The Story of the ‘On Common Ground’ Collection By Simon James Davies

By the fifth day of 2021 the Covid19 related Death rate in England had reached over 1000, in one day. The media reported that the measures in the lead up to the Christmas period had been ‘too little, too late’, there was much debate about who, or what was to blame for such a dramatic increase in cases. None the less, the sobering news continued over the next three days. On the eighth day, we were informed that the death toll had reached 1325, the worst day in England since the outbreak began, nearly a year before. The news didn’t get any better, it was also the day that some Hospitals in London were over run by the needs of Covid19 patients, a major incident was declared as areas in the City reported infection rates of 1 in 20. In the coming days we would witness the death rate reach over 1500 in one day, and a few days later it would reach nearly 1700 in one day. It would also be announced that infection rates in England had actually reached 1 in 8 in the lead up to the Christmas period. It seemed that infection rates had been wildly underestimated in the last quarter of 2020. It was difficult to comprehend how this could have happened, and how we had managed to find ourselves ‘back to square one’ in our fight with the virus.

Following the announcement of the increased Covid19 ‘Lock Down’ restrictions, I decided to stay local, and find a low populated area for my daily exercise. It was with this in mind that I found myself back ‘On Common Ground’.

I’d visited this area on a couple of occasions, and had been left feeling dismayed and disheartened by the scene. The area is known as a ‘Common’, and despite it being a well used term in the United Kingdom, I hadn’t really appreciated what it actually meant. Neither had I associated it with the poor condition of the woodland, which seemed to have been very badly treated.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when I was passing the area, that I felt compelled to pay it another visit. It was the first day of January 2021 and the Common was shrouded in mist, it took on a completely different atmosphere, several strong ‘tree characters’ presented themselves, in a way which hadn’t been noticeable on the previous occasions. It was a beautiful scene, as they were highlighted against a backdrop of white and grey.

As this story will tell, the scene depicted in this image is veiled, not only by the mist and fog, but also by history. The clues are in this tree, as well as many other trees which stands on this ‘Common Land’. Some survive in a grotesque form, some are dead and bleached, standing like solitary Totem poles. Some, like the tree pictured in this image, are more adept at hiding the scars which allude to the history behind their ordeal.

Left to it’s own devices, an Oak will grow strong, and whilst the forces of Nature will have an influence, it will generally grow tall. Look carefully at this Oak, and you will see how Man’s hand has affected it’s growth, it’s wood cut back to the stump, many decades ago. This type of ‘coppicing’ process left just enough live wood to allow regrowth, and thankfully this tree survived further ‘coppicing’, for a period long enough for it’s branches to have been able to shape themselves into a tree which retains much of the beauty of it’s former self. This rudimentary wood collection method was a way that Man, when confined to a small area of ground known as ‘Common Land’, could find fuel with the least impact on the prospects of the generations to come. As the condition of many of the trees will testify, it wasn’t a pretty method, and the landscape is now very badly scarred. Yet when the mist rolls in, it softens the scene and the beauty of Nature prevails once more.

Enclosure, or ‘Inclosure’, refers to a long period of British History, when the enforced transfer of thousands of square miles of ‘Common Land’, which had been used by the 'Common/Rural Population', was made in favour of a sector of Society who were either rich enough, or well connected enough, to be able to claim that they were better placed to own it.

The 'scheme' began during the 16th Century and is said to have been one of the igniters which sparked the industrial revolution. Historians believe that thousands, upon thousands of displaced, rural people had no alternative than to move to the Cities to find employment and housing. This migration of such a large population, meant that Cities and Towns grew exponentially, eventually enabling manufacturing to take place on an ‘industrial’ scale. Whilst there is much debate about the amount of influence this period had on Britain’s stature on the world stage, it's difficult to argue with the fact that the country saw massive growth in its factories and economy during the same period.

Setting aside the humanitarian argument for a moment, it was an incredible time for the British export market, which soared, soon making the country one of the wealthiest in the world. Growth continued in the factories, and territories throughout the world were gained to obtain raw materials, create markets and meet ravenous labor demands.

This was also the period when there was no faster growth in poverty; a time when the rich became richer, and the poor became poorer, at a faster rate than ever before. Over the course of a century, the rural population, along with the working class of the country had become enslaved, and they would not begin to break free of their shackles and the spiral of cruelty, disease and death, for nearly four centuries.

So, back to the future, and this area of woodland.

How could it be that a prime area of British countryside could feel so dead, and depressing? The scene was incomprehensible, an area of about twenty acres, littered with tree stumps, hardly a yard could be trodden without stumbling over the remains of trees. The area seemed to have been the subject of some kind of bizarre, and haphazard axe wielding rampage. The majority of the trees, still standing, were sparsely spread throughout the area, and had been damaged in some way or another. As I negotiated piles of rotting logs, and tree debris, I couldn’t help think why? and who could have carried out this massacre? It’s bad enough to witness the scene of a felled forest, but to see one in such a state, seemingly taken apart without consideration to best practice, let alone reverence, is extremely disturbing.

I was compelled to look into the reasons for this, and it didn’t take long to find out that the area was once a thick deciduous forest, which had escaped the ‘land grab’ during the period of ‘Enclosure’. It had later been designated as ‘Common Land’, meaning that the rural population remaining in the area, retained certain rights of access, mainly for the purposes of animal grazing and wood collecting. It seems that the population left in this particular area were so low in number, that the area was not fully cleared.

Whilst the majority of the Common Land we see today has a similar history, the land tends to have been subjected to a more intense process of clearance, due to the higher demands from nearby towns and villages. This means that the majority of Common land we see today is relatively neat, with large areas of open ground, encircled by replanted trees. What of the Common Land in this image? Well, it could be considered a ‘work in progress’, and maybe even, a living monument to our history. Even if it does look more like a 16th Century ‘hatchet job’.