The Wood for the Trees by Richard Fortey

Author:Richard Fortey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Greys Court Affairs

The history of our wood and the story of Greys Court are intimately entwined. But even an estate like Rotherfield Greys cannot be fenced off from the outside world, as its game park might be from the privations of the peasantry. The early medieval period was one of increasing population and growth in trade. This accompanied a long phase of benign climate. If it had continued, woods marginal to the estate could well have been grubbed up and taken into arable use. The fourteenth century threw everything into reverse. The Great Famine of 1315–17 saw a succession of wet summers and implacable winters. Cereal crops failed. Seed corn was eaten in desperation. Starvation and the diseases encouraged by it took a huge toll; up to 20 per cent of the English population is thought to have perished. Cannibalism became a common crime. Global climatic change was caused by vast quantities of volcanic dust and gas released into the atmosphere by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Tarawera in New Zealand. Our wood was inexorably linked to events at the other end of the world. In the hard currency of tree girth this led to three years where little heartwood was added, just thin and measly growth rings that dendrochronologists use to recognise as a signature of those desperate years.

The Black Death followed in 1348–49, when bubonic plague swept through the land, respecting neither privilege nor estate. The historian Simon Townley estimates that Henley fared particularly badly because of its close connections with London—up to two-thirds of the population may have died. Afterwards, entrepreneurs moved back quickly, turning tragedy into opportunity. William Woodhall appears in the town records in 1350, was Town Warden two years later, and by his death in 1358 had a trading business stretching through south-east England. Henley kept its reputation as a commercial centre, and by the fifteenth century had enhanced it still further. From the narrow perspective of our wood, years of disaster meant that there was no pressure from population growth and so the forest was safe from clearance (assarting). It continued its useful life, its links with the past unbroken. But by now it should be clear that there were also links that connected our small piece of woodland in Oxfordshire with what was happening in the wider world. These links remain: they bind the whole biosphere together in common climatic cause. Viewed this way, the estate is global.

Generations of de Greys survived the difficult years, based at the manor house, which had by now lost any worthwhile function as a castle. The land was worked on through season after season, sustained by strict routines, but when labour became scarce after the ravages wrought by hunger and disease, statutes were passed to ensure that no advantage accrued to the workers. The interests of lords and merchants were, of course, protected. During a succession of minority heirs to Greys Court between 1399 and 1439, the old buildings became run-down. Later in the fifteenth century

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