Research Catalog

Title

Oak : a British history / Esmond Harris, Jeanette Harris and N.D.G. James.

Author

Harris, Esmond

Publication

Macclesfield, Cheshire : Windgather Press, c2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Harris, Jeanette, 1929-
• James, N. D. G.

Description

xiii, 242 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.), maps; 25 cm.

Summary

"This book is a cultural history not only of a tree, but also of a timber. It reclaims the disappearing forestry and carpentry skills of our ancestors and shows how, in an era of climate change, oak can enrich our future as well as our past."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Oak > Great Britain > History
• English oak > Ecology
• Trees > Symbolic aspects > Great Britain
• Forest products industry > Great Britain
• Forests and forestry > Great Britain > History
• Fagaceae

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 222-233) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Foreword / The Lord Clinton DL -- The Early History of Oak in Britain -- The early climate of Britain -- Tree species in the distant past -- The arrival of oak in Britain after the ice age; dating oak timbers and artefacts by radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, pollen analysis and climate changes -- The gradual influence of man on the natural woodland -- Use of oak in timber circles and trackways -- Early use of oak for housing and its importance to man for fuel, tanning, charcoal and artefacts -- The Celts, the Roman invasion and their influence on the woodland cover -- Propagation and Raising -- Tree clearance, particularly of oak, coppicing, woodland regeneration, clearing for pasture -- The Sweet and Meare Heath tracks -- Early protection of woodlands by enclosure -- Destruction of oak woods for iron smelting and glass manufacture -- Woodland regeneration -- Evelyn's recommendations for woodland management and subsequent texts with regard to oak -- Methods used to establish oak in the past by natural regeneration, transplanting and direct sowing -- Protection of young oak woods and first use of conifers as 'nurses' -- Old nursery practices compared with modern techniques -- Suitable soils and silvicultural systems for oak -- The relevance of the past to today's practice; modern methods -- Tree shelters and their particular value for oak -- Management and Silviculture -- Management of oak woodlands in the past by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons -- Forest laws.
• The Domesday Survey, Royal Forests, management by the monasteries and tenants' rights -- Management systems: high forest, coppice with standards, simple coppice -- The importance of coppicing, medieval hunting forests and timber production, coppice with standards, wood pasture -- Henry VIII's statute -- Over-cutting of oak woods, shortage of fuel wood, rising demand for charcoal for iron smelting, open-grown oak trees for ship building and laws to ensure its provision -- Concern about supplies of oak -- Proclamation by James I to restrict felling for glass manufacture -- Evelyn and other writers' recommendations for growing oak in mixture, nursing of oak and pruning -- Eighteenth-century forest practices -- The introduction and general use of conifers as nurses -- Production of oak plants in nurseries -- The problem of epicormics on oak -- Recognition of sessile oak as a separate species -- High prices obtainable for tan bark during the Napoleonic wars -- Reduction in need for ship timber -- Influence of continental practice on yield control -- Shake in oak timber and the influence of soils -- References to successful growing of oak in the historical literature -- Nursing and pruning -- Lessons for the successful growing of oak today -- Past and Present Uses -- The paramount place of oak timber and its secondary products over many centuries -- Historical uses of oak for tan bark and charcoal.
• The special characteristics of oak: durability, cleavability, strength and good working qualities suitable for a wide range of uses, such as in cooperage, houses, ecclesiastical buildings, furniture and carving -- Oak for barrels, casks, spelk baskets, shingles and in church carving -- Oak as the principal timber of the village carpenter -- Present day restorations and craft uses of oak -- Decorative features of oak timber -- 'brown oak', 'bog oak', 'pippy oak' -- in the past and today -- Shipbuilding -- The importance of oak in the earliest boats and ships, archaeological evidence of oak in boats and ships, use of 'clinker' construction by the Saxons and Vikings -- The Ferriby, Nydam and Dover boats -- King Alfred's navy -- The adoption of 'carvel' construction for stronger ships, merchant vessels and fishing boats -- King Henry VIII's navy and increasing world trade requiring merchant ships -- Oak for 'treenails' and 'compass wood', the latter requiring large trees -- Increasing shortages of ship-building oak, particularly 'grown' timbers -- Elizabeth's concern about the destruction of oak forests, particularly near navigable rivers -- Different methods of growing oak for compass timber and for planks; steamed timber when grown oak not available -- Replacement of oak 'knees' by iron and eventually of wooden ships too -- Bristol pilot cutters and Scott's Discovery at the turn of the twentieth century, the last ships to be constructed of oak -- Revival of building in oak for the mine sweepers of the Second World War -- The use of oak bark for tanning sails.
• Use of oak in present day boat restoration projects and replicas -- Myths, Symbols and the Age of Oak Trees -- Myths, legends, 'mistletoe oaks', poems and people associated with oak -- Oak trees and mistletoe sacred to the Druids -- 'Mistletoe oaks' -- Oak trees as boundary markers and meeting places; place names associated with oak -- Oak in the landscape -- Oak trees with historical associations -- Oak and oak leaves as symbols and in heraldry -- Sayings associated with oak -- Ageing and dating oak trees; Mitchell's formula -- The Role of Oak in the Future -- The role of oak in wildlife conservation; as a host to many insect species, the importance of 'veteran trees' as a habitat for rare saprophytic insects, fungi and lichens -- Sources and origin of oak seed -- Revival of the use of oak for high quality furniture, kitchen cabinets, decorative work and restoration -- Carbon sequestration by oak -- The amount of oak woodland in Britain still significant today -- FC censuses of oak woods -- Breeding quality oak trees for the future, The British Hardwood Improvement Programme -- The future of oak is assured -- A List of Historic and Named Oak Trees -- Historic and Named Oak Trees, Listed by County.

ISBN

0953863085

OCLC

• 51667811
• SCSB-11762440

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library