underwoods, then the same standils or 

 storers there to be left shall be left at this now next felling of the said coppice woods 

 or underwoods, of such most likeliest oaks, and if there be not sufficient of oaks, then 

 of the most likeliest elms, ash, asp, or beech, to prove and to be timber trees, as shall 

 grow within any such several woods, coppice, or underwoods ; (5) and that the 

 same standils or storers so left shall be preserved and not felled or cut down till the 

 and every of them shall be of ten inches square within three foot of the ground/' 



