Custom, Crime and Conflict in the English Woodland
During the 18th and 19th centuries the rights of villagers to take dead wood for fuel came under attack in England as local landowners used new statute laws to redefine such activities as criminal. At Great Wishford in Wiltshire, a successful defence of custom was made, which continues to be reaffirmed each year on 29 May.
In medieval England the usage of wood belonging to the Lord of the Manor or from Royal Forests was controlled by customary law often recorded in manorial charters. These rights of usage of wood for house repair (housebote), fencing (hedgebote), making farming implements (ploughbote) and for fuel (firebote) were often granted by the lord to local tenants and inhabitants of the manor. The taking of dead wood for fuel was also often recorded as a customary right belonging to tenants and to poor people of the manor. These customary rights were overseen by the wood mote court, at which presentments were made and disputes heard.
'Through all the woodland parts of this county', wrote Charles Vancouver in his account of agriculture in Hampshire in 1808, 'the peasantry are tolerably well supplied with fuel, all of which is obtained by a claim they exercise pretty freely, of taking what is called "snapwood"; that is all the fallen branches, and such as they can snap off by hand, or break down with a hook fixed in the end of a long pole; for this purpose they have been observed to visit most of the demesnes and private as well as other woodlands through the county.'
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