Beech

Beech (Fagus sylvatica) is a large and stately tree capable of growing up to 140'. It is classified as a native in the South of England where it crept slowly northwards as the ice sheet retreated at the end of the last Ice Age.

It has always been closely allied with mankind: beeches have been coppiced and pollarded since the Iron Age for timber and fuel, and even today more beech is used in the UK than any other hardwood. In times past, beech nuts (or beechmast) were an important source of nutrition for humans and their livestock, especially pigs, who were driven through the beechwoods to graze on the fallen mast. The trees produce nuts only once every four or five years, for some reason. In fallow years the tree still produces the little triangular nuts in their spiny cases, but the nuts themselves are just sad empty shells. 

If you come across a carpet of nuts in a productive year it's well worth filling your pockets with the little gleaming nuggets of treasure, as they are delicious. Simply roast them briefly in a hot oven or on the stove top, peel off the fiddly casings, salt and enjoy.
 

 

The young spring leaves of the beech are a wonder in themselves: pale, translucent and covered with a down of silky hairs so soft that it's almost impossible to stop stroking them once you've started. If you can bring yourself to strip a good hat-full from the tree, do so. Then steep them in gin for a couple of months, strain and add sugar and you have made Beech-Leaf Noyau, a traditional liqueur that has been made for centuries and of course is reputed to have many benefits for the constitution...

There's something lovely about beech bark, which is smooth and grey and hugs the contours of the tree like a slinky dress. As bark goes, it's thin and delicate and, unusually for bark, prone to sunburn. If trees are felled in a shady forest, exposing tender beech trunks to the sun, the exposed trees can actually die from it.

The beech's tender bark has long been a canvas for the carved initials and arrow-struck hearts of lovers, a tradition which may have its roots in old love spells and superstitions. 

Beech has always had a long association with books and writing. Its fine, close-grained timber was used for writing tablets in Germanic societies before the development of paper. The Old English word 'bōc' and the Old Norse word 'bók' both mean 'beech' in the primary sense and 'book' in the secondary. In Swedish, 'bok' means both 'book' and 'beech'. In German, 'buch' is book and 'buche' is beech, so you can see that the association was widespread. 

The dense shade cast by the beechwood's canopy makes the woodland floor an unpromising habitat for other species of tree and because of this, over time, beeches can come to dominate mixed woodland. The ground beneath beech trees is covered with a thick carpet of fallen leaves and beechmast, and together with the smooth grey pillars of the trunks and the vaulted branches holding 

aloft the distant canopy, there is something of the cathedral about an old beechwood. There's a particular kind of silence to be found there too. It's an interesting silence, and I can listen to it for hours.