Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota

trees can be seen in the landscape and these are mostly less than 200 years old. Other signs of the past
are also few: in relatively recent times, for example, this was an important coal-mining area but the
physical remains of this industry have been landscaped out of mind. Hidden away here, however, is
the ghost of a historic landscape because this area was the Outwood, the ancient forest of the lord of
the manor of Wakefield, but used in common by the people of the area from medieval times until
1795, when the land was divided up and sold. Detailed documentary records from the manor court of
Wakefield suggest that, long before this time, the Outwood was probably not completely covered by
trees but a busy landscape in use for woodland industries (timber for fencing and building, charcoal
for smelting, bark for tanning leather), mining (surface pits for coal and ironore) and agriculture
(pasturing of pigs and cattle, growing of arable crops, keeping of bees). Now, all that remains of this
Outwood are ancient boundary lines on maps and some local place names (RODWELL et al. 2000).
A project to bring this ghost to life has involved applying the European Vegetation Map to predict the
potential woodland cover across the area of the Outwood and develop planting proposals for those
relatively few places in the landscape where there is room for trees and shrubs – on the old mine spoil,
among the housing and along disused railway lines. However, from the documentary record it is
possible to see which trees were of more cultural interest in former times and to use this information to
add local distinctiveness to the planting mixtures. For example, on April 4, 1349, we read that fines
were levied on certain local people for stealing acerus from the Outwood – an ambiguous term in the
medieval latin of the court records which might mean Acer campestre, the field maple, or
A. pseudoplatanus, sycamore. In fact, in the court rolls, acerus is referred to in such numbers that
ecologically it is difficult to think that so many Acer campestre might occur in the area: this is a
somewhat basiphilous species unlikely to be frequent on the lime-poor soils prevailing in the
Outwood. More interesting is the possibility that the references are to Acer pseudoplatanus, because
this is not a native to the UK: it was probably introduced into the country in late medieval times
(JONES 1945) and, in fact, this may be the first documentary record of its occurrence with us.
Whichever is the case, we know that locally there was a home industry turning wood to make bowls
and plates, so possibly ‘maple’ was favoured in coppices of the time as a source – both Acer campestre
and (especially) A. pseudoplatanus are very good for this purpose.
All of this could remain just history commemorated by a plaque next to a new woodlands. In fact, with
local schools, community police officers and professional actors, we will make a theatrical
performance of the theft and trial of the man who stole the ‘maples’. Then the children will replant
groves of the Acer species among other ecologically appropriate trees and shrubs in an area identified
from the vegetation map as capable of sustaining F32 Irish-British-Norman oak-ash forest. When all
the trees are planted, a local family called ‘Turner’ (Drechsler in German), perhaps descended from
the wood-turners of the area, will be invited to dedicate the new landscape on behalf of the
community. In this way, the cultural memories of the area will be given new life, so helping fashion a
vision for the future.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the late Dr. Robert Neuhäusl for the original invitation to collaborate in the European
Vegetation Map project and to Dr. Udo Bohn and his team at the Bundesamt für Naturschutz in Bonn
and Dr. John Cross now of the Irish National parks & Wildlife Service for their assistance in preparing
the UK contribution. I also wish to thank Groundwork UK and WWF-UK for funding to develop the
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