Ancestral Acres: The Woods Department

By James Arnott

Forestry is a major activity amongst the various enterprises on the Estate. There are approximately 1,750 acres of commercial woodland ranging from mature, amenity hardwoods in the park to young hardwood/softwood plantations, managed on a commercial rotation. There is an Estate Sawmill, operating on a part time basis, which converts home-produced timber into stakes, posts, rails and building timber.

At one time the National Coal Board was a regular customer wanting pit props in large quantities. But the time came when many coalmines in the Midlands were closed and the demand for pit props ceased. But there is a creosoting plant at the mill, which is kept fairly busy.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about forestry but I do know that to the Forester, trees are a crop to be gathered in – or felled – at the right time, which is when they are mature and before they begin to rot and loose their value.

There were occasions when the Head Forester was obliged to advise the Duke that the time had come to fell a particular area of woodland which, understandably, was not particularly welcome. But with tact, and perhaps a little determination, the Head Forester would convince the Duke of the necessity of such a course. At which time tenders would be sought from three or four timber merchants, who having inspected the trees would make them an offer.

Her I should say that the Head Forester was Mr Alan Stannard, who before coming to Belvoir worked for the Forestry Commission, in the south of England, he himself having been born and bred in Kent.

A regular programme of amenity planting is carried out every year utilising the Woodlands Grant Scheme, the Forestry Grant Scheme and County Council Grant Structures. The woods were dedicated in 1989. The gales in February 1990 blew down 900 trees and a substantial replanting scheme has been undertaken since.

Originally some twenty men were employed in the woods, but that number has been reduced over the years, and today the Head Forester has only six men.

Before the Head Forester, Mr Alan Stannard, retired in January 1981, he was instructed to prepare for planting a piece of land just outside the village of Branston where he lived. In due course the piece of land became a plantation, and today bears his name in recognition of the splendid work he did in a most conscientious and professional fashion during his term of office as Head Forester.

If the wild fowl to be seen in and around the lakes of Belvoir and at Knipton Reservoir are of various varieties, ducks, geese, swans, coots and moorhens - to name but a few – then the birds to be seen and heard in and around the woods at Belvoir, are even more numerous in their diversity.

No ornithologist, I would not pretend to know all the birds which nest, rest or roost in the woods around Belvoir, the most common of which, perhaps, is the pheasant if only because it is reared on the Estate. The wood pigeon undoubtedly is to be seen in large numbers as, too, is the crow and rook. Other birds to be seen are the blackbird and thrush, the woodpecker and cuckoo, sparrows, robins and finches. A sharp eye would be needed to spot the sparrow hawk amongst the mixed woodlands and farmlands in which it haunts. And it is likely that one would see the pied flycatcher as that seemingly prefers other parts of the country, which better suits its breeding requirements.

Undoubtedly, the presence of so many birds frequenting the Belvoir woods, does add to the pleasure of taking a walk through the woods. Here I should say that the woods are not open to the public, but there are certain “rights of way” which allows one to take a stroll along a path in the woods, which can be a most enjoyable experience.

It is perhaps appropriate that at this moment I should refer to a man whose exceptional gift of observation and a natural interest in nature would result in a book, first published in 1788, with the title;  “Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne”. The author, of course, was Gilbert White, born in 1720 who became temporary curate of Selbourne and continued in that office until his death at the age of seventy three.

Births, baptisms and burials – and marriages too – are all suitably recorded in the book as too are all the birds he came across and got to know, well over a hundred of them, all referred to by name, including the auk, hoopoe, the red backed butcherbird, the bunting, the ring ousel and storm chatters, whinchats and wheat-ears, all of which I would not profess to know.

Here I must make mention of another man who lived a long time ago, as long ago, in fact, as the third century BC. Native of Cyrene in North Africa, his name was Callimachus, and in his time he became known as a poet, producing some hundreds of works in prose and in verse. Later on in life, he lived for many yaesr in Alexandria, during the reign of Ptoemy, and was for some time chief librarian of the famous library in Alexandria from about BC240 until his death about 260.

During his lifetime he became acquainted with a man called Heraclitus who came from Caria, a region in the southwest of Asia Minor, and who was reputed to have a written a book about nightingales. It was a long time before John Keats got around to writing his “Ode to a Nightingale”. But in due course Heraclitus died, at which time Callimachus was moved to write a poem, which, many years later, was translated by William Cory of Eton College.

Here is that poem:

‘They told me Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed,
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are the pleasant voices, the nightingales awake;
For death, he taketh away, but them he cannot take.’

I have to admit I had not associated nightingales with that part of the world of which, today, we refer to as the Middle East. In the same way, I must confess I have not heard nightingales singing in Barkestone Wood – nor indeed, in Berkeley Square. But undoubtedly I shall have to go down to the woods again in the hope of hearing the nightingale sing in memory of Heraclitus.

I will end this account of the woods department by quoting, once more, William Cobbett, as follows:

‘Woodland countries are interesting on many accounts. Not so much on account of their masses of green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and sounds and incidents they afford.’

Even in winter the coppices are beautiful to the eye. In spring they change their hue from day to day during the whole months, which is about the time from the appearance of the delicate leaves of the birch to the full expansion of those of the ash. And even before the leaves come at all to intercept the view, what is so delightful to behold as the bed of a coppice bespangled with primroses and bluebells?

The opening of the birch leaves is the signal for the pheasant to begin to crow, for the blackbird to whistle and the thrush to sing. And just when the oak buds look reddish, and not a day before, the whole tribe of finches burst forth in songs from every bough, while the lark, imitating them all, carries the joyous sound to the sky.

A reminder: it is good to know that there will be a plantation on the Belvoir Estate which will, in future, bear the name of Alan Stannard, the former Head Forester, who is held in the highest regard.

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