Canals and Deforestation of North Bucks

It is recorded in the autobiography of the Great Gothic revival Architect, Sir George Gilbert-Scott, (born in Garwcott, near Buckingham), that the North Bucks landscaper of his youth (the 1820’s) was bare and denuded of large trees except in small plantations in private gardens around Manor house etc.

The relationship between canals and forests has a long and continuing history. Where canals penetrate they provide cheap routes for the export of local timber, previously protected by inaccessibility. Deforestation then occurs in a short time. But, forests bind the constituents of soil together. When the forest is removed the adhesion of soil to land is lost, soil erosion follows and that erosion filters down into the canal system which silts up. That is happening today around the Panama Canal in Central America. The Panamanian authorities are busy replanting trees to protect their chief economic asset.

North Bucks was almost inaccessible, hiding behind its screen of oozing clay until the canal link arrived two hundred years ago. Suddenly, you couldn’t see the Wood for the trees had gone. Our landscape and the North Bucks environment were changed radically. The whole enterprise was aided by Auctioneers who strode across the landscape setting up shop in local Inns to sell houses and other assets, such as the wood from local plantations. Our local “hero” was John Day who would advertise weekly in the Northampton Mercury which was the chief paper for Northants and Bucks at the start of the 19th century. Sometimes, local merchants assembled cut wood from many sources for central sale. One such Auction took place at Buckingham Wharf in February 1808. The advertisement, on that occasion, was aimed mainly at “carpenters, builders and farmers, i.e. “the locals” who could shift the weighty cargo nearer to their place of work using the canal and its barges.

Other sales explicitly targeted the North Bucks “export” market. John Day would state where the forest was located and how far that was from the canal, and therefore from facile transport to all areas served by Britain’s burgeoning canal network. A typical Day pitch would be one for the sale of 80 fine Oaks and 100 Ash trees to be sold on the 7th January 1809 that were fit for “Navy boats, etc”. They were growing on land owned by the Purefoy family of Shalstone Manor, which, as John Day so helpfully pointed out was “3 miles from the Grand Junction Canal” via an “excellent turnpike road”. Three miles was John Day’s favourite length and encompassed all distances up to seven miles.

Our barges did not return empty for there was great demand for coal, fancy bricks and finished merchandise. Some cargoes are more fascinating. We’ve all heard of the phrase “Where there’s muck, there’s brass”, but do we realise that there was a market for the ash from domestic grates? Our intrepid John Day, who could have sold coals to Newcastle, sold 7000 bushels of London coal ash to the good people of Buckingham in 1808! And what did they do with it? They spread it on their fields like good muck – for there’s nothing like ash to take the clag from clay!

Was it a fair exchange – ash trees for ashes? Ed Grimsdale.