On becoming a Woodsman... and a small rant about conservation policy

During our first winter at the cottage, the kitchen/diner and utility rooms were freezing, as the whole ground floor/basement (depends which elevation you look at, we're on a hill) relied on a single radiator for heating, and it had little effect. We'd already invested in an oil Combi boiler (no mains gas around here), and we didn't think adding radiators would be practical or effective (lack of available wall space and lots of glazing). So, last autumn we installed a dual fuel log and coal-fired stove. It didn't come cheap, but it's pretty enough and by golly, it puts out some serious heat!

Unfortunately, to output such heat it uses up an inordinate amount of logs (and/or coal). I soon tired of paying through the nose for petrol station forecourt-purchased logs, kindling and coal, and discovered in short order that foraging dead, fallen branches in the forest is an offence (more on that later in this post). As luck would have it, the publican next door  (did I not mention that we have the good fortune to be right next to a country inn  and Thai restaurant attracting a "neighbour discount" on meals, takeaways and drinks?) had a load of surplus logs from a willow tree he'd had to cut down at one of his other pubs, where its roots were undermining the foundations. Did I want them? Of course! They're over out back, help yourself...

Oof, that was backbreaking work, rolling them down the hill, then manhandling the cords individually across the muddy field before throwing them over the boundary wall into my property. Eventually, though, I had built a couple of decent log piles on the deck at the bottom of the garden.

That should last us a while, once it's seasoned. In the meantime, I've found other smaller supplies of logs through talking to the locals, and the landlord keeps me supplied with wooden pallets to chop up for kindling.

I never thought I'd find myself doing so much woodsman's work! First it's the stacking, seasoning and drying, then the sawing and finally the splitting into stove-appropriate chunks.
 

I suppose it keeps me fit. I've also had to splash out on some specialist equipment, too - an electric chainsaw, a metal sawhorse and chain, a 4 1/2lb logging maul (wedge-shaped splitting axe), a 5lb sledge hammer, and my favourite, a log grenade (almost as much fun as it sounds).

I'm going to have to buy or build a sheltered woodstore up on the deck by the kitchen - currently it's being stacked anywhere that's available - in the drive, in the boiler room, even in Toby's kennel (he never uses it anyway)!

So why don't I go and collect firewood from the forest, then? Because you're not allowed to, that's why. Nor are you allowed to cut anything down (although you could once upon a time - the populace had lopping rights until the late 19th century). Now I'm all for promoting eco-friendly biodiversity, and realise that rotting wood on the forest floor creates a thriving ecosystem for beetles and other burrowing insects and worms. I'm familiar with being out with the kids searching for minibeasts, and carefully rolling over a rotten log and finding a stag beetle larva, recording it, perhaps photographing it before carefully rolling it back.  I also support the ban on mushroom-picking in Epping Forest - this isn't combating the lone picker foraging for some tasty fungi, but the large transit vans that turn up in the early hours with teams of harvesters to clear entire areas of woods and meadows, and sell them to the upmarket restaurants in London.

But there's something sickly about parts of the forest - trees are dying, and collapsing (or being blown down by gales and storms), and the cadavers are left to lay there and rot. Sometimes the forest wardens will saw them up, or even lop an entire tree, but still leave the logs there.

It can be quite daunting walking Toby in those woods sometimes - the trees creak and moan, even when there's no wind. At the slightest squall, you'll find uprooted trees the next morning, their root boles reaching skyward, and a large water-filled clay pit to mark their passing. I recently had a large bough, twenty feet long and about six inches in diameter, come crashing down not more than a couple of feet away from us. Looking up, I saw other detatched branches in the canopy, large and small, supported only by the limbs of their neighbours. And the more trees that fall, the more exposed and threatened the rest become.

There's little or no new growth on the forest floor, because the canopy is artificially dense through the practice of pollarding. Pollarding is a way of lopping, whereby you only lop branches at a height greater than where grazing animals can reach. Lopping promotes new growth, so pollarding ensures that the fresh shoots will grow unpredated. This gives the trees the distinctive appearance of a straight trunk for seven or eight feet, and then a proliferation of main boughs.
 

There's nothing wrong with pollarding - as long as you keep it up. But as I mentioned earlier, lopping rights were rescinded in the late nineteenth century by an act of Parliament (The Epping Forest Act 1878), and these old pollarded trees have been left to grow unchecked, leaving them top heavy and with weakened root systems. This, coupled with the the lack of growth and other root systems in the (mainly clay) earth under the forest floor, makes them vulnerable to being uprooted by storms, such as the ones we've had almost constantly since the end of last year.

And then there's this fencing that's gone up all around the forest, along the many roads that criss-cross it, as well as cattle grids. What's that all about? I don't remember any public information announcements in the local press, but a few enquiries revealed that it was to enclose the herd of cattle that are allowed to roam parts of Epping Forest. Aha! The English Longhorns - I knew about these, a herd of shaggy Neolithic-looking brutes, they were introduced in 2001, numbering about thirty, and were moved around the plains and meadows to graze in the summer months by an old shepherd and his three-legged dog. The herd had grown to about fifty by now. I know they're big buggers with huge side-mounted horns, and you wouldn't want that walking out in front of you as you're doing 50mph up the Epping New Road, but why the need to enclose the forest now? Because they're increasing the herd by a further *three hundred*!
 

That should please the dog walkers, horse riders and mountain bikers no end.

I've estimated that the fencing extends for at least twenty miles around the cordoned areas. You'd have thought they could have used the abundance of local wood to do this - The Warren, just up the road from me, is the base of the Forest Wardens, and they used to maintain a sawmill there (and sold logs to the public), except it's been shut down and dismantled. No, this massive amount of wood has been imported from Scandinavia at great cost. Not to me, I hasten to add - since 1878 Epping Forest (and other green spaces such as Hampstead Heath and Burnham Beeches) has been under the management of the Corporation of the City of London, so none of my tax pounds go to its upkeep. This is fully met by direct taxation on the residents and businesses of the City.

I doubt these beasts will wander far from the open plains where grass is abundant, they really won't prefer leaf mulch, tree bark or saplings, and will leave that to the deer (Muntjac and Fallow).

I really wonder about the guiding principles behind the conservators' decisions, sometimes. But I would say that, wouldn't I? I want those logs.

But I can't have them.