The Old Man of Wytham

When I lead walks round Wytham I often emphasise the legacy of the Fifth Earl of Abingdon (Montague Bertie), Colonel Raymond ffennell and Professor Charles Elton in the structure and composition of the woods as they are today. I think this this makes an interesting story for visitors, but it is adopting the ‘great man’ approach to history. By doing so, I am underplaying the impact of ordinary people going about their daily business in the woods, those who actually did the hard graft.

Brogden’s Belt: planted by instruction of the Fifth Earl, in the early 19th C., part of the gift to the University from Raymond ffennell, saved from clear-felling by Charles Elton. But who was Brogden – someone famous or just the leader of the gang that planted the trees?

The Domesday Book records 60 villans and 69 bordars in the parish of Cumnor which included what is now Wytham Woods: these were unfree people, but who had the right to work some land for themselves. They owed service to the Lord of the Manor, so from time to time they may have been cutting trees for his great hall, but far more frequently they would have been pollarding, shredding or coppicing trees for their daily use. The Abbess of Godstow Nunnery might have had the right to four cartloads of thorns for fuel wood, but it would have been one of the villagers who would have cut it under the supervision of her forester.

“How many thorns to the cartload?”

In the mid-sixteenth century the villagers got caught up in the ownership disputes between Lord Williams and George Owen (who had acquired various lands previously part of the holdings of the Abbey at Abingdon).  Owen claimed that Williams had caused his tenants to cut wood in his coppice and grazed their cattle on his meadow. Williams counter-claimed Owen’s men were driving his tenants off his land. The tenants meanwhile just wanted to get on with their daily lives.

“Just remind me, is the land we are grazing claimed by Williams or Owen today”

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries people start to emerge as individuals in lists of tenants, tithe awards and maps prepared for the enclosure act for Wytham and Cumnor parishes. I was amused that one such in 1726 was the ‘the widow Bazely’, as Dawn Bazely is a Canadian colleague who has helped with the modern vegetation surveys in the woods. We can also see a nineteenth century villager at work, cutting coppice near Botley Lodge in the background of Sir John Millais’s picture The Woodman’s daughter (painted c.1850-1851). It is a pity the woodman has his back to us, or he might have seen that his girl is about to be led astray by the squire’s son.

From the mid-nineteenth century onward, it becomes easier to find out about the ordinary people through documents such as censuses, photographs, and first hand accounts of their lives. However, they still remain rather shadowy figures compared to the major landowners and the like.

 A book produced in memory of the ffennell’s daughter Hazel who died young in the 1930s describes her life, the village events in which she played a part, the big house; but what was it like for the farm labourers and woodmen of the time, living in the village? Their cottages are now highly desirable residences, but then they would have been cold and damp much of the time. Even in 1959 the management plan for the Woods refers to the desirability of finally installing mains water to replace the spring source, and electricity to replace oil lamps, in the forester’s house by the sawmill.

Wytham in the early 20th C.

When we visit the woods for research our focus is on the particular recording that needs doing that day, the plots to be recorded, the nestboxes to check, the insects to be caught: once that job is done, home we go. It is easy to forget that all through the rest of the year there are gates to be locked and unlocked, rides and fences to be maintained, trees to be cleared, deer to be managed, minor emergencies to be sorted; and somebody has to do this.

“Well someone must have cut the coppice;!”

Next time I talk about the influence of Charles Elton, I must also remember to bring in Bert Probitts, Bill Mundy and Den Woods who maintained the woods through the 1950s to the 1970s for the researchers to play in; and their modern-day successors who are similarly indispensable.