New Book | The Wood that Built London
From Sandstone Press:
C. J. Schüler, The Wood that Built London: A Human History of the Great North Wood (Sheffield: Sandstone Press, 2021), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-1913207496 (hardcover) / ISBN: 978-1914518164 (paperback), £20.
It is hard to imagine that the busy townscape of South London was once a great wood, stretching almost seven miles from Croydon to Deptford or that, scattered through the suburbs, from Dulwich to Norwood, a number of oak woodlands have survived since before the Norman Conquest. These woods were intensively managed for a thousand years, providing timber for construction, furniture and shipbuilding, and charcoal for London’s blacksmiths, kilns, and bakeries. Now they afford important green space, a vital habitat for small mammals, birds, and insects. Drawing on a wealth of documents, historic maps, and environmental evidence, The Wood That Built London charts the fortunes of the North Wood from its earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and the gradual encroachment of the metropolis.
Chris Schüler is the author of three illustrated histories of cartography: Mapping the World, Mapping the City, and Mapping the Sea and Stars and co-author of the best-selling Traveller’s Atlas. His most recent book, Writers, Lovers, Soldiers, Spies: A History of the Authors’ Club of London, 1891–2016 was published in 2016. He has also written on literature, travel, and the arts for The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, The Tablet, The Financial Times, and New Statesman.
C O N T E N T S
Foreword by Rachel Licthenstein
Introduction
Measurements, Money, and Other Matters
1 Taming the Wildwood, ca. 8000 BC–1485
2 Surveys, Ships, and Statutes, 1485–1600
3 The World Turned Upside Down, 1600–1700
4 Faith or Science? 1700–1790
5 Industry and Enclosure, 1790–1850
6 The Palace and the Railway, 1850–1910
7 The Home Front, 1910–1945
8 A Design for Living, 1945–1970
9 Save the Woods! 1970–1997
10 A New Millennium, 1997–2021
11 A Tour of the Woods Today
12 Ways through the Woods, 2021–?
Acknowledgments
A Woodland Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Chris Schüler on the Wood that Built London
An evening lecture at the Society of Antiquaries:
Chris Schüler, The Wood That Built London
In-person and online, Society of Antiquaries of London, 12 October 2023, 5pm
Drawing on historic documents, maps and environmental evidence, The Wood That Built London charts the fortunes of the Great North Wood that once covered much of what is now South London [‘north’ relative to Croydon]. It records its botany, ecology, ownership and management, the gradual encroachment of the metropolis, and the battles fought by locals and the London Wildlife Trust to save what remained.
The lecture will discuss the documentary research into historic land ownership and management in the medieval and early modern periods that informed the book, which draws on a wide range of primary sources, some never previously cited. These include 16th-century Court of Exchequer depositions in a dispute over land ownership in the National Archives at Kew; Archbishop Morton’s 1492 survey of the Manor of Croydon and a 1678 plan of the Archbishop’s woods in Croydon Museum; Archbishop Cranmer’s 1552 survey of the Manor of Croydon in the Bodleian Library; estate maps in the British Library and London Metropolitan Archives; parish accounts; and records of woodland management in Dulwich College Archive and Lambeth Palace Library. Considered together, these scattered records combine to create a picture of the former extent of the wood, which stretched from Deptford to Croydon, its ownership by religious bodies such as Bermondsey Abbey and the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and its management by rotational coppicing, which generated income for its owners over several centuries. Tudor Acts of Parliament and the publications of 16th– and 17th-century agronomists such as Thomas Tusser and Barnaby Googe are examined to provide insight into the theory and practice of woodland management at this period.
The book also records how that income dwindled as the Industrial Revolution rendered many woodland products obsolete, leading landowners to grub up coppices, at first for farmland and then, as the railways brought the area within commuting distance of London, for housing development, to the fury of commentators such as John Ruskin and John Stuart Mill.
Presented both in-person at Burlington House and online, the event is free and open to the public. Please reserve tickets here.
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