Coppicing in the Maple Belt area of the Park.

 On 18th November 2021 a Friends Work Party completed the coppicing started in the Community Event on 28th October. Seven of us worked to build protective 'baskets' around the Hazel tree stumps which had been cut down to about 30 cm. What we are doing is to continue a practice, not necessarily on the Park, but certainly by Thomas Rivers, who probably leased the Osier Bed to plant up with Osier Willows for fruit tree packaging. The areas which were too dry for Willows were planted up with Hazel  to provide rods and poles for use on the Nursery. Some of these original Rivers Hazel trees are to be found in the area adjacent to the boardwalk and also in the hedges around the edges of Springhall Field.

Very old hazel trees.

We harvested straight poles as the trees were coppiced, a billhook was used to put points on the poles which were then driven into the ground as a framework.

The Hazel rods produced by coppicing were then woven between the stakes to make a 'protective basket'.

If we did not do this then the new shoots which would be produced from the stumps next Spring would be browsed off by Muntjac and rabbits. In Thomas Rivers day these would not have been a problem because Muntjac were not introduced into this country until early in the 20th century and rabbits would have been regularly controlled and considered an item of our normal diet for country people.