Telescopic sights

[VSS]

Look it up,you'll find it's true. With forming of the forestry commission woodland grew by quite a lot. Have seen it mentioned numerous times on TV and other forums. The first time I heard it,I was surprised I must admit.

I just have.
Current tree cover in the UK is 13%.
1,000 years ago it was 15%.

Agreed, it is surprising that the figures are so close. But incorrect to state that there are now more trees than 1,000 years ago

 

[Len the dog]

Do barren coniferous plantations qualify as ‘woodland’?

 

[VSS]

Do barren coniferous plantations qualify as ‘woodland’?

For the sake of these statistics, yes they do.

 

[ASl sniper.177]

For the sake of these statistics, yes they do.

For the sake of these statistics, yes they do.

Very close then,but not entirely correct I grant you. There was a lot less in the intervening years between a thousand years ago and now. Not being clever. If you look at the amount of woodland that's about now,a lot of it's been planted in the last 150 years or less.

 

[Tim.243]

Very close then,but not entirely correct I grant you. There was a lot less in the intervening years between a thousand years ago and now. Not being clever. If you look at the amount of woodland that's about now,a lot of it's been planted in the last 150 years or less.

Maid Marion will be late as the EV is on charge

 

[VSS]

Very close then,but not entirely correct I grant you. There was a lot less in the intervening years between a thousand years ago and now. Not being clever. If you look at the amount of woodland that's about now,a lot of it's been planted in the last 150 years or less.

A basic summary and timeline here:

A brief history of woodlands in Britain and Ireland | TCV Handbooks

A brief, but detailed, look at woodlands in Britain and Ireland since the last Ice Age to the present day, their development, decline and restoration

conservationhandbooks.com

 

[Pete6.5]

When looking at old pictures of local villages and country side the first thing I noticed was the lack of trees.

 

[Pete6.5]

And the hedges used to be shorter but I guess that was because they were cut by hand. My wife's family have farmed the same farm since 1730 and they have some great pictures of the local area.

 

[Dalua]

And the hedges used to be shorter but I guess that was because they were cut by hand. My wife's family have farmed the same farm since 1730 and they have some great pictures of the local area.

That's an interesting point. In the world of my imagination, hedges before and for a while after the 2nd WW would more-usually have been proper hand-cut and laid hedges, rather than the flail-cut lines of short trees which we tend to see nowadays (where I often am, at least)?
By this I mean they'd have been wide at the bottom, and dense enough to give full meaning to the expression '... looked like he/she/it had been pulled through a hedge backwards'.
Your picture-archive might shed some light on this hypothesis?

 

[Pete6.5]

Another reason hedges were kept small was farms were small and every acre counted