Medieval: wood

Showing posts with label wood. Show all posts

Artisans - Hand Crafted

Black, White, Brown, Red - Smiths ..

Blacksmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1B9zd0kVKU

Currier — leather processing specialist. After leather has been tanned process, the currier dresses, finishes and colours the tanned hide to make it strong, flexible and waterproof. The leather is stretched and burnished to produce a uniform thickness and suppleness. Dyeing and other chemical finishes give the leather its desired colour. After currying, the leather is then ready to pass to the fashioning trades such as saddlery, bridlery, shoe-making, and glove-making.

ironmonger
farrier
smith
brazier
locksmith
bladesmith
cutler
spoonmaker
pinner
wiredrawer
lorimer
spurrier
nailer
pewterer
latten maker
bellmaker
furbisher
goldsmith

dyer
walker
weaver
shearman
chaloner
cardmaker
woadman

tanner .
skinner

whittawer
cordwainer
saddler
sheather

tailor
hosiers
capper
glover
purser

draper
mercer
retailer
tranter
chapman

butcher
baker
fishmonger
brewer
maltmaker
salter
spicer
cook
innkeeper

trowman
carrier

masons
carpenter
turner
glazier
painter

wheelwright
hooper
roper
bowyer
fletcher
sieve maker
patten maker
?charcoal burner (askeberner)
barber
millward

Black, White, Brown, Red - Smiths ..

Life of an American frontier gunsmith

The Life Of A Frontier Gunsmith - An Interview With Mike Miller > .

Medieval Professions - KoHi >> .

Tree Hay - former fodder

Tree Hay: A forgotten fodder (full version) - Agric > .

Tree Hay - winter fodder - Lynb > .

Tree Hay & Mast - Fodder, Pannage - RexG >> .

Given a choice, which they rarely are in modern agriculture, many livestock prefer to browse on trees rather than graze on grass. The table below illustrates both the reason for their preference, and part of the reason that those living in the Iron Age began to carefully manage the remaining woodland. The forestry practices, on which they relied for fuel, wood, timber, fodder (leaves, nuts, mast), and specialized supplies (oak galls for ink, tannin-rich barks for tanning, etc) continued beyond the Middle Ages, but have been abandoned since the rise of alternate sources.

Abstract from Tree pollarding in western Norway, by Ingvild Austad in The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present, and Future

"The practice of collecting twigs and leaves for fodder for domestic animals is a very old form for fodder harvesting. Leaf fodder can be collected efficiently with small iron tools and the practice has a history at least back to the Iron Age. Almost all species of deciduous trees were used for animal fodder, also some conifers. Although the harvesting of trees for collecting fodder was widely practised all over Norway, the choice of species, techniques and utilization varied from area to area, as did the names given to tree management.

Pollarding (“styving”) refers to the process of topping trees, i.e. cutting back branches at a height of 2 -3 m, above reach of grazing animals. Lopping (“lauving”) is the actual fodder-collecting. The branches were cut into smaller pieces (approx. 1 m), bunched and tied together. The bunches of twigs (“kjerv”) were dried, and later stored in barns or stacked together (“rauk”). Young shoots were sometimes cut directly from the tree bases or as suckers (coppicing). Some farmers set aside areas that were cut frequently. In some areas, leaves were collected for fodder by plucking them (“rispelauv”). Raking up autumn leaf-fall (“rakelauv”) was practised mostly for the use as bedding in stalls.

Branches especially from Ulmus glabra (wych elm, Scots elm) and Fraxinus excelsior (European ash) were sometimes collected during the winter for twigs (“ris”) and bark (“skav”) and later fed to animals. Bark from Ulmus glabra was peeled, cut into small pieces, mixed with water and given especially to dairy cows during the winter and early spring. Bark of Ulmus glabra was also valuable for its use in human nutrition (bread, “barkebrød”).

A wide range of landscape elements and biotopes have been formed and maintained by farming techniques including leaf-collection. Most of the human-influenced and human-dependent vegetation types are under great pressure from extensive disuse, overgrowing and encroachment, vanishing due to inexperience with maintaining and preserving them."

Playlist: Tree Hay & Mast - Fodder, Pannage .

Table of leaf nutrition. Percentage of constituents in tree species compared to hay and red clover.

	water
		ash
			fat
				sugar
					protein
						fiber

Ulmus glabra	12.6	9.9	2.9	49.2	13.2	12.3
Sorbus aucuparia	11.9	5.9	6.5	50.4	9.9	15.4
Salix caprea	11.5	6.1	3.8	50.3	11.6	16.7
Populus tremula	10.8	8.5	6	43.5	13.3	20.9
Fraxinus excelsior	11.6	6.3	3	50.4	12	16.7
Alnus incana	11.9	3.9	5.9	43.6	17.6	17.4
Betula spp.	11.7	3.9	7	49.2	12	16.2
regular hay	14.96	5.42	2.2	44.43	8.51	24.56
Trifolium pratense	15.65	5.17	1.88	36.76	10.98	28.56

Adapted from The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present, and Future, Birks et al, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Ulmus glabra	wych elm
Sorbus aucuparia	rowan
Salix caprea	goat willow
Populus tremula	European aspen
Fraxinus excelsior	European ash
Alnus incana	grey alder
Betula spp.	birch
regular hay	grass, legumes, herbaceous plants
Trifolium pratense	red clover

Agisters, Verderers, Medieval Forest of Dean, New Forest

What was the Charter of the Forest? | Magna Carta Series > .

Agisters, Archaeology, Forests, History, Hunters, Ironworkers, Miners, Verderers, Woodsmen

The Verderers in the Forest of Dean have been in existence since at least 1218 and are charged with protecting the vert and venison (that is, generally, the vegetation and habitat) of the Forest. They are the last remnant of the traditional forest administration – unlike the New Forest, their structure has been unaltered over the centuries – there are still four verderers just as there has been for the past 800 years. The Verderers are elected by the freeholders of Gloucestershire at the Gloucester Court (an ancient procedure in its own right) and serve for life. Over the years, the deer in the Forest of Dean have fluctuated in numbers and species (they were totally absent for about 90 years from 1855) but today a herd of about 400 fallow deer inhabits the Forest. The Verderers now meet quarterly in their courtroom in the Speech House, close to the centre of the Forest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verderer#Forest_of_Dean_Verderers
http://www.deanverderers.org.uk/verderers-history.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeve_(England)

The Agisters are employees of the Verderers of the New Forest. They are often commoners in their own right, and as such depasture stock themselves, thus giving them an intimate knowledge of the area and the workings of the Forest. The word agist means to take in to graze for payment, and this explains part of their role. The post of Agister is medieval in origin, when they were also known as ‘marksmen’. As officers of the Crown they were required to collect grazing fees from ‘strangers’, those who wished to depasture animals but had no right to do so. New Forest commoners with rights of pasture did not have to pay a fee at that time.

To be an Agister a person must be adept at handling all types of livestock, an excellent rider, and able to work, very often on their own, in the rough and tough conditions found out on the Forest. The hours are long, and they can be called out at any time and in any weather to deal with an emergency. They also have the general public to deal with, and are required to be good ambassadors for the Forest in general, and commoning in particular.

Their work is to assist in the management of commoners’ stock on the Forest, and carry out instructions given to them by the Court of Verderers. Much of their time is spent out on the Forest, often on horseback, observing the conditions of both land and stock. They are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond to any problem involving the stock on the Forest. In the spring, they collect the ‘marking fee’, which is the payment a commoner has to make for each animal he wishes to turn out onto the Forest. This helps to offset the cost of their employment. They are also required to report to the Verderers any breaches of the Verderers’ byelaws, which could include such things as unbranded or unpaid for animals.

Another important aspect of their work is the monitoring of the welfare of the livestock on the Forest. During the winter and spring the stock will lose some body condition. The Verderers, in conjunction with various welfare organisations, set a condition standard below which the animal must not fall. If it does the Agister will arrange its removal from the Forest back to the owners holding so it can receive supplementary feeding

There are currently five Agisters, one Head Agister, and four colleagues. Each one is responsible for a specific area of the Forest, but many of the tasks they carry out require them to work as a team. Much of the day to day routine will involve contact with both the animals and the people on their ‘patch’ and an Agister will develop an uncanny ability to identify animals and to whom they belong. In the late summer and early autumn the Agisters organise the ‘drifts’ or round-ups of the Forest ponies. At this time the ponies are ‘tail marked’, a certain cut of the hair of the tail of the pony is put in to show the pony has been paid for. Each Agister has his own mark, and this is to signify in which Agisters’ area the owner of the pony lives. Any foals that are to be kept are branded with the owners individual brand, a register of which is held by the Verderers. Commoners may take this opportunity to remove any ponies they want to sell or take in for the winter, and the rest of the ponies are given a good check over before being released back out onto the Forest. The Agisters are called out to deal with all sorts of problems. Animals stuck in bogs, ditches, fences or cattle grids, straying into people’s gardens or onto fenced roads, ponies with colic after eating lawn mowings or other garden refuse, or cows choking on discarded plastic bags. Sadly one of the more common call-outs is to road accidents. Despite speed limits and much publicity there are still a large number of animals being hit and killed on the Forest roads. It is often the Agister’s unpleasant but necessary duty to put the animal out of its suffering, and then inform the owner of their loss.

http://www.verderers.org.uk/Agisters.pdf

Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment.

Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests in England, but now means either:
1. the contract for taking in and feeding horses or other cattle on pasture land, for the consideration of a periodic payment of money;
2. the profit derived from such pasturing.

Agistment involves a contract of bailment, and the bailee must take reasonable care of the animals entrusted to him; he is responsible for damages and injury which result from ordinary casualties, if it be proved that such might have been prevented by the exercise of great care. There is no lien on the cattle for the price of the agistment unless by express agreement.

Under the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1883, agisted cattle cannot be distrained on for rent if there be other sufficient distress to be found, and if such other distress be not found, and the cattle be distrained, the owner may redeem them on paying the price of their agistment. The tithe of agistment or "tithe of cattle and other produce of grass lands" was formally abolished by the Act of Union in 1707, on a motion submitted with a view to defeat that measure.

In England, Agisters were formerly the officers of the forest empowered to collect the agistment. They have been re-established in the New Forest to carry out the daily duties of administering the forest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agistment
https://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-6a4kq7
http://www.verderers.org.uk/court.html
http://www.verderers.org.uk/
https://www.newforestmemories.org.uk/rules/agisters

regard inspection of a forest by regarders with foresters and woodwards, presented to the swanimote court next before and preparatory to an eyre, included vert, eyries, mines and forges, ports, harbours and the wood they shipped, dogs, nets and weapons; swarms of bees, wax and honey were also included in the charges of the swanimote and eyre where regards were enrolled (M 227 (v) and 242 (v)). The king might exempt private land and woods in a forest from regards (M 58 (r) and (v), 196 (r) and (v))

regarder officer responsible for making triennial inspections of forests to discover trespasses (P 205); ministerial rather than judicial officer appointed by royal letters patent under oath, twelve per forest, to hold a regard and enrol all offences discovered for presentation through a swanimote to an eyre. Duties specified in the Charter of the Forest (1217); called lespegend in Canute’s Forest Charter (1016) (M 1(v), 6 (r) and (v) and 191 (r) – 200 (r))

http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/forests/glossary.htm
http://www.deanverderers.org.uk/glossary.html

https://books.google.ca/books?id=i2bRCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=medieval+verderer&source=bl&ots=ZEYV1hLApd&sig=Yrveuqx4wgl4aaxC6eYVJSbrTjQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKs7ba78fZAhVYzWMKHXkRAdYQ6AEIQDAC#v=onepage&q=medieval%20verderer&f=false

13th century (later not available)

Regarders (like the Verderers in being independent of the foresters = 12 general inspectors = checking for assarts, buildings (purprestures), cut trees, royal demesne woods and pastures, eyries of hawks, forges or mines, seaports, transporting timber, honey, bows and arrows or dogs for hunting

Gifts of venison or oak made by the king, straying domestic animals, conduct of foresters, Agisters, sellers of wood

Forest courts & eyres sometimes held as infrequently as 24 years.
Essoins by death

In the United Kingdom a chase is a type of common land used for hunting to which there are no specifically designated officers and laws but instead reserved hunting rights for one or more persons. Similarly, a Royal Chase is a type of Crown Estate by the same description, but where certain rights are reserved for a member of the British Royal Family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_(land)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forest
https://books.google.ca/books?id=H7guAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA11&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=H7guAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1

Apis - Bee evolution, distribution ⇝

Pannage was a common right for peasants who were allowed to graze their pigs in the woods of the forest when the acorns fell and for a period of time after. This season was decided at the Verderers Court (see Forest Law page for more details) and the numbers of pigs were monitored by Agisters who acted as tax collectors.

This entry shows that with the demise of the Forest Eyre Courts by the time of 1440 (see 1287 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court and 1334 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court entries); how breaches of the forest law were dealt with.

The Keeper of the Forest here brought complaint before the Nottingham Court to gain the money back from the accused, caused by the trespass and damage to the park.
http://sherwoodforesthistory.blogspot.ca/2012/03/trespass-in-bestwood-park-in-1440.html
http://sherwoodforesthistory.blogspot.ca/2012/02/1287-sherwood-forest-eyre-court.html
http://sherwoodforesthistory.blogspot.ca/2011/12/1334-sherwood-forest-eyre-court.html

The Butcher, the Bacon and Bestwood: Trespass in Bestwood Park in 1440

FoD - Deciduous Forest - Ray Mears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhnBhObR5QU

Forests, Woodsmen, Hunters, Miners, Ironworkers
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745-VcJ1xdWc4CiWxovU2RNTVn4FvsOT
Forest & Woodland Resources - LINKS
https://plus.google.com/+SuttonHoo/posts/b4U7svx5moe
Town & Country: Forests, Woodsmen, Hunters - LINKS
https://plus.google.com/+SuttonHoo/posts/i2yvE7kZmEJ
Intensification: Oasthouses
https://plus.google.com/+SuttonHoo/posts/9WF4oELcJr4

Wye Valley Woodland (AONB) Wales - Trees woods & forest gardens - agroforestry arboriculture
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3hm4LtH_-dogYqTZdrKfhRCUNlwowYmq

Charcoal, coppice, edibles, timber - Tony Blake
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtakTnKQQMCzq3gN7I0H5RaM8_DCFWpPz

Ancient Woodland & Value of Trees - antharch
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEFMsUiiH110nbFULj5JDl_0nqdm4tbdx
https://plus.google.com/+SuttonHoo/posts/b4U7svx5moe

Bite sized New Forest - New Forest National Park Authority
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPERa4Ls5ArrEIV-owtlAIcVPAhcbNC2p

The Weald
https://plus.google.com/+SuttonHoo/posts/dU2mRRiPnj6

https://www.youtube.com/user/highwealdAONB/videos

Hunting scene - Archaeology & History of Medieval Sherwood Forest
http://news.experiencenottinghamshire.com/archaeology-and-history-of-medieval-sherwood-forest/

Medieval Forest of Dean

Forest of Dean
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/GPK5jBvrtux
Forest of Dean 1282 = pre-perambulation
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/fNBkJjHTPeV
St Briavels Hundred
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/F2NzWPbjEVH
Westbury Hundred
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/jBCxzoeeLKx

The area's history is obscure for several centuries after Roman period during the so-called Dark Ages, although at different times it may have been part of the Welsh kingdoms of Gwent and Ergyng, and the Beachley and Lancaut peninsulas east of the Lower Wye remained in Welsh control at least until the 8th century.

Around 790 the Saxon King Offa of Mercia built his dyke high above the Wye, to mark the boundary with the Welsh. The Forest of Dean then came under the control of the diocese of Hereford. Throughout the next few centuries Vikings conducted raids up the Severn, but by the 11th century the kingdom of Wessex had established civil government. The core of the forest was used by the late Anglo Saxon kings, and after 1066 the Normans, as their personal hunting ground. The area was kept stocked with deer and wild boar and became important for timber, charcoal, iron ore and limestone.

The Hundred of St Briavels was established in the 12th century, at the same time as many Norman laws concerning the Forest of Dean were put in place. St Briavels Castle became the Forest's administrative and judicial centre. Verderers were appointed to act for the king and protect his royal rights, and local people were given some common rights.

Flaxley Abbey was built and given rights and privileges. In 1296, miners from the Hundred of St Briavels supported King Edward I at the siege of Berwick-on-Tweed in the Scottish Wars of Independence by undermining the then Scottish town's defences in the first step of his campaign to seize Scotland from John Balliol. As a result, the king granted free mining rights within the forest to the miners and their descendants; the rights continue to the present day. Miners at that time were mainly involved in iron mining although the presence of coal was well known and limited amounts had been recovered in Roman times. Coal was not used for iron making with the methods of smelting then in use. Later the freeminer rights were used mainly for coal mining. The activities of the miners were regulated by the Court of Mine Law.

Forest of Dean - Wikipedia

Charta de Foresta

"CHARTA de Foresta;" Westminster, 11 Febr., 9 Hen. III. [1225]. .

In 1217, King Henry III (r. 1216–72) issued a new version of Magna Carta, together with a new charter dealing with the royal forest. It was in a proclamation of February 1218 that the name ‘Magna Carta’ itself first appears, in order to distinguish the Great Charter from its shorter forest brother. On 11 February 1225, at the same time as issuing the final and definitive version of Magna Carta, Henry likewise issued a new version of the Charter of the Forest. Thereafter ‘the Charters’, as they were called, were always linked together.

The British Library's example of the 1225 Forest Charter is one of three surviving originals. In substance, it is similar to the Forest Charter of 1217, but includes the statement about the granting of a tax in return for the charter, and the same long witness list, as in the 1225 Magna Carta. Like Magna Carta, the 1225 Forest Charter was also sealed with the King’s Great Seal. This copy retains its original linen seal bag.
In John’s reign, roughly a third of the country was royal forest, and the penalties imposed for forest offences were a major source of revenue for the king. One aim of the Forest Charter was to reduce the area of the royal forest by removing everything which King Henry II (chiefly blamed for the forest’s vast extent) had placed within it. The Charter also banned capital punishments for forest offences (such as poaching and hunting the protected deer), and exempted those having woods within the forest from fines for erecting buildings and creating new arable land.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-forest-charter-of-1225 .

Tally sticks, Foils, Counterfoils

Recording payment of taxes, and burning down the medieval Palace of Westminster ...

Why were notched sticks so important in medieval times? > .

Saddles, tack

Medieval Saddle > .
Medieval saddle: measuring horse's back > .

Medieval Saddle - Richard III > .

The Knight - Full Series >> .

Riding Side Saddle - The Victorian Way > .
Grooming a Horse - The Victorian Way > .
Driving a Cart - Victorian Way > .
Victorian Way >> .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLUm9j4rPFE .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAPdYOycF14 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A0a6IzZl4w .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siFbuKaxNzo .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ovVbk4hP0 .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle
http://www.solent-saddlery.com/Medaeval.html
http://www.limebrook.com/saddlehistory.html

Image
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a7/9e/6c/a79e6c9ecaf469c96f4786f73a383865.jpg

https://www.google.ca/search?q=medieval+english+saddle&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNhYLKtdHWAhVF8CYKHRPWAHEQsAQIJw&biw=1684&bih=926#imgrc=l3O7YiZa15Lc2M:

Forest Law & Forest of Dean

Magna Carta concession to forest access > .
Magna Carta accedes to dis-afforestation > .
What was the Charter of the Forest? | Magna Carta Series > .
Carta Foresta 1217 - TrId >> .

Ray Mears: Forest of Dean Wild Britain S01E01 Deciduous Forest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhnBhObR5QU

The Forest of Dean lies in west Gloucestershire in the angle formed by the rivers Severn and Wye as they approach their confluence. A large tract of woodland and waste land there was reserved for royal hunting before 1066 and survived into the modern period as one of the principal Crown forests in England, the largest after the New Forest. The name Forest of Dean was recorded from c. 1080 and was probably taken from the valley on the north-east of the area, where a manor called Dean was the Forest's administrative centre in the late 11th century.

In modern times the name Forest of Dean was sometimes used loosely for the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, but all that land belonged to the Forest (used in the specific sense of the area subject to the forest law) only for a period in the early Middle Ages. In the 13th century the Forest's bounds were the two rivers and it extended northwards as far as Ross-on-Wye (Herefs.), Newent, and Gloucester; it then included 33 Gloucestershire and Herefordshire parishes, besides a central, uncultivated area which the Crown retained in demesne. Revised bounds, perambulated in 1300 and accepted by the Crown in 1327, reduced the extent of the Forest to the royal demesne and 14 parishes or parts of parishes, most of them, like the demesne itself, in St. Briavels hundred. The royal demesne remained extraparochial until the 1840s when, villages and hamlets having grown up within it, it was formed into the civil townships (later parishes) of East Dean and West Dean and into ecclesiastical districts.
......
The formerly extraparochial land of the Forest of Dean lies mainly at over 200 m. (656 ft.), reaching its highest point, 290 m. (951 ft.), at Ruardean hill in the north. Sometimes described as a plateau but actually comprising steep ridges and the valleys of streams draining to the Severn and Wye, its boundaries with the surrounding cultivated and ancient parochial lands are in most places defined by a scarp where the underlying carboniferous limestone of the region outcrops. On the west, however, the limestone outcrops at a shallower angle and there is a less obvious distinction in height between the Forest and the cultivated land of the large ancient parish of Newland. The long valley of Cannop brook, earlier called the Newerne stream, crosses the west part of the Forest from north to south, and a stream called in its northern part Cinderford brook and in its southern Soudley brook forms a long winding valley through the east part. Blackpool brook, so called by 1282, carves another deep valley through the south-eastern edge of the high land to meet Soudley brook at Blakeney below the Forest's scarp, and at the Forest's northern edge Greathough brook, formerly Lyd brook, descends a valley to the Wye. The streams were dammed in places for ironworks, notably in the Cannop valley where two large ponds were made in the 1820s to provide power for works at Parkend. Other large ponds on a tributary stream of Soudley brook at Sutton bottom, near Soudley, were built as fishponds in the mid 19th century for a privately-owned estate in that part of the Forest called Abbots wood. In the late 20th century the Forestry Commission maintained the Forest's ponds as nature reserves and as a public amenity; new ones were made at Woorgreen, near the centre of the Forest, as part of landscape restoration following opencast coal mining in the 1970s, and at Mallards Pike, near the head of Blackpool brook, in 1980.

Geology has given the Forest its rich industrial history. The land is formed of basin-shaped strata of the Carboniferous series. Underlying and outcropping at the rim are limestones which, especially the stratum called Crease Limestone, contain deposits of iron ore. Above are beds of sandstone, shale, and coal. The lowest bed of sandstone is known by the local name of Drybrook Sandstone, and the highest is the Pennant Sandstone. There are over 20 separate coal seams, varying in thickness from a few inches to 5 ft., the highest yielding being the Coleford High Delf which rises close to the surface near the rim of the Forest. Surface workings, shallow pits, or levels driven into the hillsides were the means of winning the iron ore and coal until the late 18th century when deeper mines were sunk. There were also numerous quarries, notably those in the Pennant Sandstone at Bixhead and elsewhere on the west side of the Cannop valley; that stone, which varies in colour but is mainly dark grey, was the principal building material used in the Forest's 19th-century industrial hamlets.

The Forest was most significant as a producer of oak timber, which was the principal reason for its survival in the modern period. Until the early 17th century, however, there was as much beech as oak among its large timber trees, and chestnut trees once grew in profusion on the north-east side of the Forest near Flaxley and gave the name by 1282 to a wood called the Chestnuts. The underwood was composed of a variety of small species such as hazel, birch, sallow, holly, and alder. The ancient forest contained many open areas. In 1282 various 'lands', or forest glades, maintained by the Crown presumably as grazing for the deer, included several with names later familiar in the Forest's history, Kensley, Moseley, Cannop, Crump meadow, and Whitemead (later a part of Newland parish). Numerous smaller clearings called 'trenches' had also been made as corridors alongside roads for securing travellers against ambush or for the grazing and passage of the deer. Larger areas of waste, or 'meends', such as Clearwell Meend and Mitcheldean Meend, lay on the borders adjoining the manorial lands, whose inhabitants used them for commoning their animals.

Although the royal demesne land was without permanent habitation until the early modern period, it was crossed by many ancient tracks, used by ironworkers, miners, and charcoal burners; large numbers, many termed 'mersty' (meaning a boundary path), were recorded in 1282 in a perambulation of the Forest bailiwicks, its administrative divisions. One of the more important ancient routes, known as the Dean road, had a pitched stone surface and borders of kerbstones. It ran between Lydney and Mitcheldean across the eastern part of the demesne by way of Oldcroft, a crossing of Blackpool brook, recorded as Blackpool ford in 1282, and a crossing of Soudley brook at Upper Soudley. The survival of much pitching and kerbing after the road went out of use in the turnpike era, and the possibility that it had linked two important Roman sites at Lydney and Ariconium, in Weston under Penyard (Herefs.), has led to the suggestion that it was a Roman road, though much of the stonework probably dates from the medieval and early modern periods; an estimate was made for renewing long stretches of the road, including the provision of new border stones, as late as the 1760s.

Two main routes crossed the extraparochial Forest from north-east to south-west and on them were sited the principal points of reference in a terrain with few landmarks. A route from the Severn crossing at Newnham to Monmouth recorded in 1255, when 'trenches' were ordered to be made beside it, was presumably that through Littledean, the central Forest, and Coleford. It entered over a high ridge west of Littledean, where a hermitage of St. White had been founded by 1225, and crossed Soudley (or Cinderford) brook at the place called Cinder ford in 1258, long before its name was taken by the principal settlement of the extraparochial Forest that formed on the hillside to the north-east of the crossing. Further west, near the centre of the Forest, the road passed the clearing called Kensley, where a courthouse stood by 1338 close to the site of the later Speech House, and crossed Newerne (or Cannop) brook at Cannop. The road emerged into the cultivated land of Coleford tithing at a place later called Broadwell Lane End, where a tree called Woolman oak in 1608 (fn. 34) was probably the 'W(o)lfmyen' oak which in 1282 was a landmark at the boundary of four of the Forest's bailiwicks. The other main route, recorded in 1282 as the high road to Monmouth, was that crossing the high north-western part of the extraparochial land from Mitcheldean, by way of Nailbridge, Brierley, Mirystock, where it crossed a tributary of Cannop brook above Lydbrook, to Coleford. The two remained the principal routes through the Forest but the northern one, described in the 1760s as the great road through the Forest from Gloucester to South Wales, was much altered in its course by later improvements.

The rivers Severn and Wye played a vital role in the development of Dean's industry but few of the various tracks and hollow ways that led from the central Forest to riverside landing-places and ferries were usable other than by packhorses before the 19th century. One of the few routes negotiable by wagons and timber rigs was the central main road out to Littledean with its branch down to Newnham; that was the usual route for carrying timber out of the Forest in 1737 when the Crown was asked to assist Newnham parish to repair part of it. Later in the 18th century a road leading from the south part of the woodlands by way of Parkend and Viney Hill to Gatcombe and Purton on the Severn became the principal route for timber destined for the naval dockyards.

The Crown's hunting rights, which provided the original motive for the Forest's preservation, were much used in the 13th century. The frequent orders made at the period for taking deer for gifts by the Crown and to meet the needs of the royal household suggest that fallow deer were the majority species in Dean, with red deer and roe present in smaller numbers. In 1278 the Forest was sufficiently well stocked for royal huntsmen to take 100 fallow bucks. At that period all three species of deer were classed as beasts of the forest, reserved for the exclusive use of the Crown, but roe were not classified as such after 1340.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp285-294

Forest of Dean: Forest administration
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp354-377

Forest of Dean: search
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/search?query=forest%20of%20dean

Forest of Dean: Introduction | British History Online

Construction Machines of the Renaissance

Ludlow Castle, Shropshire - mortar & building techniques - HiHi > .

Lathe, Plaster, Wood, Roofing - Traditional Building

Traditional Building - Lathe & Plaster - nfnpa > .

Traditional Building – Hands on Wood - Joists - nfnpa > .

Traditional Building – Hands on Roofing - ndnpa > .
Traditional Building – Hands on Brick - nfnpa > .

The New Forest has a wide range of historic buildings which are of local, vernacular or cultural interest and which are intrinsic to its special character. Repairs and alterations to these buildings often require specialist understanding, method and materials to ensure their special character is not lost.

Longships

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aTzNoo-hxY

Draken - atlatli
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL64-uvJRwJ5mrCDwzpavpJb1qLmht4tFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29mOXuVoE3o

Building of East Indiaman Götheborghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w04CpOl94Sc

Shipbuilding - wood

Viking-age smiths used the process known as riving to reduce a tree trunk to planks or to other useful articles. Rather than sawing the wood, they split it. As a result, the grain of the wood follows the piece being fabricated, creating a much stronger item than if it had been sawn. It's one of several reasons why thin-hulled Viking ships could withstand the rough seas of the North Atlantic. The process repeatedly splits the log, first into halves, then quarters, then eighths.
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_woodworking_riving.htm