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grass as the tenants preferred. The contractors could also have the grazing of
each year’s hagg before cutting began for their horses and for two milk cows
but they were to preserve the meadow and other grass of the wood from
damage.
The persistence of the Wandless (‘wanlace’) is interesting as a relic of the
wood’s use as a hunting forest; it would have been the enclosure to which deer
were driven for killing by the royal or noble hunting party (13). On Timothy
Pont’s manuscript map of the area Wainless is shown in the south east corner of
the wood. This map, originally surveyed in the late sixteenth century but
revised later, shows a double wall or fence about the whole wood and what
might be a road leading from Wainless to Woodsyde in the north east corner.
We thus have records of cutting of major parts of Torwood about the 1650s,
of an eight-year cutting cycle beginning in 1687, another eight-year cycle
beginning in 1741 and a last one beginning in 1787. The woodland was
interspersed with meadows and parts were grazed. In spite of the evidence of
planted firs and other species, the overall impression is very traditional.
The Wallace Tree is mentioned in 1687 and 1787. In 1687 the contractors
could cut the whole wood excepting Wallace tree, the tuo parkes lately cut … etc. In
1787 the vendor reserved (Article 8) the whole grass of the wood as [well as] the
whole ash in the wood also the old stock called the Wallace Tree and the seedling on the
East side of it which the purchaser shall no ways hurt or damage. The 1687 record is
by far the oldest non-literary record of the tree. It is clear evidence that there
was an ancient tree here, closely associated with Wallace – though, I must
emphasise, this is 400 years after Wallace’s day and is not evidence that he
sheltered within its hollow trunk. The contracts confirm Johnstoun’s assertion
in 1723 that Wallace tree … [is] ever excepted from cutting when the wood is sold (14).
And together the records make clear that this was the conscious protection of
a famous, national relic.
Already, by 1723, the tree was ‘much decayed’ only bearing leaves and
acorns on the north side. By 1787 it was a mere ‘stock’ or stump. This is
consistent with Bonar’s recollection (15) that about 1797 the tree consisted of an
outer shell and a single branch with a few leaves. Most tantalising of all, the
proposed preservation of the ‘seedling on the East side of it’, hints that the
proprietor was encouraging the growth of a successor to the tree – presumably
the ‘shoot’ which was ‘still thriving as late as 1835’ and perhaps, if Charles
Rogers is to be credited, so late as 1850 (16).
References
Torwood and the Wallace Oak 95
1. Forrester, C. D. I. G. (1998) The Wallace Oak and Roy’s Military Survey. Forth
Naturalist and Historian 21, 63-70.
2. Smout, C. and F. Watson. Exploiting Semi-natural Woods. In Scottish Woodland
History, T. C. Smout (ed) (Edinburgh, 1997).