Country life
NATURAL OR MAN-MADE ?
By Sam Biles , Managing Director of country Estate Agents Biles & Co
It is always tempting to look at the unspoiled countryside of the Isle of Wight and use words like natural or untouched by man . Is this really the case though ?
The natural vegetation of the south of England if left untended and free to grow unimpeded would be deciduous woodland . Mighty oak standard trees with ash , hazel and other native woodland trees and an understorey including holly , field maple , bramble with bluebells and anemone at ground level . Yes , there would be glades with grasses , wild flowers , nettles and other plant life but there would be no fields as we know them . Downland with thinner soils exposed to salt sea winds would be less densely-wooded than the richer clay and sandy loam soils of the valleys and lower ground but there would be no broad expanses of grassland as we see today . All the rich landscape that we see today is a result of man ’ s activities over hundreds and thousands of years . The hedgerows were planted to keep in livestock , the fields cleared of trees ; the land drained to make it more productive , the downland is a result of centuries of tight grazing by generations of sheep . Its poor , chalky soils have lead it to develop a high density of grass , wild flower and herb species unknown on modern heavily fertilised grass fields – but it has been created by man ’ s farming activities nonetheless . Humans have eradicated some species – there are no wild deer on the Island now , though Charles I hunted them in Parkhurst forest and there were deer parks such as Great Park and Watchingwell to name but two . We probably dealt with the wolves as well ! Other species have been introduced by man – including foxes – but thankfully not grey squirrels and that impacts upon how the trees and plants grow . The cattle and sheep that populate our fields are types bred by man and these have changed dramatically in the last 100 years – formerly cattle would have been native breeds – shorthorn , longhorn , Guernseys and Jerseys ; some Devon reds and Herefords , now the black and white of the Friesian can be seen and many of the beef cattle are ‘ continentals ’ – Charolais , Limousin , or Simmental , a significant change from what our great grandfathers would have seen . It is easy to forget that almost all we see is touched by man in some way and that the landscape we enjoy is developing and changing every year as farming methods change , and the impact of changing agrienvironmental schemes is seen on our landscape .
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