Bedford Purlieus National Nature Reserve

The Forestry Commission acquired the Bedford Purlieus from a timber merchant who had removed the most saleable timber,[11] and soon after 1933 almost all of the remaining wood was cut, and a replanting programme was begun, which continued until the 1950s. By then the policy of planting both broadleaved and conifer trees within the wood had been standard practice for 100 years, and the practice continued and expanded under Forestry Commission ownership. Although there is now no doubt that the non-native conifers damage and diminish the conservation value of the woodland, it appears that in this instance they also secured its survival.[12]

The planting programme of the 1940s was principally of oak, but also larch, Scots pine and Corsican pine.[13] Unlike in a coppice-with-standards rotation, Bedford Purlieus woodland is much more even in age. However, when an ancient woodland is cleared and planted the result is not just a monoculture of the newly planted trees. The canopy is now a mix of the planted trees, self-sown trees and shrubs, and regrowth of coppice stools, some probably of more recent origin, other stools clearly dating back to antiquity.[14] The species diversity that characterises the woods was thus retained, and oak, lime, large-leaved elm, hazel, ash, field maple, English elm, sycamore, chestnut and birch are all to be found in substantial quantities.[15]

An exception to all this is the northern end of the present wood, known as The Bedlams. This is not ancient wood, but a 19th-century conifer plantation, which was replanted in the 1950s with beech, Norway spruce, Western hemlock and Grand fir. Also, a re-instated open-cast ironstone quarry on the eastern side was planted with Corsican pine.[13]

In 1975 a major symposium was held to consider the management of Bedford Purlieus. Instigated by G.F. Peterken of the Nature Conservancy Council, it included contributions from the Forestry Commission, the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology and the local Naturalist Trusts.[16] Acknowledging the role commercial demands had played in enabling the continued existence of the woods, Peterken states:

The fate of the woodland on the present site of Bedford Purlieus in Roman times is unknown. A reasonable conjecture is that the local iron-smelting activity, needing a supply of fuel, obliged the Romans to retain woodland in an area of relatively dense settlement from which it would otherwise have been cleared. It is a curious co-incidence that 2000 years later, its survival as a native broadleaf woodland was ensured through a period of intensive coniferous reforestation by the renewed demand for iron ore.[17]

During the 1970s the Forestry Commission had begun a shift in focus to conservation and amenity value of their woods.[18] The 1975 symposium considered the history and ecology of Bedford Purlieus and discussed how to retain and enhance the elements of the woods of greatest ecological value. The resulting publication, edited by G.F. Peterken and R.C. Welch,[19] produced a detailed management plan. Among its recommendations were the restoration of areas of coppicing, and the reduction of conifers.[17] The plan provided a basis for an ecological management of Bedford Purlieus within commercial constraints. Its designation as a national nature reserve in 2000 is a recognition of the extent to which the policy shift had been made. In 2005 it received an injection of funding from landfill tax credits arising from the nearby Augean landfill. This has facilitated the Forestry Commission to re-instate areas of coppicing, open up grassland glades and remove conifers and other introduced species.[20]

As well as the shift from commercial to conservation forestry, the Forestry Commission have embraced the desire for public access. The emphasis at Bedford Purlieus is on 'quiet recreation' to minimise the impact on the woodland flora and fauna.[2] A car park is available, accessed from the A47. There is a network of rides and paths within the wood, and it is open every day during daylight hours.[1]

Until the years following 1639 these woods were known as Thornhaugh Woods (also called 'the High Woods of Thornhaw'),[21] being the principal woodland of the parish of Thornhaugh. The name Bedford Purlieus resulted from its association with the Earls and Dukes of Bedford, but it also reveals its more ancient history as a part of a Royal Forest. The woods came into the Russell family almost at the start of their rise to landed wealth. In 1526 John Russell married Anne Sapcote,[22] an heiress whose property included the Thornhaugh Woods.[21] He went on to be created Earl of Bedford by Henry VIII and was granted a vast estate at Woburn Abbey by Edward VI.[22] Baron Russell of Thornhaugh in the County of Northampton (1603) is one of the subsidiary titles of the Dukes of Bedford.

Six generations later, William Russell, the 5th Earl (who would later become Duke of Bedford) was required by Charles I to pay £200 to 'Dissaforest' (sic) his woods at Thornhaugh. Never mind that they had been excluded from Forest Law some 350 years before. The King needed money to fight the Civil War, and this was one of many ways the Treasury found to raise it.[23] The Charter of 8 August 1639 sets out definitively that the woods are now purlieus, that is, land that was once part of a Royal Forest but has been legally disafforested. It names the various compartments (or sales) that make up the woods, and affirms that, "for £200 of lawful money of England well and truly paid" the 1,648 acres are "altogether dissaforested". It goes on to explain:

The Earl of Bedford can keep dogs not expeditated,[lower-alpha 1] hounds, greyhounds and beagles, Netts guns Bows and arrows and all other engines to take chase and drive all wild beasts and birds of any kind and at all times of year hereafter for ever to fell and cut down all and all manner of woods underwoods coppices and trees as well oaks as other trees great and small whether green or dry of what nature or kind whatsoever being or to be within or upon.[23]

After Charles II made the Earl a Duke in 1694,[22] Thornhaugh Woods were to be known in the estate records as 'the Duke of Bedford's Purlieus'.[25]

Bedford Purlieus, on the skyline, once extended across these fields to adjoin Easton Hornstocks, another ancient woodland and also a national nature reserve.

An area of coppice regrowth in Cocker Wood, the easternmost of the compartments

The woods remained in the Russell family through a further nine generations, although by no means all of it remained as woodland. Of the 1,648 acres (667 ha) described in the charter of 1639, around 1,000 acres (400 ha) was woodland. Now only half of that remains. Between 1862 and 1868 the western half of the wood was grubbed up and converted to agricultural land.[26] The Peterborough Advertiser of 7 December 1912, looking back 50 years, describes how

men are still living in the villages of Wansford, Kingscliffe, Nassington and all around who were employed as foresters, woodmen, and oakers, that others are still living who helped to grub up nearly half that thousand acres of forest and make it into farmlands.[27]

The article describes the 'Centre Tree', the site of which is now on the western edge of the wood, but was in the middle of the original wood.

Great landmark of the forest and still standing – in a clearance of about an acre in extent in the centre of this open apace stood centre tree – all ridings led up to it as all roads lead to Rome. Opening out of the clear space surrounding the tree were about ten or twelve ridings branching off into the forest in all directions and as they penetrated into the depths of the wood, branching again and again into intersecting glades and highways. To quote the old men: we got £10 an acre for grubbing – getting up the roots and undergrowth. In an acre there would not be very many of these great trees – oaks, ashes, elms and lime, but the bulk would be the roots of the underwood.[27]

These straight radiating rides had been cut through from 1733 onwards. Before that time the rides followed roughly rectangular compartment boundaries, which date back to medieval times. Although the new rides caused some shifts in boundaries, the names used for the compartments have been very enduring (see table below). The continuity of compartment names is a useful proof that the same wood is being described through the change from Thornhaugh Woods to Bedford Purlieus.[21]

Map showing the boundaries of the former woodland, and the compartments and rides from the estate map of 1757[30]

In 1904 Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford decided to sell the whole of the Wansford Estate, including Bedford Purlieus. The estate totalled 4,500 acres (1,800 ha) including 600 acres (240 ha) of woodland, mainly accounted for by Bedford Purlieus. The estate was bought by William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 7th Earl Fitzwilliam,[31] a young man who had inherited a vast fortune from his grandfather two years previously.[32] However, only nine years later the Bedford Purlieus were sold on, this time to a timber merchant, who it is thought felled all the saleable trees.[26] Twenty years after that, in 1933, it was the bought by the Forestry Commission as is described above.