Robin Hood's Bower

richard.webster · **Posted:** 25 Aug 2011 9:52 pm

This really doesn't look like very much at all, and at first sight it isn't.

This is Robin Hood's Bower, in woods near the town of Warminster, in south-west Wiltshire, England. It's one of the west country's least known prehistoric monuments, but one which nevertheless has an interesting history, illustrating the way in which some ancient sites, however obscure, come to be appropriated, utilised and indeed venerated by succeeding generations.

There is very little information on the original earthwork, save for the fact of its existence, and it merits only a few lines on Julian Cope's Modern Antiquarian website, which describes it as:

Quote:

... a sub-rectangular prehistoric earthwork enclosure on low lying greensand south of Warminster. The monument comprises a sub-rectangular area of 200 square metres enclosed by a ditch up to 1m deep and 7.2m wide and a slight inner bank 3.3m wide and up to 0.2m high. The enclosure is crossed by a modern track.

And Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, quoted on the same website, describes it thus:

Quote:

Southley-Wood [now called Southleigh Woods] so called from the circumstance of its lying to the south of Warminster, is distinguished by a small entrenchment, denominated Robin Hood's Bower, which is nearly of a square form, and comprises within its area about three-quarters of an acre of land.

Bower, incidentally, is a lovely old English word meaning a shady place framed by trees, sometimes known as an arbour.

And it is the trees which draw you to this place because if it wasn't for the fact of the unusual thicket that stands on the mound, like a wood within a wood, one could be forgiven for walking right past this earthwork, so eroded and overgrown has it become.

Although an ancient wood, that still has some older trees around its edge, Southleigh today is a conifer plantation, owned by the Marquess of Bath, about one square mile or so in size, criss-crossed with logging tracks and grass paths on a grid of parallel lines. It's the sort of wood I find a little bit boring, although there are some nice specimen firs in there, amidst the dense ranks of younger trees grown for their softwood.

But what makes Robin Hood's Bower stand out is the way in which it has been covered by araucaria araucana trees, sometimes known as Chilean Pines, sometimes known as Monkey Tails, but best known as Monkey Puzzles. These very striking evergreen trees, that come from South America (this is the national tree of Chile) were introduced to England during the early to middle part of the 19th century. They are now classified as an endangered species and have been protected since 1971. Here's a little more about them from Wiki.

Quote:

Araucaria araucana (popularly called the Monkey-puzzle Tree or Monkey Tail Tree) is an evergreen tree growing to 40 metres (130 ft) tall with a 2 metres (7 ft) trunk diameter. The tree is native to central and southern Chile, western Argentina and south Brazil. Araucaria araucana is the hardiest species in the conifer genus Araucaria. Because of the species's great age it is sometimes described as a living fossil.

The leaves are thick, tough and scale-like, triangular, 3–4 cm long, 1–3 cm broad at the base, and with sharp edges and tip. They persist for 10–15 years or more, so cover most of the tree except for the older branches.

It is usually dioecious, with the male and female cones on separate trees, though occasional individuals bear cones of both sexes. The male (pollen) cones are oblong and cucumber-shaped, 4 cm long at first, expanding to 8–12 cm long by 5–6 cm broad at pollen release. The tree is wind pollinated. The female (seed) cones, which mature in autumn about 18 months after pollination, are globose, large, 12–20 cm diameter, and hold about 200 seeds. The cones disintegrate at maturity to release the 3–4 cm long nut-like seeds, which are then dispersed by jays and squirrels.

Its native habitat is the lower slopes of the Chilean and Argentinian south-central Andes, typically above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), in regions with heavy snowfall in winter but can also be found in the southern region of Brazil. Juvenile trees exhibit a broadly pyramidal or conical habit which naturally develops into the distinctive umbrella form of mature specimens as the tree ages.[1] It prefers well drained, slightly acidic, volcanic soil but will tolerate almost any soil type provided it drains well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_araucana

This is a clump of Monkey Puzzles in Argentina.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

And this is a closer look at their distinctive foliage, from Robin Hood's Bower.

They tend to do well here in England - they like temperate climates with plenty of rain - but they're mostly planted as lone specimen trees in the gardens of grander houses, or sometimes in churchyards, and as such they are comparatively rare. What is still more rare, and something I've never personally seen before, is to have lots of them planted together in a dense group, because in Robin Hood's Bower there must be at least two hundred of them. Somebody clearly venerated this spot very much, to go to the lengths of planting so many of these trees on it. The question is - why?

The answer is this man, Alfred the Great:

Photo courtesy "Odejea", Wikipedia

Alfred was the King of Wessex from 871 to 899 and is a true national hero of England, having been a great warrior and leader of his people. He was also a great scholar, and there was no better educated English monarch until Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509, nearly 650 years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

He was a man of many accomplishments, by far the greatest of which was defending the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the Vikings, and specifically his nation-shaping victories over the Danes at Ashdown in 871 and Edington in 878.

It is this latter, decisive military victory that leads us back to Robin Hood's Bower in Southleigh Woods, for it was upon this ancient earthwork that Alfred and his Anglo-Saxon army took their rest on the night before the battle.

This moss covered stump below is almost certainly all that remains of Iley Oak, a much venerated tree, which is where Alfred slept that night, some 1,133 years ago.

And because of this, the planting of the Monkey Puzzle trees to commemorate this spot begins to make sense.

As referred to above, these trees didn't make an appearance in England until the early to middle part of the 19th century, so the trees in Robin Hood's Bower can't pre-date this period. It's difficult to tell, because these are incredibly slow growing trees, and being put so close together will have stunted their growth, but I would hazard a guess that these trees date from this period, and not much later, and would have been planted in around 1850. This is because there was a great upsurge of interest in King Alfred exactly one thousand years after his birth in 849, and he was much admired by the Victorians. If this is the case, and it is purely supposition on my part, then the Monkey Puzzle plantation would have been commissioned by John Alexander Thynne, born in 1831, who was the 4th Marquess of Bath from 1837 to 1896. This is rather fun caricature of him, entitled "Ancient Lineage", painted by Carlo Pellegrini for an 1874 edition of Vanity Fair.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

But if that probably answers the question about the planting of the trees, it's worth noting that interest in the site of the earthwork, and Iley Oak, considerably pre-dates the Victorian era. The hundreds of the nearby settlements of Warminster and Heytsbury used to meet at this spot until 1652 (a "hundred" is an old English term for an administrative area within a county). The site then went on to be used as a meeting place by the religious non-conformists of the village of Crockerton, which lies in the valley beneath these woods.

So from Anglo-Saxon times, to the Victorian era, this prehistoric mound has been considered an important site, and is part of Wessex tradition and folklore. Today it is a curious sort of place, and if one didn't know its history, it appears as a dark and incongruous thicket of non-native trees within a larger wood. In fact, it's so dark in there that it feels quite eerie, and one can't help but think of the Anglo-Saxon soldiers camped there, over a millenium ago, preparing to go and do battle with the marauding Viking invaders, and this one connection more than anything else, makes this tree covered mound, and the ancient oak stump where Alfred rested, a small but significant part of our history. It also demonstrates how some prehistoric sites have an enduring significance to the generations that follow.

Finally, as to why it's called Robin Hood's Bower, nobody seems to know. There are dozens upon dozens of places in England named after this legendary and quite possibly ficticious figure, although few of them are this far south. It must pre-date the planting of the Monkey Puzzles, otherwise the 4th Marquess would surely have named it King Alfred's Bower. The only explanation one finds offered is that Robin Hood is associated with Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood's Bower is ... in a forest. So that part is a genuine mystery.

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 8:07 am

Interesting read, thank you Richard....

Quote:

Iley Oak, sometimes called Hundred Oak, the meeting-place of Warminster Hundred

The name Iley Oak or Hundred Oak was preserved as late as the 17th Century according to Stevenson’s “Asser’s Life of King Alfred”, until Southleigh wood replaced it. To understand the term “Hundreds” perhaps we need to step back a little and look at the hierarchy of Wessex during those times. An Earldmon governed each of the counties of Wessex in the King’s name. Each county was then dissected into districts known as Hundreds. Each of these had it’s own court under the authority of someone called a Reeve, who were appointed again by the King. Wiltshire for example had 29 Hundreds, such as Bradford, Calne, Chippenham, Melksham, Westbury, etc. Looking at a Hundred, it is called so, as it contained 100 Hides. A Hide being a unit of land large enough to support a family. This varied between 40 and 120 acres. Having said that, the size of the family itself varied greatly. As we will see when calculating the size of the armies, it was easily possible for lots of able men to come from the same Hide. By looking at the above breakdown, it’s not a million miles away from the infrastructure of today; all the local courts and the most direct and potentially fairest form of judiciary are all gone. A modern court is probably more consistent though in its judgment, but capable of taking in people’s personal circumstances. Going back to the Hundreds and their courts, they would have to meet and convene court, usually at what we call a Moot or meeting place. The courts of the two Hundreds of Warminster and Heytesbury are documented as meeting at Iley during 1439, so the two names of Iley and Hundred Oak match up nicely. A Crockerton group of non-conformists also used the Oak in the mid 17th Century, where they had secret religious meetings. Richard Colt Hoare states in 1651 the “The Sheriff’s Turns Court’ are Kept at Iley Oak”.

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:22 am

Quote:

John Peddie argues for the location of modern day Robin Hood’s Bower as the location of Iley Oak. As you will see and read below there is much to back this argument up, and based of physical evidence, I would concur with this view. Robin Hood’s Bower is approximately 100 yards across and surrounded by a 1-yard deep ditch. Whether this is modern or ancient, is still to be worked out. What is known is that the enclosure contains only living Monkey Puzzle trees. Peddie ridiculed the decision by the Longleat estate to plant those trees there, but I happen to love Monkey Puzzle trees, so I think it looks mighty impressive. Next is the watery nature of the land. Even though I visited the area in summer, the water being so much higher than the rest of the land around should have been bone dry, but as per the Latin description of the land it was a bit wet and “squishy”, as seen in the photograph. Romantically when I visit it I strangely hoped for evidence of the mighty Oak tree that once supposedly stood there. To my shock I found a rotting Oak tree stump approximately 7 feet across. From my research this could have been around many hundreds of years ago. I immediately drew to the conclusion that this was the famous Iley Oak, or at least the one used for meeting places in the 17th century. Happy with my conclusion I had one more quick skirt around, upon which I stumbled across an even bigger stump, about 8 feet across! At least this proves that large Oak trees once stood in this area. It’s a classic example of a romantic fitting up the facts to match the evidence. I’ve not got enough information to work out the size of the tree X hundreds years ago, and how long once they had died would they remain before rotting into nothing. This information would be a major benefit in drawing conclusions as to the validity of the site. My personal view is that a 7 foot Oak tree would be about 500 years ago, and that by the state of the tree it would have been dead for perhaps several hundred more. As with the mighty Oak tree in Sherwood Forest, it would at best had only been an accord during the reign of Alfred. I contacted the Longleat Estate and received most gracious help from T R W Moore, the General Manager. The stumps in the enclosure are a mixture of Oak, Wellingtonia, and Silver Fir. The estate purchased the land in 1946, and planted the Monkey Puzzle enclosure in 1965 and 1967. The combination of the wetland, the ditch (which could be construed as an island), and the tree stumps is pretty strong evidence to suggest this was the site of Alfred’s final camp before the battle. Surely under the soil there is enough evidence to proof it either way! As a final point surely there must be some irony that the location is associated with Robin Hood (being referred to as Robin Hood’s Bower on the Ordnance Survey map), and that the topic we are talking about is Oak trees!

So what about the rest of the wood? Firstly, the modern face of the woods is massively different from what would have stood there hundreds of years ago. The modern wood is exclusively coniferous tree, with only sidelined deciduous trees on the edges. The meeting place of the five trackways does have a realistic feel about it, but the rest of the wood looks artificial with the “sterile” atmosphere of the conifers. There is no strong modern evidence for Eastleigh wood, but its geographical features do have some positive and negative points. It’s location 60 feet lower than the majority of Southleigh wood, but it does lie on the north-facing escarpment, which would give them a good view over the oncoming Pagans. My feeling is that the location existed before Alfred chose it as a camp, so the later may be insignificant. It’s nearly impossible to judge what the land would look like a thousand years ago, and which part of the woods would make a good location for a moot or meeting place. Logically I would have placed it on the epicentre of the tracks, or on the very top of the hill where modern day Robin Hood’s Bower is located.

http://members.fortunecity.com/dejus/

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:36 am

Sheila wrote:

Interesting read, thank you Richard....is this the place ?

Latitude: 51° 10' 45.24" N
Longitude: 2° 10' 38.7" W

Quote:

Iley Oak, sometimes called Hundred Oak, the meeting-place of Warminster Hundred

There is a wee bit more stuff in these links..

http://books.google.fr/books?id=zzcQAAA ... er&f=false

http://books.google.fr/books?id=WtsHAAA ... er&f=false

Thanks, yes, that's definitely the place, though I didn't know about the alternative name of Hundred Oak, which would make sense if this is where the "hundreds" met. This would have been a much more prominent spot in the local landscape before the big conifer plantation got put all round it, and it would also be roughly midway between the town of Warminster, and the village of Heytsbury, and therefore an ideal meeting place. In some ways, the fact that non-conformists would later use it is more interesting, because it implies that the place carried some resonant significance years after Alfred spent the night there. I grew up a stone's throw from the Bower, but rarely went to these woods, as there were others closer to the house that I preferred, plus you have to cross a main road to get to them, there are no drinking places for dogs, etc. Incidentally, the late 6th Marquess of Bath, the descendant of the 4th Marquess who probably planted the Monkey Puzzles, and father of the present one, chose to live in a house on the edge of these woods, rather than at the family seat of Longleat, and I would imagine, because he absolutely loved trees, that he would have visited the Bower quite often.

According to local legend - at least, I was told this as a child - Southleigh Woods are haunted by a satyr like creature that is half man (top half) and half deer. :shock:

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:46 am

I'm still reading up on this fascinating subject of yours...the chores will have to wait a wee bit longer

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:53 am

I know the area a wee bit as we came over from France 15 years ago to buy pedigree Poll Dorset rams from a top breeder, halfway between Longleat & Warminster....i bet you know him

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:55 am

Sheila wrote:

Quote:

John Peddie argues for the location of modern day Robin Hood’s Bower as the location of Iley Oak. As you will see and read below there is much to back this argument up, and based of physical evidence, I would concur with this view. Robin Hood’s Bower is approximately 100 yards across and surrounded by a 1-yard deep ditch. Whether this is modern or ancient, is still to be worked out. What is known is that the enclosure contains only living Monkey Puzzle trees. Peddie ridiculed the decision by the Longleat estate to plant those trees there, but I happen to love Monkey Puzzle trees, so I think it looks mighty impressive. Next is the watery nature of the land. Even though I visited the area in summer, the water being so much higher than the rest of the land around should have been bone dry, but as per the Latin description of the land it was a bit wet and “squishy”, as seen in the photograph. Romantically when I visit it I strangely hoped for evidence of the mighty Oak tree that once supposedly stood there. To my shock I found a rotting Oak tree stump approximately 7 feet across. From my research this could have been around many hundreds of years ago. I immediately drew to the conclusion that this was the famous Iley Oak, or at least the one used for meeting places in the 17th century. Happy with my conclusion I had one more quick skirt around, upon which I stumbled across an even bigger stump, about 8 feet across! At least this proves that large Oak trees once stood in this area. It’s a classic example of a romantic fitting up the facts to match the evidence. I’ve not got enough information to work out the size of the tree X hundreds years ago, and how long once they had died would they remain before rotting into nothing. This information would be a major benefit in drawing conclusions as to the validity of the site. My personal view is that a 7 foot Oak tree would be about 500 years ago, and that by the state of the tree it would have been dead for perhaps several hundred more. As with the mighty Oak tree in Sherwood Forest, it would at best had only been an accord during the reign of Alfred. I contacted the Longleat Estate and received most gracious help from T R W Moore, the General Manager. The stumps in the enclosure are a mixture of Oak, Wellingtonia, and Silver Fir. The estate purchased the land in 1946, and planted the Monkey Puzzle enclosure in 1965 and 1967. The combination of the wetland, the ditch (which could be construed as an island), and the tree stumps is pretty strong evidence to suggest this was the site of Alfred’s final camp before the battle. Surely under the soil there is enough evidence to proof it either way! As a final point surely there must be some irony that the location is associated with Robin Hood (being referred to as Robin Hood’s Bower on the Ordnance Survey map), and that the topic we are talking about is Oak trees!

So what about the rest of the wood? Firstly, the modern face of the woods is massively different from what would have stood there hundreds of years ago. The modern wood is exclusively coniferous tree, with only sidelined deciduous trees on the edges. The meeting place of the five trackways does have a realistic feel about it, but the rest of the wood looks artificial with the “sterile” atmosphere of the conifers. There is no strong modern evidence for Eastleigh wood, but its geographical features do have some positive and negative points. It’s location 60 feet lower than the majority of Southleigh wood, but it does lie on the north-facing escarpment, which would give them a good view over the oncoming Pagans. My feeling is that the location existed before Alfred chose it as a camp, so the later may be insignificant. It’s nearly impossible to judge what the land would look like a thousand years ago, and which part of the woods would make a good location for a moot or meeting place. Logically I would have placed it on the epicentre of the tracks, or on the very top of the hill where modern day Robin Hood’s Bower is located.

http://members.fortunecity.com/dejus/

Well, well, that's a very interesting quote indeed, although it unfortunately completely scuppers my theory that the 4th Marquess would have planted those trees in c. 1850. Bugger.

I can't believe those trees are as recent as the 1960s, they're such slow growers, but that information from the estate can't be wrong, so it would have been the 6th Marquess who planted them, which does make some sense, as he was such a lover of trees, and had planted (and used to personally maintain) a beautiful arboretum at nearby Longleat.

The late John Peddie was my next door neighbour growing up, and I used to take his dogs for a walk. He was a retired army officer who wrote books on the Roman invasion of Britain, and Hannibal, and also this very well regarded book on King Alfred, for which he's probably best known.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alfred-Warrior- ... 562&sr=1-1

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 10:16 am

i checked it out on Google Earth and the dark foliage of the Monkey puzzles is very obvious.

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 11:41 am

Sheila wrote:

That's a good map, much more up to date than my 1950s paper one, and it shows the vineyard that's now on the north side of the village, and the TV mast they put into Southleigh Woods in c. early 1980s to give us a better reception. I grew up in the bottom left-hand corner of the map, roughly midway between the pub and the big lake. I know the woods around that part like the back of my hand - every path, deadfall and deer track - but Southleigh Woods have always been a bit more of an unknown quantity to me. Perhaps their nicest aspect, which I forgot to mention, is looking up at them from the village to the west, as there are many larch trees (deciduous firs) along the ridgeline which go a lovely golden colour in autumn.

The map also shows the other prehistoric earthwork in fields to the south-east, so if one casts one's imagination back a very, very long way to this period, one can imagine this area before there were trees, as a grass plain with earth mounds on it; far from untypical, of course, in this part of England, which is so rich in prehistory.

I'm still puzzling about the age of those trees, and can't understand how they reached that height in less than fifty years, particularly being planted so close together, whereas the one I planted in Hampshire grows at a rate of about two inches a year. I guess they prefer greensand to chalk, which is what we're on here, and Henry Bath must have bought them as relatively mature rootballs. It would be a much better story if these had been planted to celebrate the millenium anniversary of Alfred's birth, as I had previously supposed, but I know I can't stop facts from getting in the way of a good story, however much I might wish otherwise! But I'm still going to hold on to the notion of the tree stump I photographed being the remains of Iley Oak, and the spot where Alfred spent the night before defeating the Vikings, because there does seem to be something to that story, though we'll never know for sure.

I shall be returning there shortly to try and get some better photos (devilishly hard place to get a good picture of, so dense is the tree cover), and work out exact quantities, girth, height, etc.

This an example of the "wet and squishy" land round the mound, as referred to in one of the quotes above, in this little pond that's formed in one of the ditches.

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 1:03 pm

excellent stuff Richard...i understand exactly what you mean about the age of the trees and i tend to agree that they are much older than the late 60's...maybe see if you can find a fallen one with a large trunk...cut a nice slice & you can count the rings !

By the way, my mate J D's farm is in the top left corner of the map.

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 3:54 pm

Sheila wrote:

excellent stuff Richard...i understand exactly what you mean about the age of the trees and i tend to agree that they are much older than the late 60's...maybe see if you can find a fallen one with a large trunk...cut a nice slice & you can count the rings!

I'm going to be having a serious root around in that Bower come Sunday!

But I've done a bit of research into Monkey Puzzles and got some very mixed results. Their rate of growth is cited variously as "slow", "painfully slow", "average" and "rapid". :!:

I do think that conditions are probably very important, so for example, although they are tolerant of all soil types, they tend to prefer acid soil, and they certainly seem to need good exposure, of which I wouldn't say there's much in Robin Hood's Bower, given that this is a very dense thicket, surrounded by a conifer plantation. It's very dark in there.

Going to my plant books, rather than the internet, and in British Trees, C A Hall and B A Jay, 1930, (lovely book, from Black's Young Naturalist Series, invaluable) in the chapter on trees introduced to Britain, this is some of what they have to say about the tree. I've bolded a few parts that I found interesting and added comments of my own in italics.

Quote:

Chile Pine (Araucaria araucana)

Commonly called the Monkey Puzzle. A native of Chile, introduced into Britain in 1796 [not really pertinent to the subject at hand, but that's earlier than Wikipedia claimed, and a couple of other sources back up that late 18th century date]. In town gardens generally makes a poor show, but if grown in a clear atmosphere, with abundant sun [definitely not the case in those woods, certainly not when they were young and small, and would have been dwarfed by the surrounding trees] and suitable humidity, it does remarkably well. Some very fine specimens are to be seen in the west of Scotland, particularly in sheltered gardens well exposed to the sun and not far from the sea. In a good exposure this distinctive evergreen tree produces luxuriant growth, attaining a height of up to 80 or 100 feet. The branches grow in whorls, producing regular branchlets; they curve in an upward direction. In old trees the lower branches die [I guess it depends on what you mean by "old", but there has been loads of branch drop on that site, the ground is covered in dead branches, which at some point in the recent past have been gathered into piles by the estate - this is something else, at the time, that made me think these might have dated back to the 19th century], so the tree develops a good length of bare trunk, with thick, corky bark. The growth form is cylindrical or pyramidal.

One other thing I did discover is that they are very susceptible to root damage, and don't like being transplanted, which would suggest that the ones in the Bower were grown from young plants rather than big rootballs (which would have been horrendously expensive anyway, given that today, for one just c. 1m in height, you can pay 200 to 300 pounds for one, probably another reason why they tend to be grown as lone specimen trees). So given their height now, you'd really think they were older .....

So it's all a bit odd, but I'll go back and have another look.

Sheila wrote:

By the way, my mate J D's farm is in the top left corner of the map.

Ah, I know that farm, and pretty sure I know what JD stands for, although I don't know them personally, as they are a very prominent local farming family, though I didn't know that was one of theirs too. I've walked past that farm many times - it's at the foot of Cley Hill, a c. 800 foot high Iron Age hillfort with two bronze age round barrows on top (I have a thread on "Paganism" about it, called "The Legend of Bogley Round Barrow"). Small world!

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 4:23 pm

hmmm...apparently if you count the number of whorls of main branches from the trunk you should be able to get a rough idea, they normally put on one whorl per year

Here's some height/age information.

Quote:

I live in Teeside and our monkey tree is obout fifteen years old and stands about 17 feet tall

Quote:

There are many Monkey Puzzle trees in Britain more than 100 years old and still healthy, but they do tend to die by the time they are around 130 years of age.

Quote:

We live in Matlock Bath in Derbyshire and have 2 Monkey Puzzle trees in the front garden. They were planted when the house was built in 1848 and are now about 30m tall. They are greatly admired by visitors to the village.

Quote:

We have a large monkey puzzle tree the trunk of which is some 45 cm in diameter. It must be at least 30 years old.

http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?lat ... a+araucana

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 5:53 pm

Sheila wrote:

hmmm...apparently if you count the number of whorls of main branches from the trunk you should be able to get a rough idea, they normally put on one whorl per year

Ah, but that wouldn't work on a Monkey Puzzle, I don't think, because they shed their lower branches as they get older, and eventually just form a canopy at the top - like a Scots Pine, in that respect - but then I'd imagine you could just count the whorl wounds going up the trunk, so I'll try that.

Sheila wrote:

Here's some height/age information.

Thanks, I looked at the various comments on that site, and there seemed to be a rough consensus of a rate of growth of one foot a year, and the text on the site itself spoke of the tree growing 35cm a year, which is about a foot in old money. But it also said that for the first ten years they do virtually nothing, and barely get above ground level, so this may be where some of the confusion about it's overall rate of growth comes from, perhaps?

So if those trees were planted in the mid-60s, and say they barely got up above the ground for the first ten years, so they don't really start growing until the mid-70s, which would potentially mean about 35 - 40 feet of growth up to the present day. I'll know better when I next go back there, but from memory, I'd say the trees in the Bower are probably between 20 and 30 feet tall, but if you factor in the stunting effect of them being planted so close together, that would knock off a few feet, and so it does start to look as if that information about them being planted in the 1960s is probably correct after all. And also if, as said above, they have a tendency to die after about 130 years, that would also suggest that they can't be too old, because there are so many there, that if they were, at least some of them would be lying on the ground by now.

So I guess 1960s, and 6th Marquess, is the right answer after all. I still find it odd though, much as I like Monkey Puzzles, that he planted a non-native tree in such an historic spot, and in such massive dense quantities, rather than a small stand of deciduous trees, like oaks, for example, given that it's probably Iley Oak that is being commemorated, rather than the prehistoric barrow. But it all adds to the overall mystique of the place, of course, and it's certainly a unique little piece of woodland.

Sheila · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 6:15 pm

I remember seeing my first monkey puzzle tree at about 4 years old when we lived up the back of the "great tomb" Yr Wyddfa....Half way up Moël Hebog there was a solitary specimen...huge, tall &and amazingly exotic...totally out of place on the grim slopes of Snowdonia...especially since the only other trees were stunted hawthorns, bent double by the prevailing winds !

Caelum · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 8:35 pm

richard.webster wrote:

This really doesn't look like very much at all, and at first sight it isn't.

This is Robin Hood's Bower, in woods near the town of Warminster, in south-west Wiltshire, England. It's one of the west country's least known prehistoric monuments, but one which nevertheless has an interesting history, illustrating the way in which some ancient sites, however obscure, come to be appropriated, utilised and indeed venerated by succeeding generations.

There is very little information on the original earthwork, save for the fact of its existence, and it merits only a few lines on Julian Cope's Modern Antiquarian website, which describes it as:

Quote:

... a sub-rectangular prehistoric earthwork enclosure on low lying greensand south of Warminster. The monument comprises a sub-rectangular area of 200 square metres enclosed by a ditch up to 1m deep and 7.2m wide and a slight inner bank 3.3m wide and up to 0.2m high. The enclosure is crossed by a modern track.

And Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, quoted on the same website, describes it thus:

Quote:

Southley-Wood [now called Southleigh Woods] so called from the circumstance of its lying to the south of Warminster, is distinguished by a small entrenchment, denominated Robin Hood's Bower, which is nearly of a square form, and comprises within its area about three-quarters of an acre of land.

Bower, incidentally, is a lovely old English word meaning a shady place framed by trees, sometimes known as an arbour.

And it is the trees which draw you to this place because if it wasn't for the fact of the unusual thicket that stands on the mound, like a wood within a wood, one could be forgiven for walking right past this earthwork, so eroded and overgrown has it become.

Although an ancient wood, that still has some older trees around its edge, Southleigh today is a conifer plantation, owned by the Marquess of Bath, about one square mile or so in size, criss-crossed with logging tracks and grass paths on a grid of parallel lines. It's the sort of wood I find a little bit boring, although there are some nice specimen firs in there, amidst the dense ranks of younger trees grown for their softwood.

But what makes Robin Hood's Bower stand out is the way in which it has been covered by araucaria araucana trees, sometimes known as Chilean Pines, sometimes known as Monkey Tails, but best known as Monkey Puzzles. These very striking evergreen trees, that come from South America (this is the national tree of Chile) were introduced to England during the early to middle part of the 19th century. They are now classified as an endangered species and have been protected since 1971. Here's a little more about them from Wiki.

Quote:

Araucaria araucana (popularly called the Monkey-puzzle Tree or Monkey Tail Tree) is an evergreen tree growing to 40 metres (130 ft) tall with a 2 metres (7 ft) trunk diameter. The tree is native to central and southern Chile, western Argentina and south Brazil. Araucaria araucana is the hardiest species in the conifer genus Araucaria. Because of the species's great age it is sometimes described as a living fossil.

The leaves are thick, tough and scale-like, triangular, 3–4 cm long, 1–3 cm broad at the base, and with sharp edges and tip. They persist for 10–15 years or more, so cover most of the tree except for the older branches.

It is usually dioecious, with the male and female cones on separate trees, though occasional individuals bear cones of both sexes. The male (pollen) cones are oblong and cucumber-shaped, 4 cm long at first, expanding to 8–12 cm long by 5–6 cm broad at pollen release. The tree is wind pollinated. The female (seed) cones, which mature in autumn about 18 months after pollination, are globose, large, 12–20 cm diameter, and hold about 200 seeds. The cones disintegrate at maturity to release the 3–4 cm long nut-like seeds, which are then dispersed by jays and squirrels.

Its native habitat is the lower slopes of the Chilean and Argentinian south-central Andes, typically above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), in regions with heavy snowfall in winter but can also be found in the southern region of Brazil. Juvenile trees exhibit a broadly pyramidal or conical habit which naturally develops into the distinctive umbrella form of mature specimens as the tree ages.[1] It prefers well drained, slightly acidic, volcanic soil but will tolerate almost any soil type provided it drains well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_araucana

This is a clump of Monkey Puzzles in Argentina.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

And this is a closer look at their distinctive foliage, from Robin Hood's Bower.

They tend to do well here in England - they like temperate climates with plenty of rain - but they're mostly planted as lone specimen trees in the gardens of grander houses, or sometimes in churchyards, and as such they are comparatively rare. What is still more rare, and something I've never personally seen before, is to have lots of them planted together in a dense group, because in Robin Hood's Bower there must be at least two hundred of them. Somebody clearly venerated this spot very much, to go to the lengths of planting so many of these trees on it. The question is - why?

The answer is this man, Alfred the Great:

Photo courtesy "Odejea", Wikipedia

Alfred was the King of Wessex from 871 to 899 and is a true national hero of England, having been a great warrior and leader of his people. He was also a great scholar, and there was no better educated English monarch until Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509, nearly 650 years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

He was a man of many accomplishments, by far the greatest of which was defending the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the Vikings, and specifically his nation-shaping victories over the Danes at Ashdown in 871 and Edington in 878.

It is this latter, decisive military victory that leads us back to Robin Hood's Bower in Southleigh Woods, for it was upon this ancient earthwork that Alfred and his Anglo-Saxon army took their rest on the night before the battle.

This moss covered stump below is almost certainly all that remains of Iley Oak, a much venerated tree, which is where Alfred slept that night, some 1,133 years ago.

And because of this, the planting of the Monkey Puzzle trees to commemorate this spot begins to make sense.

As referred to above, these trees didn't make an appearance in England until the early to middle part of the 19th century, so the trees in Robin Hood's Bower can't pre-date this period. It's difficult to tell, because these are incredibly slow growing trees, and being put so close together will have stunted their growth, but I would hazard a guess that these trees date from this period, and not much later, and would have been planted in around 1850. This is because there was a great upsurge of interest in King Alfred exactly one thousand years after his birth in 849, and he was much admired by the Victorians. If this is the case, and it is purely supposition on my part, then the Monkey Puzzle plantation would have been commissioned by John Alexander Thynne, born in 1831, who was the 4th Marquess of Bath from 1837 to 1896. This is rather fun caricature of him, entitled "Ancient Lineage", painted by Carlo Pellegrini for an 1874 edition of Vanity Fair.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

But if that probably answers the question about the planting of the trees, it's worth noting that interest in the site of the earthwork, and Iley Oak, considerably pre-dates the Victorian era. The hundreds of the nearby settlements of Warminster and Heytsbury used to meet at this spot until 1652 (a "hundred" is an old English term for an administrative area within a county). The site then went on to be used as a meeting place by the religious non-conformists of the village of Crockerton, which lies in the valley beneath these woods.

So from Anglo-Saxon times, to the Victorian era, this prehistoric mound has been considered an important site, and is part of Wessex tradition and folklore. Today it is a curious sort of place, and if one didn't know its history, it appears as a dark and incongruous thicket of non-native trees within a larger wood. In fact, it's so dark in there that it feels quite eerie, and one can't help but think of the Anglo-Saxon soldiers camped there, over a millenium ago, preparing to go and do battle with the marauding Viking invaders, and this one connection more than anything else, makes this tree covered mound, and the ancient oak stump where Alfred rested, a small but significant part of our history. It also demonstrates how some prehistoric sites have an enduring significance to the generations that follow.

Finally, as to why it's called Robin Hood's Bower, nobody seems to know. There are dozens upon dozens of places in England named after this legendary and quite possibly ficticious figure, although few of them are this far south. It must pre-date the planting of the Monkey Puzzles, otherwise the 4th Marquess would surely have named it King Alfred's Bower. The only explanation one finds offered is that Robin Hood is associated with Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood's Bower is ... in a forest. So that part is a genuine mystery.

Richard,

I was trying to find out more about the Monkey Puzzle trees and ran across this interesting white paper that I thought you would enjoy:

http://members.fortunecity.com/dejus/

Unfortunately there are a ton of broken photo links, but there is a lot of useful information, including the provenance of the trees.

Caelum · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 9:04 pm

Sheila wrote:

I remember seeing my first monkey puzzle tree at about 4 years old when we lived up the back of the "great tomb" Yr Wyddfa....Half way up Moël Hebog there was a solitary specimen...huge, tall &and amazingly exotic...totally out of place on the grim slopes of Snowdonia...especially since the only other trees were stunted hawthorns, bent double by the prevailing winds !

Thank goodness you weren't injured!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... inges.html

:shock:

BULLDOGNIC · **Joined:** 24 Apr 2008 2:43 pm **Posts:** 1872

Great post Richard,
What a fabulously natural ancient historic wood. Whenever I see monkey puzzle trees it reminds me of my parents old house ( they had just a lonely one ) and also of Alton Towers. Also with the name Robin Hood's Bower, the look of the area in your photo reminds me of parts of Sherwood Forest ( minus the monkey puzzles though ).
Keep these articles coming, you really seem to have a knack for finding places of true English heritage and beauty.
Regards
Nic

richard.webster · **Posted:** 26 Aug 2011 11:48 pm

Thank you, Caelum, Nic

As for this:

Caelum wrote:

Sheila wrote:

I remember seeing my first monkey puzzle tree at about 4 years old when we lived up the back of the "great tomb" Yr Wyddfa....Half way up Moël Hebog there was a solitary specimen...huge, tall &and amazingly exotic...totally out of place on the grim slopes of Snowdonia...especially since the only other trees were stunted hawthorns, bent double by the prevailing winds !

Thank goodness you weren't injured!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... inges.html

:shock:

Indeed. That is such a parable of our times. :roll:

I wasn't aware there was an epidemic of people rubbing themselves against Monkey Puzzle trees, but I suppose you can't be too careful. :roll:

Horse Chestnuts (conker trees) are the other trees usually in the sights of the Health and Safety commisars. It's also quite shocking that the local authority that wanted to cut down this 150 year old (endangered and protected) tree hired not one but two "experts" to pronounce on this.

But good news - that story is from a few years ago, and it seems there was a lot of protest about it, even an Early Day Motion in the UK Parliament, and eventually the Council backed down, and the tree was saved.

Caelum · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2011 6:25 pm

richard.webster wrote:

Thank you, Caelum, Nic

As for this:

Caelum wrote:

Sheila wrote:

I remember seeing my first monkey puzzle tree at about 4 years old when we lived up the back of the "great tomb" Yr Wyddfa....Half way up Moël Hebog there was a solitary specimen...huge, tall &and amazingly exotic...totally out of place on the grim slopes of Snowdonia...especially since the only other trees were stunted hawthorns, bent double by the prevailing winds !

Thank goodness you weren't injured!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... inges.html

:shock:

Indeed. That is such a parable of our times. :roll:

I wasn't aware there was an epidemic of people rubbing themselves against Monkey Puzzle trees, but I suppose you can't be too careful. :roll:

Horse Chestnuts (conker trees) are the other trees usually in the sights of the Health and Safety commisars. It's also quite shocking that the local authority that wanted to cut down this 150 year old (endangered and protected) tree hired not one but two "experts" to pronounce on this.

But good news - that story is from a few years ago, and it seems there was a lot of protest about it, even an Early Day Motion in the UK Parliament, and eventually the Council backed down, and the tree was saved.

Ah, memories....you've just reminded me of the conker wars when I was a kid...

richard.webster · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2011 7:13 pm

Caelum wrote:

Ah, memories....you've just reminded me of the conker wars when I was a kid...

Yes ... conkers, a skewer and a ball of string ... happy days ...

Those who were really dedicated used to soak their conkers in vinegar, to make them harder, more armour-plated.

richard.webster · **Posted:** 29 Aug 2011 9:08 pm

I returned to the Bower at the weekend, to try and find out a little more about the monkey puzzle trees planted there.

This is from within the Bower, which is bisected by a grass track.

With regard to the number of monkey puzzles in there, it's not as easy to count trees in a dense and irregularly laid out thicket as one might imagine, but I'd stand by my original estimate of about two hundred trees. But I might up my estimate of height a little, and would say that the most mature specimens are about 40 to 45 feet tall. Based upon the notion that these trees barely get up above the ground for the first ten years of their life, and then grow at a rate of about a foot a year, and factoring in the stunting effect of the trees having been planted so close together, then this all accords with them having been planted, as reported, by the 6th Marquess in 1965 and 1967.

The girth of the trees, not counting very young, self-seeded specimens, ranges from 0.55 to 1.30m (quite a big range for trees supposedly all planted within two years of each other, more on this below), and the spacing between the trees ranges from 2.30 to 3.90m.

Looking at whorls, and whorl wounds from dropped branches, of which this is an example ...

... I counted about fourteen whorl wounds on the lowest sections of the largest trees, and about fifteen to twenty live whorls above. Again, given a presumed rate of one whorl per year, following the dormant first decade, this would tie in with trees planted in the latter part of the 1960s.

As we discussed further up, and as the whorl wounds show, these trees drop their lower branches as they get older, although this isn't uniformly the case, and this is an example of a frond of monkey puzzle still growing at low level, and almost touching the ground.

But for the most part, the lower branches have dropped, and the Bower is littered with them, some of which have been pulled into great piles of blackened foliage.

Other things growing in the Bower include a number of younger, self-seeded monkey puzzles, a few laurels, one little self-seeded oak tree (the latest generation of Iley Oak), ferns, holly, fox gloves and some nice mosses.

Going back to the girth, and the wide range of 0.55 to 1.30m, this was quite puzzling, because as those measurements suggest, there are a number of younger, thinner trees in there that must post-date the 1965 and 1967 planting. There is this fallen one, for example, on which I counted just eighteen rings.

These could just be older self-seeders, probably are, but I also wonder if there was another planting in there, at some intermediate point subsequent to 1965 to 1967.

But they probably just planted themselves, I guess.

More on the King Alfred connection to follow.

Sheila · **Posted:** 29 Aug 2011 9:27 pm

...now that is what i call great 'on the ground' investigative journalism...lovely glossy coated black lab assistant an' all

richard.webster · **Posted:** 29 Aug 2011 9:46 pm

Adding weight to the belief that King Alfred spent the night in these woods in 878, prior to defeating the Danes at nearby Edington, is this quote from the aforementioned historian John Peddie, in an essay entitled "And So Was England Born", one of a collection in a local publication called The Deverill Valley, edited by Frederick Myatt, and published in 1982. From page 44:

Quote:

Today the place where [Iley] Oak would have stood is shown on the Ordnance Survey Map as Robin Hood's Bower (GR423877) and may be identified upon the ground by an incongruous plantation of monkey puzzle trees, planted in recent years by the Longleat Estate.

The selection of Iley Oak as a rendezvous for the night before the battle of Ethandun [aka Edington] makes sound militray sense; positioned in thick woodland, and shielded against surprise attack by a great bend in the Wyle River, Alfred would have been able to approach close to the Danish position by day, unseen by the watching eyes of the enemy scouts. He would presumably have secured the crossing places over the river prior to the arrival of his main body [of troops] ... and next morning would have passed through his pickets to form up in 'serried masses' for the assault, perhaos during the night having already occupied the high ground offered by the Battlesbury and Scratchbury features.

Incidentally, the Wyle river referred to above has its roots in the word Wyvern, and the old French word wivre, meaning viper, but in this case meaning dragon, or at least dragon-like reptilian creature, like the Welsh wyvern on their national flag, for example, and this one on the flag of Wessex, the ancient kingdom that Alfred ruled over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern

Caelum · **Posted:** 30 Aug 2011 7:00 pm

richard.webster wrote:

Incidentally, the Wyle river referred to above has its roots in the word Wyvern, and the old French word wivre, meaning viper, but in this case meaning dragon, or at least dragon-like reptilian creature, like the Welsh wyvern on their national flag, for example, and this one on the flag of Wessex, the ancient kingdom that Alfred ruled over.

Richard,

I'm not sure that's correct. Wyvern comes from wivre, but I don't think Wylye comes from Wyvern. I think it is actually the same name as our modern "wile" and basically means "tricky" - older meanings probably had to do specifically with magic (wizards and wicca). I do know Wiltshire comes from Wylye.

richard.webster · **Posted:** 31 Aug 2011 7:03 am

Caelum wrote:

richard.webster wrote:

Incidentally, the Wyle river referred to above has its roots in the word Wyvern, and the old French word wivre, meaning viper, but in this case meaning dragon, or at least dragon-like reptilian creature, like the Welsh wyvern on their national flag, for example, and this one on the flag of Wessex, the ancient kingdom that Alfred ruled over.

Richard,

I'm not sure that's correct. Wyvern comes from wivre, but I don't think Wylye comes from Wyvern. I think it is actually the same name as our modern "wile" and basically means "tricky" - older meanings probably had to do specifically with magic (wizards and wicca). I do know Wiltshire comes from Wylye.

Hi Caelum - You could well be right. Wyvern definitely from wivre, and Wiltshire from Wyle, as you say - Wyle-Wyvern was just an assumption on my part, so I don't really know, but it could be from wily as in coyote. There's also a little town called Wilton, near Salisbury, which derives from Wiltshire-Wyle.

Speaking of names, people from Wiltshire have been known in the past as Moonrakers:

Quote:

Moonrakers is the colloquial name for people from Wiltshire, a county of South West England in the West Country.
This refers to a folk story set in the time when smuggling was a significant industry in rural England, with Wiltshire lying on the smugglers' secret routes between the south coast and customers in the centre of the country. The story goes that some local people had hidden contraband barrels of French Brandy from customs officers in a village pond. While trying to retrieve it at night, they were caught by the revenue men, but explained themselves by pointing to the moon's reflection and saying they were trying to rake in a round cheese. The excise men, thinking they were simple yokels, laughed at them and went on their way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonrakers

Arcadia Discussion Zone

Robin Hood's Bower

Who is online