The Forest Which is as ‘Urban’ as Most Cities
Driving northward along the A11 from Cambridge, towards Norwich, a roundabout approaches. You pull up at the red light; to the left the golden arches of a McDonald’s, the right, a Burger King. When the lights change you pull off and motor around towards the third exit, shifting into fourth gear you notice the landscape suddenly changes. This is because you have just entered into a patch of Thetford Forest, a place which, I think, is incredibly unique and rather special.
Forests are incredibly important places and the trees which comprise them are simply wonderful, complex, and in many ways, social creatures. Appreciation for these spaces is also becoming more apparent. Take the popular rise of ‘forest bathing’ in the West. Known in Japan as shinrin yoku, forest bathing is the ‘simple method of being calm and quiet amongst the trees, observing nature around you whilst breathing deeply’. This has become more and more popular since the increased awareness around mental health and the importance of the environment in supporting it.
Now, from my own experiences of being within a forest, when strolling through a dense thicket of woodland, beneath the all encompassing canopy, it can often feel as if I am meandering through a silent city. As if I am wandering through the skyscrapers of a central business district at 4am, before anyone is out and about. Perhaps this is owing to my disposition as an urbanist, but when surrounded by the thick, vertical complexity of the trees, plus the absence of a horizon, such a comparison seems less farfetched than at first. Indeed Colin Tudge, in his excellent book The Secret Life of Trees, refers to certain fir trees as being ‘respectable skyscrapers’.
When we think of trees or of a forest, thoughts concerning nature, the outdoors and the ‘wild’ spring to mind — indeed the Encyclopaedia Britannica defines forests as a ‘complex ecological system in which trees are the dominant life-form’. Forests, or rather the notion of the ‘woods’, feature in the popular consciousness as spaces to escape to, for individuals to ‘find themselves’ within, away from the distractions and ‘noise’ of contemporary urban life. Be it Kerouac’s time in a rickety cabin on Desolation Peak above Mount Baker National Forest, or the tale of Christopher McCandless told by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild, forests are often represented as an ‘other’ space. Even beyond the quasi-spirituality of these two examples, a family trip to a local forest or country park symbolises an interaction with nature and a brief ‘getting away from it all’.
Yet, a visit to a forest in the UK could be interpreted as an expansion into a different form of urban realm. For, whilst the aesthetics and material differences are clear (although there are some metaphorical resemblances as mentioned earlier) the space of the forest is managed much like that of the city. For there are spaces where the public are encouraged to go (along designated routes), places where they shouldn’t (nature reserves or spaces for rewilding for instance), there are maps and signs and in many cases, places to buy souvenirs or grab a cup of coffee and a cake. Ohh and more often than not, you have to pay to park your car.
Now, I am not here to make the argument that the forests of the UK are just managed, ‘urbanised’ spaces which provide a spectacle-esque, representational image of ‘real’ nature — as that would be reductionist and a bit simplistic. For even these forests which are easy to access and navigate are still home to complex biodiverse ecosystems. However, that being said, there is one forest which this comparison to the urban realm is more merited than others; Thetford Forest.
I opened up this essay by noting the sudden change in landscape when entering Thetford Forest, for the road up to the forest’s edge is marked by fairly typical, relatively flat East Anglian terrain. Yet, this gives way to Breckland, an already unusual (for the UK anyway) sandy heath which spans across the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. This region, known as The Brecks, despite its low fertility has a long history of human use, with the Grimes Graves prehistoric flint mine being located within its boundary. Yet it is not the appearance of the flat, sandy Brecks which catches the drivers eye as they accelerate away from the McDonald’s sign, but quite the opposite, it’s the rigid verticality of the forest’s pine trees, standing to attention — in an area equally marked by military usage as by nature. The trees appear equally spaced out in neat rows and columns as if they are mapped onto a grid of some sort, strutting high into the sky. This uniformity, however, is far from coincidental.
This is because if you were to venture back in time, 101 years ago to 1922, there would be no forest to speak of; as it hadn’t been planted yet. This is because Thetford Forest, England’s largest lowland pine forest, is entirely man made.
Sure, the trees and shrubland are not themselves man made, but the 19,000 hectares of predominantly Corsican Pine would not be there without significant government intervention; especially as this species is native to central and southern European coastal areas. According to the local historical society High Lodge Heritage, Thetford Forest was built
After the First World War when Britain had great difficulty in meeting the wartime demand for timber and half of all the productive trees were felled in just two years, from 1914–1916. To ensure that Britain would not find itself facing another timber shortage in times of war, on 1 September 1919 the Forestry Act came into being, setting up the then Forestry Commission, now Forestry England, with responsibility to promote forestry, develop new forests and produce timber for woods in the United Kingdom.
The land which is now occupied by the forest was first purchased in 1922 and across the proceeding 12 years more parcels of land would be incorporated. Interestingly, ‘estate owners were often eager to sell, given the poor nature of the land and their finances’ — making the Forestry Commission the UKs largest landowners at the time. There are now 35 square miles of coniferous plantations within the forest. In short, Thetford Forest owes its existence to being a site of production, a space of industry which has the aesthetic qualities of being a space of nature. Yet, despite continued timber production on site, the space today is predominately used as and known for being a site of recreation, attracting over 400,000 visitors a year, where users can walk or cycle through the forest amongst other activities. Intriguingly, ‘the forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and an European-designated Special Protection Area (SPA) for its biodiversity and especially for its nesting Nightjar and Woodlark’.
Now, I have titled this essay The Forest Which is as ‘Urban’ as Most Cities and it is this focus upon which I shall conclude. For, aside from the elements highlighted in the 5th paragraph, it is the creation of the forest as a managed space designed as a component of national production, and thus as an extension of the domestic economy, which bears resemblance to the urban realm. For you could just as easily apply Harvey Molotch’s influential ‘city as a growth machine’ theory to Thetford Forest. Underlying this hypothesis, Molotch argues that
a city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest [whilst] governmental authority, at the local and non-local levels, is utilised to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing local elite.
This could be said about any city, the intensification of skyscraper building in London and New York, the rapid expansion of Cambridge or almost any case of gentrification. The reconfiguring of land use in the name of profit generation and, ultimately, growth. This can also be said of not only the existence of Thetford Forest, but also how it has changed over the years — from a site of industry to predominately leisure. Yet, it is not only the fact that Thetford Forest has grown like a city and has been developed much in the same way, but, from above it even looks like a city. Just look at the red fire roads on the map below, arranged in a near perfect, rationalist grid like Manhattan, Brasilia or even Milton Keynes (with less roundabouts).
Ultimately, I would posit that Thetford Forest is a monument of sorts to a different time, when humanity (or at least those in charge) thought they could manage and tame nature, when functionalist, rational plans were set and expected to work; when everything could be reduced down to its bare essentials*. A time when the thoughts of Le Corbusier and Piet Mondrian were novel and exciting. Like many cities across the globe, Thetford Forest has been designed along these ideals, but the reality is that complexity and diversity will always stretch these well made plans to, and beyond, breaking point.
Yet, despite its somewhat inauthentic, ‘unnatural’ origin, it is one of my favourite places in the UK; for I cherish the otherworldliness of it. The tall trees, although less than an hour from my home, make you feel as if you’re in a completely different region, or even, country. The sudden change in landscape upon arrival is still exciting today as it was when I first visited it 25 or so years ago. And it is this, the sense of entering a different space, detached from, yet still integrated within the landscape which surrounds it — similar to the feeling of enter into London on the train or riding out of New York on the subway. Therefore, despite clear differences on the surface, it is this sense of difference, combined with rational, industrial planning, which makes me think of Thetford Forest being just as ‘urban’ as most cities.
*For a brilliant historical overview of the issues concerning managed forestry, read the opening chapter of James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State
By Will Brown
All images taken by the author
Contact: w.brown@lboro.ac.uk
