Towards a history of wood pasture in Swaledale (North Yorkshire)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Several documentary references which imply the existence of medieval and later wood pasture in Upper Swaledale (North Yorkshire, UK) are complemented by various categories of evidence which make it possible to identify zones where wood pastures survived longest, on a township-by-township basis. This evidence includes one or two existing wood pastures on daleside common ‘cow pastures’; toponyms, including those linking woods with their townships; field boundary patterns; routes linking hamlets with their wood pastures; the locations and distribution patterns of old pollards (mostly elm, with a few alder). It is also suggested that Swaledale's deer-parks were created from former wood pastures, and there is evidence for the management of hollies for winter fodder. An average growth rate of c. 1/2 inch (13 mm) girth per annum would imply that most of the elm pollards of central Swaledale date from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it is argued that many of these pollards represent the survival and continuation of a pollarding tradition within late medieval wood pasture. Comments are made on the wider implications of these findings for our understanding of the woodland history of the Pennines, and an attempt is made to sketch the trajectory of decline of wood pastures from the later Middle Ages to the fragmentary but recognisable patterns of recent centuries.