Table 8. State of the Crown timber in 'Waltham Forest', 1783 (27) (nearly all
on 2939 acres of Hainault Forest). The last column of the original document
gives the total volume of timber, from which I have calculated the volume per
tree.
Size class Number Cubic feet
(cu.ft) of trees per tree
(Oak) Fit to be cut for the Use 30 Feet and 2760 67.7
of the Navy upwards
May become fit for the Use of the Navy 10 Feet to 30 7825 22.4
Scrubbed, unthrifty, and shaken 30 Feet and 240 63.5
upwards
Ditto 10 Feet to 30 230 30.0
Total Oak 11,055
Elm 1 Foot and 228 20.8
upwards
Ash 1 Foot and 533 5.7
upwards
Abeal (i.e. white poplar) 8 7.6
felled, mostly for the Navy (24); this would have kept the dockyards going for
about four days (28). If, as has been claimed, the celebrated Temeraire was
built in 1798 of Hainault oak (44), this one "second-rate" would have used all
the timber in the Forest.
Although the Crown took no trouble with the timber in Hainault Forest, it
was no less successful than in Dean and the New Forest where large sums were
spent at this time on fencing and planting. The standing timber in 1783, which
had cost the Crown nothing, would have amply repaid the £22,000 spent on
maintaining the Forestal rights since 1700.
Wood
In the eighteenth century there are a few references to the practice,
common in other Forests, of pollarding to provide browse-wood "for preser-
vation of ye Deere by reason of ye hardness of weather" (48).
Pollarding by commoners and landowners was still the predominant land-
use over most of the Forests, as is shown by innumerable allusions in the records
and by the many surviving trees which date from this period. There was some
irregular coppicing, as we have seen in the 1582 Loughton account; this
doubtless accounts for the occasional groups of stools, such as the giant beech
stools on Loughton Camp. All the records of regular coppicing refer to private
woods which could be fenced. In 1572 an attempt was made to get Knighton
Wood in Woodford, on the edge of the Forest, declared a private wood and
fenced; this led to a violent demonstration by the commoners. The same events
were repeated in 1670 and there was more trouble in 1781 (11,52).
Cross-sections of boilings show cycles of narrow and wide annual rings
44