The Real Coed Y Brenin.

The early Forestry Commission and the Erasure of Social History. Part three.

Here’s the last part in a trio of pieces on The Real Coed Y Brenin and the erasure of social history. The ruins in the illustrations are of the tyddynnod (plural of tyddyn) on Mynydd Penrhos.

During the 1980s, canvassing support for our planning application, I went to see the Forestry Commission District manager of the Dolgellau Forest District, Mark York. As with many of the senior posts in the Forestry Commission at the time, he was English and ex-army. Following the two world wars, the Forestry Commission was thought to be a suitable career for de-mobbed army veterans whereas RAF personnel were pointed towards the Arts, (my first Boss, Ken, who was manager of Canolfan Y Celfyddydau Aberystwyth, the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, was an ex-RAF wing commander, as the photographs of the heavy bombers on his office wall attested).

The equating of military service with the Forestry Commission had a number of consequences, some minor, such as staff taking “leave” rather than holidays and some more significant, such as newly staff being promoted into districts other than their own, so that they didn't have to give commands to those they had previously been at the same level as. So although foresters climbing the ladder of hierarchy would get to work in a variety of different landscapes and forests, a lifetime's experience and knowledge of working in the same forest was denied them and available only to the workforce on the ground who were never promoted and while often having most knowledge, usually had least say in actual forest management.

Mark York was an interesting man who had travelled to the continent, visiting forests there. He had been impressed by the continuous cover policies of some of the French and German forests and told me of the Bradford Method of planting and management which produced uneven aged plantations and more varied harvesting opportunities. Not that he would be able to do anything like that in Coed Y Brenin, he explained; despite being District Manager, it seemed he had very little say in how to manage a large conifer plantation and Clear Felling was the standard policy of the Forestry Commission.

He suggested I went to see an older forester who had not long since retired, Dennis Wheeler, who lived in one of the Forest Workers cottages that had been build as part of the development of Coed Y Brenin; some forty or so timber cottages were built in the forest to house the workforce, an innovative approach to linking employment to homes. However, as mechanisation proceeded and the workforce dwindled, most of these were sold off, particularly during the 1980s when the Thatcher Regime began the process of privatisation.

above: Richard St Barbe Baker, vegetarian, radical, founder of The Men of the Trees.

Dennis Wheeler proved to be a very interesting character, a Man Of The Trees, as was my old friend Eurig Ap Gwilym. He had a considerable number of old documents relating to the early history of Coed Y Brenin which he very kindly passed on to me. He explained how he had come by the documents, a story which was to become familiar to me during my own time working with the Forestry Commission.

This occurs as an unforeseen consequences of following the army pattern of promotion, that is, moving the newly promoted person to a completely different area. The natural result of this is that the newly promoted forester, uprooted form their familiar locale, find themselves surrounded by new faces, all waiting to be told what to do. No doubt assailed by Imposter Syndrome, their first act is to order and supervise something simple, that still makes their rank appear obvious and them important; this almost invariably means having a clear out of rubbish.

I've been involved in several such clear-outs with newly promoted foresters, eager to make their mark. It usually involves hiring a large skip or two, then, with the work force following the new forester through the various rooms, sheds or other buildings within there demean, going through all the accumulated stuff of perhaps a decade or two, or indeed, considerably more in some cases, and throwing most of it away.

The limited dialogue goes something like this:

New Forester: “What's this?” Indicating some object (box of files, old chair, filing cabinet etc. etc.)

Workforce members, trying to be helpful but with a tendency toward the comedic, answer variously with: “Rubbish, not been used for ten years, the one before you thought it would be a good idea, don't know.”

New Forester: “In the skip with it!”

These events were always looked forward to by the workforce as it usually made a welcome change from actual work. By the end of the day, or, if we were lucky to have a particularly eager, new forester, several days, the skip or skips would be full, the forester, having learned the names of at least some of the workforce and feeling that they had “made a good start” in their new role, would go home happy.

Once they'd gone, the workforce would descend on the skip and retrieve anything they considered to be of any use or value. In such a way I have obtained some remarkable stuff, including a slice through the butt of the famous Betws Y Coed Cedar which had been on display in the old visitor centre with the Battle Of Waterloo, 1815, and other notable dates marked with coloured pins on the appropriated tree ring, a hand cranked siren (a la Keystone Cops) whose immense howl has echoed down our valley a few times (just to see if it still works: it does), along with other minor notables and considerable quantities of wood, which seems to abound in the Forestry Commission.

Dennis Wheeler had retrieved other treasures, more distinct in that he had “helped” with clearing out administrative offices in what had been the main Forestry Commission HQ in Dolgellau, prior to the move to a larger complex. He had been appalled at the readiness of his new superior to dispose of original, unique documents, such as planting maps and overlays, aerial photographs of the ever expanding forest and the description, species lists and ground plan of Coed Y Brenin Arboretum.

Many of the folk who work for Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru (Natural Resources Wales), the body that manages Coed Y Brenin today, on behalf of Y Llywodraeth Cymru, (the Government of Wales), are completely unaware of its past history. Dennis passed most of this stuff on to me, perhaps seeing in me the opportunity for some of this information to be saved and even brought back into the light of day. The Arboretum had been renamed the Forest Garden in the late 1980s, a baffling decision in itself and nothing to do with Robert Hart. Even older locals were surprised when I gave them copies of the Arboretum plan and species lists- “There's an arboretum in Coed Y Brenin?” It is amazing how rapidly history can disappear, just in a single generation.

Dennis was also excellent at telling me something of the history and practice of the Forestry Commission from earlier times. He pointed out that the early Commission was committed to production and with that in mind, the plantations were seen as factories. As with any industry, he said, you didn't want members of the public wandering about on the factory floor. Hence most plantations were fenced and gated, often with chains and padlocks. Entrances would be flanked by racks of fire beaters (at the early stage of plantation establishment, fire was seen as a considerable risk). There would also be enamel signs, one stating that the setting of fires was illegal and punishable by a fine of £100 (a considerable sum at the time) and a second listing sign all the bye-laws and restrictions which the Forestry Commission could call upon. At the head of the sign would be the Crown of England.

This was certainly my experience of Cumbrian plantations during the 1960s and still the case here in Cymru in the 1980s. The only people we ever met when walking in the forest then were foresters whose first question would be “Be'dach chi'n wneud yma? What are you doing here?”.

Dennis also told me what happened to the tyddynwyr. As the plantings continued, they gradually lost their additional grazing rights, mynydd, moelydd, elltydd, corsydd a ffriddoedd (mountain, hills, steep slopes, bogs and agro-forestry) to the march of the conifers, until only their fields remained. As their leases came up for renewal, the Forestry Commission would only issue 364 day renewals, much to the concern of the farming families who could probably see that their time on Mynydd Penrhos was now limited.

Indeed, some farms had already gone, prior even to the first plantings, a consequence of the terrible agricultural depressions of the 1800s. In her book on Llanfachreth Parish during the early 1900s, Mary Corbett Harris¹ remarks that by her time, one of the Mynydd Penrhos smallholdings, Ty'n y Cae, had fallen to ruin already and even the name had disappeared from the Ordnance Survey maps. She also refers to a mysterious Gardens of Penrhos in relation to a folk tale she recounts about two archers duelling across the Afon Wen, an intriguing reference which I have as yet been unable to track down.

With only a few acres of fields, the farms became increasingly non-viable in contemporary terms- during the 1980s about 200 acres was considered to be the minimum size for a farm to be viable, an indication more of lack of imagination rather than any natural law... The Forestry Commission would no doubt have been well pleased if a farming family gave up of their own accord and left to seek alternative accommodation- less hassle. Others were in essence evicted by the Commission simply refusing to renew their leases. In such a way were the folk of Mynydd Penrhos steadily and quietly moved on.

This left the Commission to deal with the actual houses and how to prevent people re-occupying them. The simplest approach was, if possible, to get the building condemned as unfit for human habitation. This meant that the Commission could then demolish the property or, as occasionally happened, due to that military past and a love of explosives, to blow them up; Ty'n Y Buarth, for example, home to a family of five in the 1891 census, was reduced to the barest foundations. No doubt the few surviving hovels would have gone in a similar way. Other houses had their roofs pulled in and its not unusual to find the walls of a ruined house alongside a well roofed barn that had been retained as a useful asset, suitable for storage of forest equipment.

The better fields were also retained by the Commission as horses were still in use for hauling out timber well into the 1970s and occasionally beyond for awkward patches. Our own fields had been used at one time to graze the Dolgellau fire engine horses.

During the 1980s, wandering the tracks through Coed Y Brenin, armed with Dennis Wheeler's information and large scale maps, I was able to follow the lines of walls into the forest and find the remains of these farms and their outbuildings, barns, pig sties, sheep handling pens. Many of these buildings and ruins are no longer named on the Ordnance Survey maps, indeed some are no longer even marked. As their moss and lichen covered walls gradually diminish and trees over-top the gables in the old kitchens, so too does memory of their once lively existence fade. History is all too easily erased and forgotten.

Thanks for reading. This concludes the first bit of The Real Coed Y Brenin but I’ll be returning to it in future, particularly in relation to the current threats so at least I can raise attention to the risks before it all blows down or is consumed by fire or plague, or indeed all three! Remember you can leave comments to steer this work and tell me where to go! If you want more of The Real Coed Y Brenin now, please just say. Otherwise I’ll be taking a break from it and, given the cost of living crisis, will be looking at low impact and off grid living and how to fit your energy into a wheelbarrow, honest... Hwyl! Chris.

1. Mary Corbett Harris, Llanfachreth; Bygones Of A Merioneth Parish. Sorry, can’t find the publisher or date for this one but she’s writing in the early 20th century. Its a lovely rambling book, covering the social history of the parish with lots of local snippets. She’s also very good on folk tales and manages to squeeze quite a few in here.