Woodman, Spare That Tree...?

Summer is here and once again the woods are humming with the sound of chainsaws, as Vineyard Farms/MDCV/Silverhand Estate or whatever they call themselves these days look to continue their programme of “coppicing” in Stonyfield Wood.

Woodland management contractor Tilhill undertook the last load of clearance work in the area a couple of years back, but I am not sure who is doing the work this time around: I have been through there a couple of times and have yet to see any signage to mark out the working area, nor to warn any passing member of the public of the ongoing work.

Stonyfield Wood is part of the Halling to Trottiscliffe Escarpment SSSI and in theory, any “woodland management” activity constitutes an ORNEC (“Operation Requiring Natural England Consent”).

Like any government-funded organisation these days, however, Natural England have been cut to the bone and then way beyond, meaning they are pretty much impotent when it comes to policing the SSSIs under their watch.

The Forestry Commission were able to tell me that a logging licence covering coppicing activity in the area was in place, but NE’s response as to whether they could find any record of granting their supposedly necessary consent was “not at the moment”. I’m not sure it matters in practice. The FC seems OK with it and it’s difficult to know just what value NE’s “consent” would add anyway: the Stonyfield Wood area in question is not “ancient” woodland and had been worked for many years until quite recently.

On balance I personally (for the little that’s worth) think it’s a good thing that these old coppices are being tidied up a bit. A large part of the woodland now under Vineyard Farm’s ownership is old coppice, much of it formerly grown for chestnut hop poles and “stake and wire” fencing. Once common, such things went out of fashion in the 1970s and the coppices, once regularly “farmed”, have been pretty much neglected since then. 

This can be seen in the “non-coppice” trees, the oak, ash and beech, which get left standing when their companion chestnuts get cut down. Allowing the coppices to become overgrown has forced some of the other trees to grow into rather twisted, top-heavy-looking things that appear rather vulnerable to future storms.

The 40 year gap had also allowed some interesting wildlife to become established, all of which gets driven away when the chain-saws move back in. We lost the White Admirals from this area when the first load of coppicing took place in 2020, and the bats in Red Wood also got scared off by coppicing, although numbers of the latter seem to returning to the evening skies over Upper Bush once more. The idea is that coppicing is done over small areas of woodland on a regular basis, allowing the wildlife to transfer to adjacent undisturbed areas, but (through no-one’s fault) this practice has locally gone out of the window.

Fortunately, a small stand of Butterfly and White Helleborine orchids I found last year just down the slope on Bavins bank have remained undisturbed, although it look like the spring storms have brought a bush down on top of them.  Fortunately, they have still flowered.

Butterfly orchids...

Butterfly Orchid

White Helleborine...

Although I think it is good that the coppices are now being cleared, quite what the reason is for felling these trees right now for seems unclear. I thought that perhaps the wood might be used to provide the stakes required for the stringing-up of the ever-burgeoning vine plantings, but I am told that the timber for that purpose is imported from Scandinavia.

Instead, it certainly looks as if at least some of the timber is being prepped up for “post and rail” fencing, so in some ways it seems that the coppicing tradition is being constructively revived.

One would like to think that the new land owners are going to continue to manage their woodlands sympathetically, rather than just go for a one-off cash-in on the timber value.