Napleonic Woods ||

There is a two-acre strip of woodland on the farm which we often walk to which, we learned recently, was planted in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars when timber for building warships had become worryingly scarce and, accordingly, landowners were under compulsion to plant woodlands. They had to be 90 percent oak suitable for constructing hulls and 10 percent Scots Pines for use as masts, and this is exactly the mix in the South Powrie strip of trees. Of course by the time the trees were mature wooden warships were a thing of the past. Maybe it's just as well as it's doubtful if oak grown on open farmland in the windy east of Scotland would ever have made ship building quality! But at least we have had the trees to enjoy for 200 years.