The Wood for the Trees Read online

  ALSO BY RICHARD FORTEY

  The Hidden Landscape: A Journey into the Geological Past

  Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth

  Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution

  Fossils: The Key to the Past

  Earth: An Intimate History

  Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum

  Survivors: The Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind

  Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2016 by Richard Fortey

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, London, in 2016.

  www.​aaknopf.​com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Fortey, Richard A., author.

  Title: The wood for the trees : one man’s long view of nature / Richard Fortey.

  Description: First American edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. |

  Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015048791 (print) | LCCN 2016032290 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781101875759 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781101875766 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Old growth forests—England—Chiltern Hills. |

  Phenology—England—Chiltern Hills. | Chiltern Hills

  (England)—History.

  Classification: LCC QH138.C54 F67 2016 (print) | LCC QH138.C54 (ebook) |

  DDC 577.309425—dc23

  LC record available at https://​lccn.​loc.​gov/​2015048791

  Ebook ISBN 9781101875766

  Cover images: (plant) Florilegius/Alamy Stock Photo; (beetle) by Bridgette James/Bridgeman Images; (moth) © Purix Verlag Volker Christen/Bridgeman Images; (caterpillar) Florilegius/Getty Images

  Cover design by Kelly Blair

  v4.1

  a

  For Eileen and Stuart Skeates

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Richard Fortey

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  List of Illustrations

  Map

  1. April

  2. May

  3. June

  4. July

  5. August

  6. September

  7. October

  8. November

  9. December

  10. January

  11. February

  12. March

  Acknowledgements

  Notes

  Illustrations

  Illustrations

  Colour Plates

  The interior of the wood in March. © Birgir Bohm

  The same view in April. © Birgir Bohm

  A rare white bluebell. © Jackie Fortey

  The lesser celandine. © Jackie Fortey

  A beech seedling sprouts from the woodland floor. © Jackie Fortey

  Inconspicuous flowers of the holly tree in spring. © Rob Francis

  Wild cherry in its vernal glory. © Jackie Fortey

  Wild cherry flowers. © Jackie Fortey

  Lonny van Ryswyck’s experiments with natural materials in the wood. Lonny van Ryswyck and Nadine Sterk, Atelier NL, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Photo by Walter Kooken

  Yellow bird’s nest (Monotropa). © Sally-Ann Spence

  Painting of ghost orchid by Eleanor Vachell copied from an original by Ethel L. Baumgartner. In collections of Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales. NMW 49.29.6241

  Pale Tussock Moth. © Andrew Padmore

  The writer struggles with an identification handbook in the light of the moth trap, guided by Andrew Padmore. © Jackie Fortey

  Blood Vein Moth. © Andrew Padmore

  Purple Thorn Moth. © Andrew Padmore

  Satin Beauty Moth. © Andrew Padmore

  Speckled wood butterfly. © Andrew Padmore

  Peacock butterfly. © Andrew Padmore

  Silver-washed fritillary butterfly. © Andrew Padmore

  Comma butterfly. © Andrew Padmore

  Red kite. © Rob Francis

  Brown long-eared bat. © Claire Andrews

  Field vole. © Sally-Ann Spence

  Hazel dormouse. © Danny Green

  Hoard of late Iron Age coins found inside a hollow flint close to the wood. HCR6698 The Henley Hoard. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

  Small truffles (Elaphomyces). © Jackie Fortey

  A selection of snails from the wood. © Jackie Fortey

  The cherry-picker lifting the writer up into the canopy of the beech trees. © Jackie Fortey

  Large black terrestrial spider Coelotes terrestris. © P. R. Harvey

  Slime mould (Lycogala epidendrum). © Jackie Fortey

  Crab spider Diaea dorsata. © P. R. Harvey

  A rare crane fly (Ctenophora). © Andrew Padmore

  The view westwards across the Assendon Valley from Henley Park, with our wood near the skyline. © Rob Francis

  Monument to the Knollys of Greys Court in Rotherfield Greys parish church. © Jackie Fortey

  The manor house of Greys Court. © Jackie Fortey

  The Stapleton family painted by Thomas Beach, 1789. © The Holburne Museum, Bath/Bridgeman Images

  The pelargonium variety “Miss Stapleton.” © Jackie Fortey

  1708 document recording the granting of rights to grub up the “Roots & Runts” of beech trees cleared just below our wood. Courtesy of the Oxford History Centre (catalogue ref. PAR209/13/9D/4), from the collection of the parish of Oxford St. Mary the Virgin

  Magpie toadstool. © Jackie Fortey

  Stinkhorn fungus (Phallus impudicus). © Jackie Fortey

  Sulphur polypore. © Jackie Fortey

  Ink caps growing on a rotten beech stump. © Jackie Fortey

  Rhodotus palmatus. © Jackie Fortey

  Red slug Arion rufus. © Jackie Fortey

  Black dor beetle Anoplotropes. © Jackie Fortey

  An uncommon beetle, Oedemera femoralis. © Andrew Padmore

  Longhorn beetle Rutpela maculata. © Andrew Padmore

  Sexton beetle Nicrophorus humator. © Andrew Padmore

  Alistair Phillips turning a wild cherry-wood bowl from timber derived from one of our felled trees. © Jackie Fortey

  Small-scale charcoal-burning. © Rebecca Fortey

  A flint derived from the chalk at the Fair Mile. © Jackie Fortey

  The author on a cherry branch. © Jackie Fortey

  Henley from the Wargrave Road by Jan Siberechts (1698). Courtesy of the River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames

  Wych elm leaf in autumn. © Rob Francis

  Male wych elm flowers in early spring. © Jackie Fortey

  The drawers of Philip Koomen’s cabinet. Photograph © Rob Francis

  The Koomen collection cabinet back in the wood. Photograph © Rob Francis

  Shield lichen (Parmelia). © Jackie Fortey

  Bank haircap moss (Polytrichastrum). © Jackie Fortey

  Text Illustrations

  Location map of Grim’s Dyke Wood. © Leo Fortey

  Half-timbered cottage in Assendon. © Rob Francis

  Spring view of Lambridge Wood. © Rob Francis

  Thin section of conglomerate pebble. © Jan Zalasiewicz

  “Fiddlehead” male fern. © Jackie Fortey

  Stacked beech trunks. © Jackie Fortey

  Grey squirrel damage to a beech tree. © Jackie Fortey

  Sedges. © Nina Krauzewicz<
br />
  Aurochs, Les Eyzies, France. Photo © Jackie Fortey

  Misericord, St. Mary’s church, Beverley, Yorkshire. Photo © David Ross, www.​brita​inexp​ress.​com

  Detail of Richard Davis’s map of Oxfordshire, 1797. Courtesy Simmons & Sons, Estate Agents, Henley

  Ash and cherry bark. © Jackie Fortey

  Nettlebed brick kiln. © Jackie Fortey

  Sale notice for clay and sand rights, Nettlebed. Henley Library, Local Studies Collection

  Kneeler in St. Botolph’s church, Swyncombe. Photo © Jackie Fortey

  Ancient entrances in Henley. © Jackie Fortey

  The Chantry House, Henley-on-Thames. © Jackie Fortey

  Eighteenth-century print of Greys Court. From an original drawing courtesy Bodleian Library, MS.Top. Oxon d.480, p. 181c

  Oak and beech bark. © Jackie Fortey

  The Fair Mile. From John Southern Burn, A History of Henley-on-Thames, in the County of Oxford (London: Longman & Co., 1861)

  Fungus foray. © Jackie Fortey

  Aranaeus spiderweb. © Jackie Fortey

  Seventeenth-century soldier wearing a Montero. From Thomas Jenner, The Military Discipline wherein “is Martially Showne the order for Drilling the Musket and Pike” (London, 1642)

  Charity boards in St. Helen’s church, Benson, Oxfordshire. Photo © Jackie Fortey

  Winter frost. © Jackie Fortey

  Engraving of Fawley Hall (now Fawley Court) by J. C. Varrall, from a drawing by John Preston Neale, in Views of the seats of noblemen and gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Second Series, Vol. III, 1826

  Henley Bridge, 1820. Courtesy Hilary Fisher

  Tollhouse at Bix. © Jackie Fortey

  Poster for timber sale, 1864. Photo © Jackie Fortey

  The “top dog” at a Herefordshire sawmill. Courtesy Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading

  “Bodgers” in Buckinghamshire. Image from the website www.​swop.​org.​uk, reproduced with the permission of Wycombe Museum Trust

  Chair legs and stretchers. Image from the website www.​swop.​org.​uk, reproduced with the permission of High Wycombe Library

  View of Henley Bridge. Print from a drawing by W. Tombleson, published in Eighty Picturesque Views on the Thames and Medway, c. 1834. Reading Borough Libraries, Local Studies Collection

  Henley Regatta, 1896. Marsh Brothers

  Winter scene in the wood. © Jackie Fortey

  Winter branches. © Jackie Fortey

  The centre of Henley in the early 1900s. Courtesy Hilary Fisher

  Postcard of Henley Bridge. Collection of Richard Fortey

  The “Tree of Descent.” Ernst Haeckel, Evolution of Man, 1874

  Copepod crustacean Bryocamptus. © Charles Hussey

  Location of the wood in the Chiltern Hills, with main roads and places. The old road to Wallingford is marked with x’s through Bix in the lower map, dashes in the upper one.

  1

  April

  After a working life spent in a great museum, the time had come for me to escape into the open air. I spent years handling fossils of extinct animals; now, the inner naturalist needed to touch living animals and plants. My wife, Jackie, discovered the advertisement: a small piece of the Chiltern Hills up for sale. The proceeds from a television series proved exactly enough to purchase four acres of ancient beech-and-bluebell woodland, buried deeply inside a greater stretch of stately trees. The briefest of visits clinched the deal—exploring the wood simply felt like coming home. On 4 July 2011 “Grim’s Dyke Wood” became ours.

  I began to keep a diary to record wildlife, and the look and feel of the woodland as it passed through diverse moods and changing seasons. I sat on one particular stump to make observations, which I wrote down in a small, leather-bound notebook. I was unconsciously compiling a biography of the wood—bio in the most exact sense, since animals and plants formed an important part of it. Before long, I saw that the story was as much about human history as it was about nature. For all its ancient lineage, the wood was shaped by human hand. I needed to explore the development of the English countryside, all the way from the Iron Age to the recent exploitation of woodland for beech furniture or tent pegs. I was moved by a compulsion to understand half-forgotten crafts and revive half-remembered words like “bodger,” “spile” and “bavin.” Plans were made to fell timber, to follow the journey from tree to furniture; to visit the canopy in a cherry-picker; to explore the archaeology of that ancient feature, Grim’s Dyke, that ran along one side of the plot. I wanted to see if the wood could yield food as well as inspiration.

  My scientific soul reawakened as I sought to comprehend the ways that plants and animals collaborate to generate a rich ecology. I had to sample everything: mosses, lichens, grasses, insects and fungi. I investigated the natural history of beech, oak, ash, yew and all the other trees. I spent moonlit evenings trapping moths; daytime frolicking with nets to catch crane flies or lifting up rotten logs to understand decay. I poked and prodded and snuffled under brambles. I wanted to turn the appropriate bits of geology into tiles and glass. The wood became a route to understanding how the landscape is forever in a state of transition, for all that we think it unchanging. In short, the wood became a project.

  Grim’s Dyke Wood is just a segment in the middle of more extensive ancient woodland, Lambridge Wood, lying in the southern part of the county of Oxfordshire. Splitting Lambridge into separate plots generated a profit for the previous owner, but also allowed people of modest means to own and care for their own small piece of living history. Our fellow “woodies”—as Jackie terms them—proved to include a well-known harpsichordist, a retired professor of business systems, a founder member of Genesis (the band, not the book), a virologist turned plant illustrator, ex-actors turned psychologists, and a woman of mystery. Our own patch is one of the smaller ones. All of the “woodies” have their own reasons for wanting to be among the trees—some desire simply to dream, some would rather like to turn a profit, others to explore sustainable resources. I believe I am the only naturalist. All the owners are there to prevent the wood from being felled or turned into housing. For the long history of Lambridge Wood tells us that our trees are less worked today than at any time in the past. This sad redundancy is no less part of its tale, as our wood is inevitably connected to the wider world of commerce and markets. The histories of my home town, Henley-on-Thames, a mile away, and the famous river on which it sits are bound into the narrative of the surrounding countryside. Ancient manors controlled the fate of woodlands for centuries. I have to imagine what the wood would have seen or heard as great events passed it by; who might have lurked under the trees, what poachers and vagabonds, poets or highwaymen.

  Once the project was under way a curious thing happened. I wanted to make a collection. This may not sound particularly remarkable, but for somebody who had worked for decades with rank after rank of curated collections it was rejuvenation. Life among the stacks in the Natural History Museum in London had stifled my acquisitiveness, but now something was rekindled. I wanted to collect objects from the wood, not in the systematic way of a scientist, but with something of the random joy of a young boy. Perhaps I wanted to become that boy once again. Eighteenth-century gentlemen were wont to have cabinets of curiosities in which they displayed items that might have conversational or antiquarian interest. I wanted to have my own cabinet of curiosity. I would add items when my curiosity was piqued month by month: maybe a stone, a feather or a dried plant—nothing for the eighteenth-century gent. I believe that curiosity is a most important human instinct. Curiosity is the enemy of certainty, and certainty—particularly conviction that other people are different, or sinful, or irreligious—lies behind much of the conflict and genocide that disfigure human history. If I could issue one injunction to humankind it would be: “Be curious!” My collection will be a way of encapsulating the whole Grim’s Dyke Wood project: my New Curiosity Shop. And I already know that the last item to be curat
ed will be the leather-bound notebook.

  The collection requires a cabinet to house it. Jackie and I plan to fell one of our cherry trees and convert it into a wonderful receptacle for the wood’s serendipitous treasures. We must discuss the work with Philip Koomen, a noted Chiltern furniture-maker devoted to using local materials. Philip’s workshop, Wheelers Barn, is in the remotest part of the Chiltern Hills, only about five miles from Grim’s Dyke Wood as the crow flies, but about fifteen as the ancient roads wind hither and thither. His studio is imbued with calm. Polished sections through trees hanging on the walls show the qualities of each variety: colour, texture, grain and age all combine to distinguish not just different tree species, but individual personalities. No two trees are identical. Some have burrs that section into turbulent swirls. Pale ash contrasts with rich walnut, and cherry with its warm tones is satisfactorily different from oak. This is a man who cares deeply about materials and believes in the genius loci—an integration of human and natural history that lends authenticity to a hand-made item. Philip’s handiwork from our own cherry tree will be a physical embodiment of our wood, but by housing the idiosyncratic collection picked up as the project develops, it will also contain the wood, as curated by this writer. It will be a cabinet of memories as much as objects. We haggle a little about design, but I know I shall rely on his judgement. I will have to be patient when I gather up the small things in the wood that take my fancy. It will be some time before the collection can live in its dedicated home.

  This book could be thought of as another kind of collection. Extracts from my diary describe the wood through the seasons. I follow H. E. Bates’s wonderful book Through the Woods (1936) in beginning in the exuberant month of April rather than with the calendar year, and frigid January. But then, H. E. Bates himself inherited the same plan from the writer and illustrator Clare Leighton, whose intimate portrait of her own garden through the cycles of the seasons, Four Hedges,1 he much admired. My friends and colleagues come to sample and identify almost every jot and tittle of natural history that they can find. Natural history leads on to science, and the stories of grand estates, woodland skills and trades, and life along the River Thames. Human folly and natural catastrophes link the wood to a wider world beyond the trees. This complex collection explains why the wood is as it is today; its rich diversity of life is a concatenation of particular circumstances. I am trying to reason how the natural world came to be so varied, and my understanding is refracted through the lens of my own small patch. I am trying to see the wood for the trees.