HISTORY
TIMBER LOADING IN SUMMER 1915
T
he various lockdowns have allowed us to have a bit more time to do things that in the normal course of events, we were too busy to do! This was certainly the case for Exeter woodland owner Charles Eden. His ancestors were very good about taking photographs, and the family photo albums have not been sent to the tip! As a result we can hop into a time machine and return to another age. The pictures date from the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th century and are obviously in black and white, but technology has moved on and it’s now easy to add colour to them – this is called colourising. So Charles dug out various photos, and via a colourisation website, obtained some remarkable images in full colour. The pictures below could carry the caption “Timber loading all summer” and were taken in 1915… probably in August that year. “We used to have a house in the East Riding of Yorkshire, called Kilnwick Hall, between Beverley and Driffield, which was sold in the 1940s, and these photos were taken there”, says Charles. “I think it’s amazing the oak had to be hauled by six horses – haven’t machines transformed things! Interesting to see how the industry has changed!” The colourising process can be useful for forestry operations in other ways too. The third colourised photo shows part of the two hundred acre Cotley wood on
Charles’ estate in Devon. This was taken when snow was on the ground at the end of 1907/beginning of 1908 and you can clearly spot an area that had been clear felled. It’s interesting that you can see the track through the wood as it shows up white. This area was replanted at some stage afterwards and is now pure oak – it’s grown rather slowly and won’t be ready to be clear felled again for some time!
62 FORESTRY & TIMBER NEWS • October 2021
CONFOR.ORG.UK
