sevenTeenTh-CenTury environmenTs: Woodland and WasTe 27we see them today are not only far fewer in number, but also less varied
in character than those of the seventeenth century. While most heaths
were even then completely open landscapes, some appear to have carried
significant numbers of pollards – they were, at least in part, heathland wood-
pastures.^36 Moreover, the character and the intensity of grazing displayed
much variation. In Lincolnshire and East Anglia heaths often lay remote
from settlements and were mainly grazed by the folding flocks. But in
southern England they were more likely to be encircled by houses, like other
commons: here they were grazed by a wider range of livestock, including
donkeys, cattle and deer.^37 In many cases, intensive grazing and cutting would
have ensured that heaths were much smoother than those of today, closer in
appearance to downland. Grasses were often more abundant, and bracken
less so. Indeed, in the sixteenth century the manorial court of Thetford in the
East Anglian Breckland ruled to restrict the amount of bracken which could
be cut by commoners because it was in short supply.^38 Some heaths were
so intensively grazed by sheep and by rabbits that the heather and turf was
removed, mosses formed a major part of the ground cover and in extreme
cases bare sand was exposed. But elsewhere grazing was less intense. John
Norden described in 1618 how gorse was widely used as a fuel in Devon
and Cornwall, where it grew ‘very high, and the stalke great, whereof the
people make faggots’, but was less important in this respect in east Suffolk,
where the local inhabitants ‘suffer their sheep and cattell to browse and
crop them when they be young, and so they grow too scrubbed and lowe
tufts, seldom to that perfection that they might be’ – presumably because
alternative sources of fuel were available locally.^39 And while many heaths
were permanent habitats, others were sporadically ploughed up, either on
a casual basis – when grain prices were high – or on a long but regular
rotation, as in the case of the East Anglian ‘brecks’.^40 Intense grazing, regular
stripping of turf for fuel, and this kind of temporary cultivation together
provided a particularly valuable range of ruderal habitats, especially in the
case of the eastern heaths, in which plants characteristic of the early stages
of succession on such acid soils could be found.^41 Heaths, in short, were a
very mixed bag, displaying a variety not always fully recognized today by
those involved in their conservation or restoration.
Variations in the character of heaths were in part a function of complex
social and economic factors: population density, the relative balance
of power between lords and commoners, the extent to which they were
managed as part of ‘sheep-corn’ systems, and the character of the resources
available from other local environments. But they were also a consequence
of purely natural influences. In southern and eastern England, ‘chalk-heaths’
were more common than they are today. These are distinctive habitats which
are formed where thin layer of acidic topsoil, usually sandy drift, overlie
chalk. These boasted an unusual collection of shallow-rooted calcifuge
plants, such as heather and tormentil (Potentilla), and deeper-rooted
plants characteristic of chalkland, such as Cock’s Foot (Dactylis glomerata)