A bit of History
Throughout history wood has played an important role in the life of Britain. It provided housing, furniture, energy and light. It provided ships for the navy, enclosures for cattle, sheep and pigs; in fact it touched people in every walk of life.
We think today of ancient woodland as being wild and untended this is not true, ancient woodland just means woodland that has always been there. It was managed to provide a livelihood for the people of the village and thus provided a habitat for the flora and fauna of the countryside.
This process of working woodland carried on unchanged, more or less, right up until the First World War. It was in 1919 that the Forestry Commission started planting blocks of conifer to try and make Britain self sufficient in timber.
The problem was that our temperate climate was better suited to the growing of hardwoods and although the conifer grew well it grew quickly meaning we couldn’t compete with the slower growing conifers of the arctic regions which, although the same species, grew denser and therefore more suitable for construction purposes, much of Britain’s conifer goes for pulping.
While it is true that forestry cover in Britain is higher now than at any time since the Middle Ages it is also true that much of it is over-stood meaning it is under managed.
It was to help address this problem that Geoff and Sue Hughes, who had always wanted to own a wood, bought a small over- stood woodland on the Isle of Wight and so started Wood End Enterprises.
