Savernake Forest

Capability Brown worked out a strategy for linking coppices with oak plantings, lining forest trails with beech trees, and providing vistas with "proper objects" on which the eye might rest. The forest would be made part of the parkland. The scattered coppices, meadows, scrub, and heath should be united, into "one great whole."<ref>Bruce. "The Wardens of Savernake Forest", p83-86.</ref>

Capability Brown worked out a strategy for linking coppices with oak plantings, lining forest trails with beech trees, and providing vistas with "proper objects" on which the eye might rest. The forest would be made part of the parkland. The scattered coppices, meadows, scrub, and heath should be united, into "one great whole."<ref>Bruce. "The Wardens of Savernake Forest", p83-86.</ref>

[[File:ancient-pollarded-beech-savernake-2005-04-26.JPG|thumb|upright=1.5|right|A [[pollard]]ed beech]]As times changed, and social expectations altered, a later warden George Frederick was eager to show off his forest. There was much rearranging of copses and vistas and setting aside of grass rides so that visitors could see the woods as a whole and be impressed. He ordered that the entire estate be fenced and palings be placed around individual trees. That way, the deer might roam freely with a minimum of damage.

[[File:ancient-pollarded-beech-savernake-2005-04-26.JPG|thumb|upright=1.5|right|A [[pollarding|pollarded]] beech]]As times changed, and social expectations altered, a later warden George Frederick was eager to show off his forest. There was much rearranging of copses and vistas and setting aside of grass rides so that visitors could see the woods as a whole and be impressed. He ordered that the entire estate be fenced and palings be placed around individual trees. That way, the deer might roam freely with a minimum of damage.

The fifth marquess recognized that the woodlands needed to be made commercially viable. Included among the 778,000 trees he planted were a high proportion of softwoods, placed outside the forest's core (e.g.: Birch Copse in the SE). This warden was too deeply imbued with tradition to contemplate industrialized forestry but he was the first of his family to introduce a measure of systematic management of larch and spruce plantations.

The fifth marquess recognized that the woodlands needed to be made commercially viable. Included among the 778,000 trees he planted were a high proportion of softwoods, placed outside the forest's core (e.g.: Birch Copse in the SE). This warden was too deeply imbued with tradition to contemplate industrialized forestry but he was the first of his family to introduce a measure of systematic management of larch and spruce plantations.