"The History of Bunny Old Wood"

July 2003 Meeting Report

Guest Speaker - Chris Terrell-Neild

 

TThe July meeting of the Keyworth & District Local History Society was held in the Centenary Lounge on Friday 4th July. The guest speaker for the meeting was Chris Terrell-Neild and the topic for the evening was “Bunny Old Wood”. Chris Terrell-Neild began by telling the meeting that he had managed the wood for the last nine years and then went on to relate that the wood itself is situated some 7 miles south of Nottingham on the A.60 road to Loughborough. The correct classification for the wood is that of ancient, semi-natural woodland of elm and ash of some 70 acres. The wood is some 750 metres long and between 50 and 250 metres wide. It has the designation “Old” to differentiate it from Bunny New Wood which is situated on the opposite side of the A.60 and is of much more recent pedigree.

Bunny Old Wood forms part of a woodland complex that, in all probability, sprung up after the last age-age scoured the Trent Valley out of the landscape some 11,000 years ago. Because of it’s location on the side of quite a steep bank the land would have been very difficult to cultivate and it became naturally forested. Bunny New Wood on the other hand is of much more recent times having been planted by Lord Rancliffe in the 18th Century. The current Bunny Old Wood is split into two sections; the western section, which is owned by the Notts Wildlife Trust, and the eastern section, which is privately owned. Notts Wildlife Trust acquired ownership of the wood in 1985 when they paid British Gypsum the princely sum of 1p for the land. The bridleways and footpaths that traverse Bunny Old Wood have been there for as long as anyone has knowledge of the place.

To acquire the title “Ancient” in it’s title, Chris informed the audience, that certain criteria must be satisfied. Roughly ten important essentials must be met, these are: -

  1. The wood must have a name, which includes the words wood, coppice, copse, dumble or dingle.
  2. The wood should have an irregular and sinuous boundary.
  3. The wood does not fit into the surrounding field pattern.
  4. The wood is near or on a Parish boundary.
  5. The wood will be located in a narrow valley or on a steep bank.
  6. The wood will be enclosed by an earth bank or ditch. (Bunny Old Wood has an earth bank along 1760 metres of its boundary and is the largest archaeological feature in South Notts although nothing whatsoever is known of it’s history).
  7. The wood will contain old coppice “stools”. (A stool is the stem of the tree, which grows, as the tree is coppiced. Coppicing encourages the tree to grow at a greater rate than normal. Ordinarily an ash tree will take about 100 years to achieve a girth of one metre. On this basis, some of the trees at Bunny Old Wood are between four and five hundred years of age).
  8. The wood will contain carpets of woodland flowers.
  9. The wood should have “Indicator” species growing in it; these may include such plants as Dog’s Mercury, Wood Anemone or Yellow Archangel.
  10. The wood should be rich in wildlife, including rarities.

 

Of the 10 salient points Bunny Old Wood meets the criteria for numbers 1 to 7. However, it fails to satisfy points 8 to 10. It is strange that the wood fails to satisfy point 8, especially when you consider that the wood is often known as Bluebell Woods. As for point 10 over 1000 different species have been recorded in the woods, which comprise of the following: -

  1. 32 different types of tree and shrub.
  2. 115 other types of flowering plant.
  3. 69 species of non-flowering plants.
  4. 68 species of vertebrates, (58 species of bird and 15 species of mammal).
  5. 530 species of invertebrate, (of which 145 are species of beetle, 139 are species of moth, and 23 species of butterfly).

The first recorded instance relating to Bunny Old Wood occurs where so many other names first appear in recorded history, namely, The Doomsday Book. In 1086 Ralph Fitzherbert is recorded as owning the Manor of Bunny wherein lies a wood 10 furlongs in length and 1 furlong in width. The value of the wood was put at 60/-. The first recorded instance of the name Bunny occurred in 1330 when it was spelt Boneryis. The wood acquired a Royal connection when, on 12th June 1487, King Henry VII camped with his army next to the woods on his way to successfully fight the battle of East Stoke and in so doing end the Wars of the Roses. Another Royal connection occurred on 9th November 1588 when, as one of Queen Mary’s last Acts, she granted some lands in Bunny Woods to her goldsmith.

The Parkyn family have been the longest holders of the tenure of the woods having been its owners for about 300 years. Their ownership finally came to an end in 1910 when with no direct heir the estate went to a distant relative who broke the estate up and sold off its constituent parts. The sale realized £100,000, a very considerable sum in 1910. The sale was organised by Albert Ball senior whose son, of the same name, was to achieve such fame a few years later as one of the leading aces in The Royal Flying Corps. Indeed, after the war Albert Ball became The Lord Mayor of Nottingham and his son’s well-deserved fame must have been a great asset in his campaign to win the post.

Bunny and Rancliffe woods were bought, (in 1910), by a Dr Cordeaux who, unfortunately did not live for too long afterwards to enjoy the use of them. By 1938 the woods had been allowed to become run-down and British Gypsum stepped in and bought the land in order that they could extend their mineral working in the area. One of the last things to be done before British Gypsum acquired the woods was to coppice the wood. The resulting crop was then sold to its new owners, which was a bit of a flanker, as they owned the wood anyway!!

Coppicing is a very important practice in the management of woodland. The practice dates back, at least to the early middle ages right up until the late 19th century. It is one of those rare practices that are wholly beneficial, both to the tree and the farmer. Coppicing causes “stools” which stimulate growth and encourage new shoots. Most lowland woods were coppiced every 15 to 20 years and the resulting crop of wood would provide an endless source of materials with little or no cultivation from the farmer. Bunny Old Wood is comprise mainly of elm and ash. Elm is a very durable wood, and, if kept wet doesn’t rot very quickly. Hence it was used for such purposes as waterwheels, lock gates, coffins, barge bottoms and well furniture. It is also a member of the nettle family and is edible. Indeed, the smaller parts of the coppicing would be used to feed livestock.

The practice of coppicing fell out of favour around the turn of the 19th Century when cheap imports from the Empire made it unprofitable. Indeed, cheap imports from the Empire caused the collapse of the British timber market. The Forestry Commission was set up in the 1920’s to ensure that the severe shortages of home produced timber which had been such a problem during The Great War would not occur again. Also, coppicing is very labour intensive. With changing farming practices the need for agricultural labour reduced sharply. Whereas the average farm of 1000 acres between the wars would have employed between three or four dozen men, now only three or four men are employed. With so much labour coppicing could easily be incorporated into the annual calendar, as it needed to be done at a slack time of the year. With the modern small workforces the time of each man is much more intensively used and coppicing simply could not be incorporated into the agricultural cycle.

By the 1970’s Bunny Old Wood hadn’t been coppiced for a considerable number of years. This had allowed the trees to grow naturally to quite an impressive size. Unfortunately this was to have quite catastrophic effects when Dutch elm disease struck the wood. The native elm trees had, over centuries, developed their own immunity to the native strain of the disease but when a new strain was imported in from North America they were defenceless and the elm tree was particularly hard hit. Dutch Elm Disease is not Dutch at all; a Dutchman in France originally identified it in 1818. The first outbreak registered in this country occurred in 1937 when between 10 to 20% of the trees in the country were lost. However, the outbreak that is still prevalent in Britain today began in the 1960’s with an import of some wood from North America, which was infected with the disease. The disease only took six years to cover the whole country and by 1974 4,500,000 trees had been lost. Indeed, so virulent was the disease that by 1980 southern England had lost around 75% of its elm trees. Even as late as 1995 the disease was still widespread throughout the country.

The disease itself is caused by the Elm Bark Beetle. This beetle feeds on the elm bark and builds “galleries” under the bark where the larvae of the beetle feed. This causes a type of fungus to grow which stops the flow of sap up the trunk. Since each beetle can produce up to fifty larvae and each mature tree can support 70,000 larvae the scope for the spread of the disease can be imagined. Often a diseased tree would fall over and in so doing come into contact with another healthy tree and in that way the beetles and larvae could spread the disease to the healthy tree. However, it has been discovered that the beetles need to build galleries for their larvae that are at least 45cm long. The larvae travel around the trunk, not up and down it. Therefore if the circumference of the tree can be kept below that size the larvae do not have the room that they need to mature. If the galleries meet due to the girth of the tree being inadequate the larvae die. Coppicing keeps the diameter of the trunk down and as such is an invaluable step in denying the larvae their vital breeding space.

One good thing that has resulted from the disease is that as the tress have died they have let light, which would otherwise not have been able to penetrate the trees canopy, to find its way to the floor of the wood. This has allowed flowers to flourish where once that would have had no chance of doing so. Some of the results have been quite spectacular with masses of woodland flowers blooming in a riot of colour.

The future of Bunny Old Wood seems secure. Coppicing will continue to be a major part of the management of the wood and the effects of Dutch elm disease are slowly receding, indeed, it is believed that trees which have survived attacks of the disease acquire a natural resistance to it. The wood is attracting more and more visitors and virtually every aspect of the life of the wood is being recorded. The talk by Chris Terrell-Neild was informative, educational and very, very interesting. It is a source of considerable satisfaction to know that Keyworth is lucky enough to have such a valuable amenity virtually on it’s own back doorstep.

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