Forest Management At The Roman Villa
A Crop For The Long Term

Forest management is just as important a part of life on the villa as farming the fields. Our forest is a valuable part of the estate. We depend on it for our building materials, our tools and furniture, fuel, more food than you might think, and our pigs love to gobble up the beech mast(nuts) and acorns that cover the forest floor.

Of course we don't go out and cut down a whole tree unless we need a lot of big timbers for something like a new building. That is just too much hard work - something we have plenty of already.

The Patient Art Of Coppicing
Grow Your Own Timber - To Size

By coppicing, you can grow wood to the size you need for any number of jobs, from shoots for making hurdles or baskets to bars to replace a broken wheel spoke or axe handle. It's almost the first thing I learned about, as a boy. Forest management is the work of everyone at the villa - even the children.

When we do need to fell a big tree, the stump gets a new job - as a 'stool'like this one.

When you cut down a bigish tree, there are a lot of big roots that have been feeding it. Suddenly they have nothing to do so they make more shoots grow. In a year there will be many shoots from that single stool. Each can be several feet long!

We have to limit the number to how many poles the stool can grow, to the size we will want. We harvest a lot of thin sticks after a couple of years and let the others grow thicker and stronger.

We often trim off side shoots to keep the pole growing straight. If we are a bit clever and a lot patient, we can even grow a fine, strong pitch fork! Good forest management helps us cut costs by repairing and producing our own tools.

Poles for fencing can be cut and split after 3 to 5 years (We call it a 3-5 year rotation, oddly enough). Poles for building work are left to grow for 20 to 30 years. Harder woods, like oak, grow more slowly than soft ones, like ash. Growing wood needs a lot more patience than growing carrots!

The trees we like best for coppicing are hazel, ash, horse chestnut and hornbeam. Hornbeam is very oily and is excellent for wheel hubs. It's sticks even make good little candles. Hazel nuts are very good and the animals like the clusters of dry ash seeds for winter fodder. All the woods are used for cooking or heating fuel and whatever is left, is made into charcoal. That fuels the foundry and pottery in Verulamium. None of our wood is wasted. Good forest management benefits the the local community as well as the villa.

A fine coppicing tree we missed most, when we first came to Britannia, was the sweet chestnut, with its pink flowers and delicious nuts. Some friends sent a box of nuts, one Saturnalia. We saved a few to plant They are growing so fast, the sweet chestnut must be made for Britannia. we are looking forward to roasting the first crop.

Most of the trees on our land are those big grey-barked beeches. Their strong, fine grained white wood makes very good furniture. Our neighbour, Indutus, told us that using the leaves to stuff a matress would keep bed-bugs away. My sister never sleeps on anything else.

When the beeches grow to their full size, they shut out the light and not much grows under them. Only the pigs enjoy the drifts of nuts on the empty forest floor. Then forest management means thinning the trees to let light into the forest.

If some are cut for their wood or are blown down in storms, wonderful things happen. Light gets into the woods and all kinds of plants spring up like magic, in the sun. Birds and small animals come from somewhere and that part of the wood becomes noisy and colorful.

Of course, coppicing is good for the trees. It's like sending them back to be saplings again. The old men say it makes the trees live forever. Well, I'm certain they will live longer than us.

Forest Management Includes Hunting

Forest management at the villa also affects our livestock and wildlife. We need to defend our own pigs against the wild boars and occasional wolves.

A problem with having a lot of tender shoots in the coppice wood, is that the red deer love to eat them. We fence most of the parts that are growing the youngest poles. The fence in the

picture still needs its wattle* top. As it is, the deer would leap over it with no effort.

Most of the coppiced area is left unfenced so the deer can browse the trees. They only like to eat the newest shoots and side shoots, from the stools that are growing thicker poles. They save us the job of trimming them.

We also hunt the older deer that are no longer fit for breeding. They supply us with meat (venison), fine leather and horn.

A lot of useful herbs for cooking or medicine grow in the woods. We also find tasty black- and bilberries and of course, my favorite hazel nuts. There are many sorts of mushrooms but our British cook is the only one who knows which of them are safe to eat.

Forest management is hard work but the parts of the wood that are coppiced, are always full of life. That makes the work feel lighter. The woodland has always been my favorite part of the villa. Coppicing keeps our forest young, lively and healthy. The forest needs careful management because the villa wouldn't work without it.

* I'll tell you more about wattle hurdles, when we tour my house.

Return from Forest management to Roman villa