Coppice Management
The type of woodland management used in the Sheffield area since the late Middle Ages and which is being revived today is known as Coppice - with - Standards. One of the earliest surviving records of the use of coppice - with - standards management is a lease written in Latin and dated 1421. The lease refers to a farm at Norton and contains references to charcoal burning and the right to cut underwood and timber. Standards are the mature trees which have been allowed to continue growing in order to be harvested for timber as and when required. In England and Wales today, standards will usually be Oak, although they may be Beech or Ash, particularly in limestone or chalk areas.
In South Yorkshire, during the late Middle Ages, they may also have included Alder. In the Sheffield area, the young timber trees were known as wavers and by the time that they were between 40 and 50 years old and had grown through two coppice cycles, the local name for them was black barks. Even older timber trees were known as lordings.
Trees which are typically coppiced include Hazel , Hornbeam and Chestnut, the last of which was brought to Britain from southern Europe to be used for this purpose. Trees used for coppice in South Yorkshire in the past have included Ash, Maple, Hawthorn, Crab Apple, Hazel, Birch, Willow, Rowan and occasionally Lime and Wild Service.
Coppice trees and shrubs are cut down close to the ground at regular intervals, leaving a stump, or stool which sends up a number of shoots or poles, which are known as coppice, underwood or just wood. Mature stools can be between two and four meter's across and can produce poles of up to four meter's in the first season after cutting.
The process of coppicing begins each winter, between the months of November and March, by dividing the woodland into a number of coupes or compartments. Once one or more coupes has been chosen to be coppiced, the coppiced trunks of the trees are cut into lengths and stacked in heaps. Traditionally each stack is known as a 'cord' and the wood in the stack is known as 'cordwood'. Such a stack would measure eight feet wide and four feet high made of 4ft length's and equate to 1 tonne of wood (stacked as opposed to a solid cube).
A coppice cycle of just a few years is needed in order to produce the Hazel required for basket and hurdle making. A long coppice cycle (15 - 20 years) can produce tree trunks 15 meter's tall and 15 - 30 cm thick which will be more valuable than thinner trunks as they can be used for a greater number of purposes. A shorter coppice cycle of 10 - 15 years will produce smaller trunks which can be used for furniture making, fencing and firewood and also increases the proportion of the stages in the cycle which are most valuable for the wildlife.
These two pictures show the regeneration of coppice. The tree in the center is the same tree in each photo. On the left the coppice has just been cut, on the right is a coppice stool after just six months.
A typical coupe measures one hectare and will take around 400 man hours to coppice with only moderate use of a chain saw. If the coppicing is to be done, it must create enough of an income to make it worthwhile. There are several ways of making this happen. The cordwood can be sold as firewood, it can be converted to charcoal and then sold, or it can be turned by craftsmen into any number of a range of woodcraft goods.
The material would be sorted as it was cut down into its various grades form hazel rods for hurdles up to full length trunks for furniture making & saw logs.
