Welcome to “Walking Woods Edinburgh”, a self-guided audio tour around the centre of Edinburgh that takes a closer look at the history of the city through the eyes of a wood scientist.The tour was developedas part of the 20th annual meeting of the Northern European Network for Wood Science and Engineering (WSE), but it is meant to be interesting for wood scientists and laypeople alike.
I hope you are getting a good view today, but all too often you won’t be able to spot Newhaven or Fife due to our lovely Edinburgh weather, so here is what you’d see on a sunny day (photo credit: Yair Haklai, Wikimedia Commons):
There is much more to the story of the Michael, but Susan and I wanted to stay on the topic of wood, of course. (The article does mention that the Michael’s captain was called Andrew Wood, but that’s not what I meant…)
The Michael was apparently built with homegrown timber, and did apparently use most of the oak from Fife, but for a healthy timber supply chain, even a large order like this should not have meant the complete depletion of timber resources for the next decades, let alone centuries.
The problem was likely much more in the fact that the timber supply chain at the time was far from healthy. Sustainable timber production takes much planning and investment, especially for trees like oaks that might take more than a hundred years to mature. But making such a commitment was apparently too risky for most during much of Britain’s recent history.
As Anne said, already in the 1500s cheap timber from Norway was imported to the UK, making the homegrown timber industry less profitable. The evidence of forests falling into neglect is already present in John Evelyn’s “Sylva” from 1664:
For, the Reason that so many complain of the improsperous Condition of their Wood-Lands and Plantations of this Kind, proceeds from this Neglect; though (Sheep excepted) there is no Employment whatsoever incident to the Farmer, which requires less Expence to gratific their Expectations: One diligent and skilful Man will govern five hundred Acres: But if through any Accident a Beast shall break into his Master‘s Field; or the wicked Hunter make a Gap for his Dogs and Horses, what a Clamour is there made for the Disturbance of a Year’s Crop at most in a little Corn! Whilst abandoning his young Woods all this Time, and perhaps many Years, to the venomous Bitings and Treading of Cattle, and other like Injuries (for want of due Care) the Detriment is many Times irreparable; young Trees once cropp’d, hardly ever recovering: It is the Bane of all our most hopeful Timber.
[…] often the markets for which these species were chosen had disappeared by the time the trees matured, or with the passing of time, their purpose was forgotten.
It was only within the last few years, that it was felt the quantity of Oak produced in England would soon be inadequate to meet the great and increasing demand for it, and that it was necessary efforts should be made to supplement it by the introduction of foreign Oaks and other hard woods for ship-building purposes.
He shows the increasing quantities of timber imported into the dockyard between 1840 and 1865:
And not only oak, but may other species were imported into the country – tropical hardwoods, but very importantly also softwoods for construction, ship decking and other purposes. Åström illustrates the explosion of imports of “deals” and “fir timber” from the Baltics to Britain between 1780 and 1825 (both these terms likely refer to pine wood). In 1875 Laslett describes “Dantzic fir” (which we now call Scots pine) being shipped from Prussia, Prussian Poland and the borders of Russia to Britain in such large quantities that:
Dantzic Fir is employed more extensively in civil architecture than, perhaps, any other description of wood for joists, rafters, trusses, floors, scaffolding, &c.; it also enters largely into the construction of bridges and railway works; indeed, it is not too much to say that few works in this country are ever carried on without its capabilities being in some way turned to account.
And so, with the heavy reliance on imports, the situation for British timber production in the early 20th century is dire. As described by Anderson in 1904 [1]:
Although the competition of foreign converted timber, which is delivered sawn into useful scantlings, and at low prices, has almost entirely put an end to the use of home- grown timber for building, the value of the latter for other purposes, when of good quality, has been, owing to its increasing scarcity, well maintained. It is also common knowledge that there is not a growing crop of timber in this country sufficient to replace what is being felled, whilst at the same time the future timber supply of the world is causing grave consideration amongst economists.
Only after the first world war, with the founding of the Forestry Commission in 1919, the home-grown timber production starts increasing consistently, thanks to strategic planting and restocking. Timber production figures are published from 1942 onwards, with some breaks after the second world war. In the graph below the increase of timber production is shown. The orange line is from historic annual reports of the Forestry Commission, where production is reported either in hoppus feet or cubic feet (the former was multiplied by 1.273 to make them comparable). The green line shows the data published by Forest Research from 1976 onwards for production in thousand green tonnes. The two units are not identical, but since it is not known which volume exactly was reported on in the early reports (over bark? under bark? processed in any way?) no attempt was made to adjust them. It can be seen that the UK timber production roughly doubled between 1942 and 1976, but as the effects of the war started to wear off and the plantation efforts fully came to fruition it started to increase exponentially.
Despite the rising production of homegrown timber, the figures remain similar today: Between 2014 and 2023 an average of 88% of the sawn softwood consumed in the UK was imported. Although the UK is likely never going to be self-sufficient in their timber production, there is growing emphasis on using local resources more, not lastly because the largest part of emissions from the timber industry results from transport. We are also recognising that we are not making the most efficient use of many of our resources, and my colleagues and I are steadily working to get a larger share of homegrown softwoods, hardwoods and recovered timber into construction uses, where they will have a long life (and hopefully be reused after this life comes to an end).
