Arboriculture

There is documentary evidence for the management of woods in southern Scotland in the medieval period. At Coldingham, from the 12th to the 15th centuries, the abbey managed at least some of its woods by directing cutting to certain areas, by using servants to supervise cutting and in the 15th century, and probably earlier, by enclosing some woods. Kelso Abbey placed an area of woodland in defence in the Monynut area in the 12th century and in Gala and Leader forest pressure on woodland and other resources led to disputes, the settlements of which throw light on woodland management and the possible use of pollarding. The wood banks on Bowden Moor, previously described in these Transactions, may well centre on a dispute in the 12th century over a divided wood and there is evidence from Jedburgh in the 13th century of enclosure of woods and of the use of quick-set hedges either in the 13th century or earlier. Teinds of underwood are also recorded for Teviotdale in the 12th century and point to the harvesting of coppices at that time. In the Bowmont valley in the 12th and 13th centuries Anselm de Mow and then Richard de Lincoln held several woods in their fief of Mow and their grants to Melrose and Kelso abbeys show that in certain instances they tried to manage their woods by limiting cutting to spring and summer and by stipulating a 10 to 15 year rota for cutting wood. Combined with the palynological evidence from the area this all points to a system of coppicing, but coppicing is nowhere mentioned in the sources nor do the sources explain how these arrangements affected common rights or the practices of the local population as a whole. In the South-West the place name Hardgrove points to the existence of coppicing probably as early as the 7th century and in Annandale at Stapleton enclosure of common wood took place in the 13th century. In the 15th century at Woodcockair the Crown had rented the vert of the wood which suggests management and regular cropping of the wood. Between Dalbeattie and Dumfries there is some suggestion that in the later 12th century the lords of Galloway were trying to manage their woods to meet the demands being made on them both for pannage and for fuel. There are no direct descriptions or accounts in the medieval period of the ways in which woods in Scotland were managed and so it is only by a process of deduction, such as this article attempts to carry out, that a cumulative picture begins to emerge.