History

Around 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, plants began to regain land that had been covered with extensive glaciers during the Ice Age. In Ireland and Britain it was first willow, then birch that colonised these islands again. In a subsequent phase, hazel dominated the landscape for several thousands of years and it was into this environment that the first inhabitants of Ireland and Britain arrived about 9,000 years ago, coming probably from an area in present Denmark. When the first Neolithic farmers reached the British Islands around 6,000 years ago they introduced the more sophisticated flint implements with which they were able to manipulate wood. We need to remember that these places were not as isolated as we tend to imagine: busy traffic and trading is evident from that time. Around 2,500 BC we find large-scale porcellanite industries on Rathlin Island or in Tievebulliagh in Co. Antrim where axes were exported from into the furthest corners of Scotland and England, as far as Kent. Skin-boats and dug-out canoes on inland waterways, like the fabulous 50ft canoe at the National Museum of Ireland, found in Co. Galway, played an important role in trading: technology was sophisticated enough to develop and manufacture these vessels. Shortly after, during the Bronze Age, material and design technology was easily exchanged, as the flourishing bronze casting industry in Ireland relied on tin imported from the Cornwall region. Wood at this time played an important role in these industries, as huge amounts of oak charcoal were required for smelting ore and melting iron. For an annual production of about forty of the Lough Ravel type of early copper axe, weighing around 500g each, about 100 mature oak trees were needed to make the 2,500 tons of dry fuel for smelting one ton of the required ore alone (Flanagan, L).

Even before its deliberate cultivation in coppices about 4,000 years ago, it is likely that hazel was used as a material for building (Mabey, 1996). Lattice frames, like hurdles, for wattle and daub construction have been in use since Neolithic times.
The Doomsday Book of 1085 is among early literary evidence of the extent of woodlands in Cornwall, where more than 180 of the 350 manors in the area possessed substantial woodlands. These were of importance for local tenants, who were given rights to collect material they needed for fuel, hedges and building.