ChapTer TWo
Seventeenth-century
environments: Woodland
and waste
introduction
England in the seventeenth century teemed with wildlife. Plants now rare
were then common; the polecat and pine marten were probably present
in every county; the great bustard was still a frequent sight on open land.
In part, this abundance was due to the fact that while most of the country
was occupied by farmland a much higher proportion than today comprised
various kinds of woodland and ‘waste’ – unreclaimed wetlands, moors
and heaths, downs and other forms of marginal grazing land. Versions of
such habitats existed which have now vanished; intermediate types, where
these neat categories merged, were in particular more frequent than today.
While the particular character of these varied environments was in part a
consequence of soils, drainage and topography, it was largely a result of
the ways they had been managed, often over many centuries, for grazing
and fodder, or as a source of raw materials and especially fuel. The use
of coal was expanding rapidly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
with extensive coal fields developing, in particular, in the north-east of
England. Production rose from around 20,000 tons per annum in 1560 to
two or perhaps even three million by 1700.^1 By the end of the seventeenth
century, coal had probably become the main provider of thermal energy in
England.^2 But it was not economic to transport coal very far from the coast
or navigable rivers, and most domestic firing was still supplied by organic
materials. Firewood was cut, not only from woodlands, but also from hedges
and free-standing trees; gorse, heather and turf were systematically cropped
from heaths and moors; and peat was dug from moors and fens.