Wardon Abbey Monastic Woodlands

This page was written by Margaret Roberts, Volunteer Historian, Warden Abbey Vineyard.

Warden Great Wood and Warden Little Wood (formerly Abbey Wood), (August 2018) © M. Roberts

The importance of woodland

Wardon Abbey and its granges (monastic farms) could not have survived without woodland, a valuable resource which called for careful management to maximise yields. These are just some of the ways in which produce would have been used: 

• Making fires to cook, bake bread, and brew ale;
• Feeding the hearths in the monks’ warming room and the guest house;
• Crafting household necessities such as tables and benches, platters, book covers, and barrels;
• Making fixtures and fittings, for example floorboards for 2-storey buildings, window shutters, partitions, and doors;
• In major construction projects. Stone vaults and arches were formed over wooden frames, while huge beams supported the church roof;
• On the granges for fencing and vine supports, constructing sties, stables and other outbuildings, and for making/mending vehicles;
• Constructing internal frameworks for dams and fishponds;
• Building and equipping mills;
• Fuelling industrial activities such the forge, and the kilns for tile and pottery making;
• As a cash crop to generate income.

The woods were also used for rearing domestic livestock (especially pigs) and for hunting rabbits and other small game.

Acquiring woodland in the 12th century

In, or soon after, 1135 the monks received gifts from prominent benefactors to support the new religious house. Founder Walter Espec gave woodland and assarts (land cleared for cultivation) in the parishes of Old Warden and Southill, but the full extent is impossible to determine as his charter has been lost. By 1153 King Stephen had granted over 100 acres of Royal Forest at Midloe (Hunts) which the monks cleared in favour of a grange and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had contributed arable and woodland at Holme in the parish of Biggleswade before 1148. Simon de Senlis, 4^th earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, made a grant in Huntingdonshire before 1153 and William de Bussei (Walter Espec’s heir) gave the Norman park at Old Warden between 1158 and 1161. The monks also rented or purchased woodlands. For example, Midloe Wood (Hunts) was leased from Walter, the Benedictine abbot of Ramsey, by 1154 and the abbey had bought an estimated 200 acres from Simon de Beauchamp, baron of Bedford, by 1180. 

Dispersed assets

Some of the woodlands lay close to the abbey in the parishes of Old Warden, Southill, Northill, Cardington, and Cople while others, further along the Greensand Ridge to the west, were to be found at Flitwick, Millbrook, and Maulden. Bedfordshire woodlands north of the ridge were situated in Stagsden, Goldington, and Wilden, with Meppershall to the south. Other woodlands lay in the Ivel Valley in the parishes of Biggleswade, Langford, and possibly Sandy. Further afield, records confirm the abbey holding woodlands associated with granges in the counties of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Hertfordshire.

The woodland landscape

By and large, the monastic woodlands occupied marginal positions close to parish boundaries and were often of dubious quality. Yet as precious assets, demarcation, management and protection were vital. Ditches/moats served as boundary markers and professional woodsmen employed. 

The monks of Wardon would have been familiar with a range of native tree species, typically oak, ash, elm, some types of poplar, whitethorn (hawthorn), field maple, alder and hazel, birch, small-leafed lime and willow, while glades supported a diverse habitat where plants such as wood anemones, wild garlic, bluebells, wood sorrel and primroses thrived. 

Wood-pasture (grazing combined with shade from the tree canopy) had a detrimental impact on the woodland flora and a heavily used wood-pasture might consist of little more than grassland plus two or three species of tree. Despite the name, Royal Forests of the Middle Ages were concerned with preserving game not trees. Most included some woodland, but farmland, private woodland, villages and towns were also found within their bounds. 

As needs changed, so too did the monastic woodland landscape. Some of the tree cover was cleared for arable, while other woods were leased out, sold, or exchanged for new assets. Nevertheless, it is calculated that the monks retained over 590 acres of woodland for their own use in the 16^th century. 

Further information, including details of what happened to the woodlands in Old Warden after the monastery was dissolved in 1537, can be found in Wardon Abbey, The Monastic Woodlands.