The Breckland Pine Rows - Norfolk's Biodiversity

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economic considerations. When in 1774 Thomas de Grey bemoaned the costs of enclosing the heaths at Tottington in Breckland he observed that the ‘great expense ... would but ill answer, unless there was a real satisfaction in employing the labourers and bringing forth a ragged dirty parish to neatness and cultivation’ (NRO WLS XXLVII/19 415). With the onset of the agricultural depression in the 1880s much of the heathland reclaimed during the previous century or so was abandoned. A comparison of the tithe award maps of c.1840, and the First and Second Edition OS 6” maps of c.1885 and 1905, reveal numerous areas, especially in Breckland, which passed from arable back to rough grazing. Further retrenchment occurred in the course of the twentieth century and the Croxton Park estate in Norfolk was not unusual in being described in 1929 as comprising ‘partly heath and partly low grade arable or pasture land which has passed, or is about to pass, out of cultivation’ (Forestry Commission Archives, Santon Downham. Croxton Park Acquisition Report, 1928 (no catalogue number). Effective abandonment of farming in the heart of Breckland did not mean complete dereliction. Many large estates diversified, becoming in effect large game farms, profitably leased for the shooting season. But many landowners, their rent rolls falling dramatically, were in serious financial difficulties. The depression had important effects upon the character of the heaths. The numbers of sheep being kept on farms often declined, so that land was less intensively grazed than before. The amount of bracken increased and so, more importantly, did the height of the heather, and in the patches of bare ground between over-mature stands hawthorn, sloe, and birch began to establish themselves and, in places, Scots pines, invading from adjacent plantations. Unchecked by grazing, these were able to grow into substantial bushes or trees. The number of belts and plantations on the heaths also seems to have increased, partly because landowners wanted to provide more cover for pheasants but also because some felt that timber would make a better long term investment than farming. But it was from the 1920s that the area under trees really began to expand. The Forestry Commission was established in 1921 as a consequence of the severe timber shortages experienced during the First World War (Ryle 1969; Skipper and Williamson 1997). The Commission began to acquire land in Breckland in 1922, when 1,275 hectares of the Elveden estate were purchased. This was rapidly followed by the acquisition of the 4,944 Downham Hall estate in 1923; and of the 6,208 acres Lynford estate, and 822 acres of the Beechamwell estate, in 1924. By 1929 the Commission owned some 40,000 acres in the district, mostly in the area to the north and west of Thetford. Almost all was purchased in the form of large continuous blocks of land - large chunks of, or the entire area of, impoverished landed estates. After a short pause, enforced by changes in government policy, acquisition of land resumed in 1934 with the purchase of the Culford estate between Bury St Edmunds and Thetford. By 1939, including land held on long leases, the Commission controlled no less than 59,000 acres in Breckland (Public Records Office FC 54386/4; FC 374/24. Forestry Commission Archives, Santon Downham, FC L3/1/1; L3/3/9; L3/3/15. Skipper and Williamson 1997, 18-26). The pine rows, still often referred to locally as the ‘deal rows’, are a distinctive feature of the Breckland landscape. They may be defined as single rows of Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris) which exhibit varying degrees of twisting and contortion. Some are associated with low banks but the majority are not. The rows have quite rightly been singled out by
numerous writers on topography and landscape history as a major contributor to the region’s ‘sense of place’. To Ravensdale and Muir, the ‘tattered friezes of Scots pines … are the hallmark of the landscape’ (Ravensdale and Muir 1984, 204); while to Armstrong ‘the isolated rows of Scots pine trees, standing out from the bracken of the remaining heathland, remains a typical feature of the East Anglian scene’ (Armstrong 1985, 53). Most commentators agree that the rows were originally planted as hedges, which have gradually grown out. Today only a handful of examples are still recognisably hedges, mainly near Elveden in Suffolk. Of course, the rows are only one of several ways in which pines are present in the Breckland landscape. In many areas, as noted, narrows strips of woodland, usually referred to as belts, are to be found, mostly created as game cover in the middle and later nineteenth, and early twentieth, centuries; while from the 1920s extensive tracts were planted up as pine plantations, usually across former heath or arable lying derelict as a consequence of the agricultural depression, by the Forestry Commission. Although Scots pines were steadily replaced by Corsican in the course of the 1930s as the Commission’s preferred tree, and were never the only tree established in the Breckland forests, extensive areas of mature sylvestris woodland still remain in the district. Pine rows, it should perhaps be emphasised, are not entirely restricted to Breckland. Within East Anglia, there is also a rather smaller concentration in the southern part of the Suffolk ‘Sandlings’ (i.e., the Suffolk coastal heaths), especially in the area immediately to the south of Butley and, widely scattered, in the triangle formed by Alderton, Hollesley, and Sutton. There are also scattered examples elsewhere in East Anglia, in areas of relatively light and freely-draining soils: to the south of Bury St Edmunds, in the parish of Westley; and on the chalk escarpment at various places to the south west of Newmarket. Only in Breckland, however, are pine rows characteristic and common features of the landscape. As noted, there is general agreement that the pine rows represent the outgrown remains of what were originally pine hedges: indeed, a few examples survive as such, although fast growing out into lines of trees, principally on the Elveden estate. The historical ecologist Oliver Rackham discussed the rows briefly in his History of the Countryside (1986, 223-4). A definite example of hedgerow trees arising by default are the rows of Scots pines, all much the same age and all gnarled at the base, which are the characteristic field boundaries of the Breckland. When the open fields and some of the commons of the Breckland were enclosed in the early nineteenth century, it was the fashion to make new hedges of pine …[but] even a few years’ neglect causes pines to grow up irrevocably into trees. But this ‘late’ origin of the pine rows has never in fact been unequivocally demonstrated, and some writers have favoured an earlier origin. In particular, Sussams and others have noted how in 1668 Thomas Wright described his use of ‘Furre-hedges’ to reduce the progress of the famous sand blow that engulfed much of the parish of Santon Downham (Sussams 1996, 105); some have suggested that pine hedges were a traditional, long-lived feature of the local farming landscape, and that the present pines might thus perpetuate links with the Scots pine which – mixed with other native tree species – formed part of the natural vegetation of Breckland in remote prehistory. Conversely, Clarke in 1908 was
Page 1 and 2: The Breckland Pine Rows: History, E
Page 3: Introduction: Breckland and its Pin
Page 7 and 8: Figure 1: The Distribution of Pine
Page 9 and 10: Figure 3: Pine rows, plantations, a
Page 11 and 12: no examples. One possible explanati
Page 13 and 14: and lost common rights, generally h
Page 15 and 16: and it is noteworthy that with few
Page 17 and 18: Figure 9. Above, the area to the we
Page 19 and 20: The Management and Development of t
Page 21 and 22: Figure 11. The area between Eriswel
Page 23 and 24: Figure 14. Detail of pine row at Er
Page 25 and 26: Figure 15. Pine row with associated
Page 27 and 28: In short, the antiquity of the rows
Page 29: Rose, F. 1991. ‘The Importance of

The Breckland Pine Rows - Norfolk's Biodiversity

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