sevenTeenTh-CenTury environmenTs: Woodland and WasTe 29debris cannot fully decay in such permanently waterlogged ground and
accumulates in situ over the centuries. While heather is an important
component of the vegetation, it is often out-competed by vigorous grasses
such as cotton grass (Eriophorum angustifolium) and purple moor-grass
(Molinia caerulia). As with heaths, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
‘improvements’ have served not only to reduce the extent of moorland, but
also to destroy certain kinds more than others. In general, the lower, heath-
like moors were more susceptible to reclamation than those occupying the
higher, peat-covered plateaux.
The extent to which moors were originally tree-covered remains unclear
and those lying at high levels, and furthest north, were perhaps only ever
thinly timbered. Nevertheless, it is probable that most English moors are
essentially anthropogenic environments. The lower moors especially were
densely settled in prehistory. On Dartmoor, for example, remains of planned
field systems of Bronze Age date divide up much of the land surface.^47 The
retreat from the uplands came at various times – here in the later Bronze Age,
elsewhere as the climate deteriorated in the Iron Age. The removal of trees
increased waterlogging and thus peat formation and by the early Middle
Ages moors were generally exploited as summer grazing by communities
principally based on lower ground, or by specialized grazing establishments
called ‘vaccaries’, the property of major landowners. As we have seen, many
were also used for hunting and designated as ‘forests’ in spite of their open,
treeless character. Dartmoor and Exmoor were forests, and there were
originally at least 39 named forests in the Pennines and the Lake District,
including the Peak Forest in Derbyshire, and Bowland and Rossendale in
Lancashire.^48
Moors were, in the seventeenth century, intensively exploited: had they
not been those lying at lower altitudes, at least, would soon have reverted
to woodland. They were grazed, both by sheep and by cattle, tough upland
breeds which were mainly sent to the lowlands for fattening.^49 They were,
like heaths, cut for bracken, heather and gorse, and for rough molinia hay
in the spring;^50 while peat was extensively dug for fuel, on a vast scale where
minerals were smelted, as in the southern Pennines.^51 Already some areas of
heather moor were being managed by burning, to judge from a statute of
1607, which attempted to restrict the practice to the winter. The purpose
was to destroy old, woody growth, unpalatable to sheep, and encourage
new shoots: heather is remarkably fire resistant.^52
Heather moors, in particular, would have been rich in wildlife. The
taller heather provided nesting grounds for the merlin and red grouse,
while curlew, golden plover and lapwing preferred areas where it was
shorter.^53 Moorland provides homes for fewer mammals and reptiles
than heaths, however, owing to the cooler and wetter conditions. Voles
and mice are thus often numerous but the range of reptiles was more
restricted, although adders would have been common on the heather
moors especially.