Richard Fortey - The Wood for the Trees - The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map 1: April 2: May 3: June 4: July 5: August 6: September 7: October 8: November 9: December 10: January 11: February 12: March Picture Section Acknowledgements Notes Index Also by Richard Fortey About the Publisher

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © Richard Fortey 2016

The author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008104696

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008104672

Version: 2017-03-17

For Eileen and Stuart Skeates

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map 1: April 2: May 3: June 4: July 5: August 6: September 7: October 8: November 9: December 10: January 11: February 12: March Picture Section Acknowledgements Notes Index Also by Richard Fortey About the Publisher

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map 1: April 2: May 3: June 4: July 5: August 6: September 7: October 8: November 9: December 10: January 11: February 12: March Picture Section Acknowledgements Notes Index Also by Richard Fortey About the Publisher William Collins An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016 Copyright © Richard Fortey 2016 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008104696 Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008104672 Version: 2017-03-17

Dedication Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map 1: April 2: May 3: June 4: July 5: August 6: September 7: October 8: November 9: December 10: January 11: February 12: March Picture Section Acknowledgements Notes Index Also by Richard Fortey About the Publisher For Eileen and Stuart Skeates

Map

1: April

2: May

3: June

4: July

5: August

6: September

7: October

8: November

9: December

10: January

11: February

12: March

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Notes

Index

Also by Richard Fortey

About the Publisher

After a working life spent in a great museum, the time had come for me to escape into the open air. I spent years handling fossils of extinct animals; now, the inner naturalist needed to touch living animals and plants. My wife Jackie discovered the advertisement: a small piece of the Chiltern Hills up for sale. The proceeds from a television series proved exactly enough to purchase four acres of ancient beech-and-bluebell woodland, buried deeply inside a greater stretch of stately trees. The briefest of visits clinched the deal – exploring the wood simply felt like coming home. On 4 July 2011 ‘Grim’s Dyke Wood’ became ours.

I began to keep a diary to record wildlife, and the look and feel of the woodland as it passed through diverse moods and changing seasons. I sat on one particular stump to make observations, which I wrote down in a small, leather-bound notebook. I was unconsciously compiling a biography of the wood – bio in the most exact sense, since animals and plants formed an important part of it. Before long, I saw that the story was as much about human history as it was about nature. For all its ancient lineage, the wood was shaped by human hand. I needed to explore the development of the English countryside, all the way from the Iron Age to the recent exploitation of woodland for beech furniture or tent pegs. I was moved by a compulsion to understand half-forgotten crafts and revive half-remembered words like ‘bodger’, ‘spile’ and ‘bavin’. Plans were made to fell timber, to follow the journey from tree to furniture; to visit the canopy in a cherry-picker; to explore the archaeology of that ancient feature, Grim’s Dyke, that ran along one side of the plot. I wanted to see if the wood could yield food as well as inspiration.

My scientific soul reawakened as I sought to comprehend the ways that plants and animals collaborate to generate a rich ecology. I had to sample everything: mosses, lichens, grasses, insects, and fungi. I investigated the natural history of beech, oak, ash, yew, and all the other trees. I spent moonlit evenings trapping moths; daytime frolicking with nets to catch crane flies or lifting up rotten logs to understand decay. I poked and prodded and snuffled under brambles. I wanted to turn the appropriate bits of geology into tiles and glass. The wood became a route to understanding how the landscape is forever in a state of transition, for all that we think it unchanging. In short, the wood became a project.

Grim’s Dyke Wood is just a segment in the middle of more extensive ancient woodland, Lambridge Wood, lying in the southern part of the county of Oxfordshire. Splitting Lambridge into separate plots generated a profit for the previous owner, but also allowed people of modest means to own and care for their own small piece of living history. Our fellow ‘woodies’ – as Jackie terms them – proved to include a well-known harpsichordist, a retired professor of business systems, a founder member of Genesis (the band, not the book), a virologist turned plant illustrator, ex-actors turned psychologists, and a woman of mystery. Our own patch is one of the smaller ones. All of the ‘woodies’ have their own reasons for wanting to be among the trees – some desire simply to dream, some would rather like to turn a profit, others to explore sustainable resources. I believe I am the only naturalist. All the owners are there to prevent the wood from being felled or turned into housing. For the long history of Lambridge Wood tells us that our trees are less worked today than at any time in the past. This sad redundancy is no less part of its tale, as our wood is inevitably connected to the wider world of commerce and markets. The histories of my home town, Henley-on-Thames, a mile away, and the famous river on which it sits, are bound into the narrative of the surrounding countryside. Ancient manors controlled the fate of woodlands for centuries. I have to imagine what the wood would have seen or heard as great events passed it by; who might have lurked under the trees, what poachers and vagabonds, poets or highwaymen.