Woodland Boundaries: Ashtead Common and Dorset Ancient Woodland

Описание: Woodland boundaries are always worth looking at - they tell you about the history of a woodland. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are very old indeed. Here we look at a dead hedge, a modern temporary boundary inside a wood to cope with a modern problem: keeping deer out of an area of restored derelict hazel coppice. Then we look at two fenced (permanent) boundaries on the edge of the same ancient farm woodland in Dorset.

Then we look at an ancient boundary on a woodland in Surrey. Shot on the fly and doesn't really do it justice 'cos I was at work running a chainsaw. This is the boundary between Newton Wood (private, 2 ownerships, no public access) and Ashtead Common NNR. Originally Newton Wood was part of Ashtead Common - there is actually a thin strip of Ashtead Common on the far side and which adjoins Epsom Common. Newton Wood was enclosed by a bank and was coppice whereas the main Common (and Epsom Common) was grazed by livestock. You cannot allow livestock into a coppice because all the valuable regrowing coppice gets eaten! The bank at Newton Wood is immediately noticeable. No longer very high, it is wide and contains a lot of soil - likely many clearings of the dry ditch running along it's outer face. The ditch was likely appreciably deeper than now, but erosion has partly filled the ditch and reduced the bank.

Newton Wood was able to be sold because the then owner of Ashtead Common could prove that the woodland was enclosed and there was no rights of common applying to it. About 2/3 was later cleared of the original coppice/woodland and is now covered in secondary woodland for the most part: poplar, birch, plus other species. The southern 1/3 under a different, long-standing owner, is 'as was' - lapsed hazel coppice under oak with oak coppice stools scattered. Both parts are private land with no public access.

Epsom Common has a few pollards in the far northern corner. Ashtead has over 1000 pollard oaks and is long-lapsed pasture woodland - the pollards are now surrounded by scrub and secondary woodland.