Mel wrote books about the woodland history

It would be “rash, Incomplete and insecure”, he wrote, quoting fellow countryside historian Oliver Rackham.

Mel wrote scores of books and papers about the woodland history of South Yorkshire and beyond while working at Sheffield Hallam University, and its colleges at Wentworth Woodhouse and Totley.

He also held talks and walks aiming to spread knowledge and appreciation of our woodlands and their very long history, before he passed away in 2021.

His former colleague Professor Ian Rotherham, will join Mel’s wife Joan and other former colleagues in a series of talks and walks at a “Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Professor Melvyn Jones” on 26th and 27th October at Ecclesall Woods Woodland Discovery Centre.

Ian Rotherham says the South Yorkshire Forest signs around the region are memorials for his friend, demonstrating his groundbreaking work to show the importance of managing woodlands to the local economy.

Since Sheffield’s woodlands had been worked for centuries, with old trees taken out for timber and new ones planted, before Mel’s work you could easily make the mistake that most local woodlands were only a few hundred years old, whereas an official ‘ancient woodland’ classification rests on a wood existing since 1600 or earlier.

“But Mel would say something like: ‘Well I’ve got a document from 1576 that shows how many trees were harvested there, who did the cutting and how many barrels of beer were drunk in celebration.’ Which showed how old that wood really was,” says Ian Rotherham.

The weekend will also include a display and sale of books about woodlands by Mel and others, including two recently published international collections: Ancient Woods, Trees and Forests, and Countryside History: The Life and Legacy of Oliver Rackham (both from Pelagic Publishing).

Mel's chapters in these books show how woodland knowledge has improved by studying archives from the distant past. His position at Wentworth gave him access to libraries of centuries-old documents, which showed how woodlands have been worked and managed since at least medieval times.

The common idea that England was covered in ancient undisturbed woodland until fairly recently is simply not true, Mel observed, after calculating from the Domesday Book of 1086 that South Yorkshire only had around 13% tree cover 940 years ago.

He cites documents of 1421 and 1496 about coppicing work (cutting trees in cycles to provide wood for products like fences and firewood) at Norton and Hutcliffe Wood, and shows how Ecclesall Woods was, indeed, at least 20 separately owned woods in the past.

He details records of individual woodland criminals, such as Thomas Horseknave fined 3d for stealing wood from Greno Wood in 1385, and William de Housley, fined 6d for “trespassing and breaking down a hedge” in the same wood in 1441.

And in 1710 one Henry Bromhead was paid to patrol the Duke of Norfolk’s South Yorkshire woodlands on his horse for two days in “ye great snow” to seek out holly thieves, apparently with a blunderbuss (early shotgun) over his saddle. (Holly was an important winter fodder crop for livestock).

Mel’s archive and field work led to a much wider appreciation of ancient woodlands, and he was often called the ‘Oliver Rackham of the North,’ Ian Rotherham says, referring to the author and Cambridge academic, who actually worked closely with Mel over the years, while publishing several famous books on the English countryside.

Now our many ancient woodlands are seen for what they are, the hope is to carry on Mel’s legacy, says Ian Rotherham.

* Entry to the Mel Jones weekend is open to all, with a small charge to cover fees: https://www.ukeconet.org/events