The Hampshire Coppice Craftsmens Group

"Putting Life into your Landscape"

The idea of this page is to try an answer the Question Frequently asked of coppice workers at shows. Use the links bellow to navigate around the page.

What is coppice?
Why Coppice woodland?
What can coppice products be used for?
Landscape and Wildlife Conservation

What is coppice?

Many British broad-leaved trees including hazel, chestnut, ash and oak can be coppiced
Coppicing means cutting the tree or bush down to the stump. They then re-grow producing multiple stems called poles. These poles can be harvested. In the case of hazel, the poles are converted into a wide range of products.

Different species are cut at different ages:

The age that the coppice is cut will to some extent depend on the final product. As shown above chestnut was cut after one to two years for walking sticks although this market has reduced in recent years.

Why Coppice woodland?

This is probably one of the most commonly asked questions after what is coppice. As many people only see derelict coppice and think that of it as wild wood. In most cases this is just neglected woodland. Coppicing is probably one of the oldest forms of woodland management with archaeological evidence of woven fish traps dating back to 5000BC.

Much of the Semi-natural ancient woodland in the south of England has developed under coppice management with many areas being cut on rotation up to the mid 1960’s, with others still being cut today. In some woodland there is evidence that the coppicing has been carried out for more than 2000 years.

There are many benefits both economic and conservation to coppice being worked. These include:

• Offering rural employment to local craftsman
• Clean, quiet and environmentally friendly
• Good quality coppice is a viable economic crop
• Benefits wildlife
• Its' a renewable resource
• Keeps old skills going
• Good aesthetic value

What can coppice products be used for?

Coppice products have been used in Britain since man first realised that when he cut down a tree it sprouted from the base. The table below shows the more common uses for coppice:

As well as the products outlined above several of the species make very good firewood and charcoal thus reducing the carbon foot print.

Landscape and Wildlife Conservation

As outlined Coppicing has many benefits to the countryside the largest of which is landscape and conservation value. The British landscape would be a much less attractive place if our woodlands where lost. Here in the south we have some of the most wooded counties in England with Hampshire, Dorset, Sussex and Kent.
The benefits are many and varied. They include:  

• The many species of British flora and fauna have developed under the coppice management system and are only found in working coppice.
• Coppice woodland offers a wide range of habitats.
• Long continuity of the coppice system has enabled many species to adapt to this system.
• Coppice maintains close links with original ancient wildwood structure.
• Coppice is often appreciated for its magnificent displays of wild spring flowers, some are almost entirely restricted to ancient coppice e.g. Solomon’s Seal and the Early Purple Orchid.
• Woodlands are an important habitat for three-quarters of our 55 species of resident butterflies and the main habitat for 16 of them. In rotation coppice gives diverse conditions and the numerous sunny clearings are favored by many species.
• The orange woodland fritillaries are almost extinct in the south and east of England except in the coppice woodlands of Hampshire.
• Pearl bordered fritillaries are lost if coppice is out of rotation for longer than 5 years.
• Nightingales and dormice can survive in derelict coppice for longer periods but they need large areas of suitable habitat to sustain viable breeding populations.

As noted above there are a number of rare species that rely on coppice woodland for their habitat. 

Species such as the orange woodland and Pearl bordered fritillary butterflies, as well as the common or hazel dormouse.

Many Ancient Woodland Vascular Plants (AWVP) usually know as ancient woodland indicator species, rely one ancient woodland or hedge rows for their habitat. As the name implies these species are a good indicator of the age of a woodland so the more AWVP species the older the woodland.

As this page is developed we hope that it will be both easy to use and informative. If you have any problems with this page or the site in general please feel free to contact the webmaster.