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[Taranis]

The one show BBC1 tonight was emphasising tree planting.
I said to the wife we can blame the Royal Navy for decimating our forests of Oak and I said I'll bet most ships used a thousand trees .
NO she said no way!


So Google to the rescue


Try 6000 trees     


HMS Victory used 2,000 for the hull alone and 6,000 in total.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/construction-hms-victory-begins

[raflaunches]

Staggering isn’t it when you see the numbers- trees were replanted as the RN did know they needed a supply of trees but obviously it would take 25-100 years to get a tree of the correct size and shape. By the time most were ready for use the Navy had probably switched to iron or steel hulls!

[Taranis]

It makes a lot of sense now why the navy reflagged most captured ships 


Then there was houses and construction work as well

[Ralph]

Frigate Unicorn (http://www.frigateunicorn.org) was launched in 1824 and is still berthed afloat in Dundee.  She has wrought iron knees supporting the decks apparently, so the story goes, because there was a shortage of suitable oak sections when she was built so they experimented with alternatives.


Ralph

[dougal99]

Take a look at the deforestation caused by wood required for the trenches in WW1

[RST]

One show -countryfile? I have a battle with Highland council behind my place, tore down way more trees they were supposed to on a civils project and have only re-planted half back yet.  I've been a campaigner for years -you don't cut greenery down unless absolutely necessary then you re-plant it after!

[jaymac]

Take a look at this study it is lengthy but covers  most of the points
https://wou.edu/history/files/2015/08/Melby-Patrick.pdf







Here is a wee bit of it
Moreover, various estimates of the time required for an oak to reach a suitable age for shipbuilding agree more than volume estimates. Contemporary observers concerned with the need for replanting realized that the life-span of an oak from seedling to maturity far exceeded the life-span of those who would plant them. Admiral Sir William Monson estimated the time between planting and harvesting at three to four generations.28 Fortunately, modern researchers have come up with more concise, numerical estimates. In the 1920s, Robert Albion concluded that the minimum profitable age at which to cut an oak for shipbuilding was between 80 and 150 years.29 Before that age, oaks would not have reached a usable thickness, and trees younger than this age decay at a far more rapid rate, making them unsuited for the rigors of seafaring. Furthermore, many of the timbers used in shipbuilding were required to be at least 20 inches in diameter, a thickness not reached until an age of at least 150 years.30 Even Rackham places the age of a commercially harvestable oak at up to 150 years.31

[Martin (Admin)]

Wasn't there a program to grow replacement trees, even back then?

New Forest.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Forest

[Colin Bishop]

There was a tree planting initiative back in the 1970s.

Slogan: 'Plant a tree in '73'

And then a year later:

'Plant some more in '74'

Colin

[RST]

I have a "John Muir" conservation award for helping plant trees up in Hoy, Orkney back in 97. That's a bit more recent I guess.

[Taranis]

I have a "John Muir" conservation award for helping plant trees up in Hoy, Orkney back in 97. That's a bit more recent I guess.

Respect. 


I got a topic reply notification 🎉

[RST]

Respect. 


I got a topic reply notification 🎉

Thanks and congratulations LoL

[malcolmfrary]

A lot of years ago I was on a visit to Browsholm Hall, where the guided tour was conducted by the owner. 
He had a thing about his wood wall panels, and did mention quite often that you could tell which panels were pre-American revolution by their size.  Earlier, big panels, later, smaller.  After that war, trees big enough for shipbuilding had to be either sourced from elsewhere or carefully rationed.  Home grown timber went to ship, rather than stately home, building. 

[Baldrick]

The oldest wooden warship in the world still afloat  (British of course ) was built in India by Jamsetjee Bomanjee Wadia at Bombay shipyard, constructed of TEAK. launched 1817 (no oak trees in India )


https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=7055

[Buccaneer]

The New Forest, in Hampshire, was planted,I believe, to supply wood for building Britains Navy. Today we have some magnificent Oak Trees in the New Forest.
John

[warspite]

Ah, until the Americans put the constitution back into the water, 

[Geoff]

I had also read somewhere that the new forest was specifically planted to replace trees for the navy due to the huge volumes needed to construct one line of battle ship. Oak was the best but it often took years to season and it was not uncommon to have a ship in frame on the stocks for four years so it seasoned properly to prevent rot.


Teak was nearly as good and as strong but had to be sourced overseas. The problem with teak was that the splinters were more likely to cause infected wounds than oak for some reason so it was not liked so much for warships.


As time went by iron began to replace some of the knees due to strength and then I think it was "Robert Seppings" who came up with an idea of diagonal framing (Google for pictures) and its unbelievable how they did it. This meant they could build longer ships as they were reaching the structural limits for timber. Iron also appears at this time to support the structure and diagonal iron cross braces were often used as well. The book Battleships in Transition has a very impressive picture on page 24. Collectively the new construction methods allowed them to retroactively install steam engines in some of the larger ships as they could take the weight.


Ultimately iron replaced wood as the building material due to its superior strength and the ability to build bigger and longer ships.


Incidentally the rate of survival for like wounds at sea as opposed to on land was much higher due to the salt in the air which acted as a disinfectant!


Cheers


Geoff

[JimG]

As for oak planting it seems to have been common for landowners (especially senior naval officers) to carry a pocketful of acorns while walking around their estates. These were dropped at suitable points to help provide for the supply of wood in the future. Planning for several generations ahead was more common in those times than it is today where business looks only for short term profits.
Jim

[dodes]

Must remember that most of the u/k was heavily forested in those times, small population and not living in detached 3/4 bedroom houses as now, or huge motorways cutting up the country. But reference the re-flagging of captured vessels at the time the French where far more advanced than the British in design of warships and so British naval officers all wanted an ex-french warship. An other reason for depletion of timber in the U/K from Tudor times was the vast amount of charcoal required for the manufacture of iron, until Bessingham discovered the use of Coke.

[SailorGreg]

The New Forest, in Hampshire, was planted,I believe, to supply wood for building Britains Navy. Today we have some magnificent Oak Trees in the New Forest.
John

While I happily confess that my memory of school lessons is patchy (to put it mildly), I seem to recall that the New Forest is much older than that.  Wasn't William Rufus (son of William the Conqueror) killed by a stray arrow while hunting in the New Forest?  Or perhaps it was re-stocked in the 18th and 19th centuries after being raided for its trees.  But I always thought as a child that the name was a bit odd - it was clearly older than me, so how could it be "new"?   

Greg

[nemesis]

With all these programmes going on about planting trees, Can anybody remember years ago about the Great British forest that was supposed to cover the majority of the country, what ever happened to it.? nemesis

[Baldrick]

With all these programmes going on about planting trees, Can anybody remember years ago about the Great British forest that was supposed to cover the majority of the country, what ever happened to it.? nemesis

  It may have been happening around you, it is here. in our area their have been 4 large areas of planting. The largest , Langley Vale , just over the top from Epsom racecourse has seen 180,000 trees planted in an area adjoining ancient woodland with provision for public access.




quote:-

The Woodland Trust purchased the land for Langley Vale Wood in 2014 as the First World War centenary project site for England. We have planted around 180,000 trees on site, many of these with help from the local community. Approximately 100 hectares of the site will be woodland creation. We’re also managing 100 hectares of the site (40%) as open space, as the site has important chalk grassland and arable habitats and supports many rare and notable arable plants, including ground pine, red hemp-nettle and night-flowering catchfly.