Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveinGermany
Probably around the 11th Century, when Dai the sheep botherer & his mates were attacking the wicked "English" in their castles!  |
I think you are a little bit off in your dates there. The Edwardian conquest of Wales was in the 3rd quarter of the 1200s and the subsequent revolt in the 1st quarter of the 1300s. If you do a bit of research into Edwards initial march into Wales two things slowed his army down the mountainous terrain and the
density of the woodland so it was heavilly wooded then.
The initial clearance of forests was when we stopped hunting and started farming. The second big clearance started with combination of the Industrial Revolution and the buildup of the Navy before (and during) the Napoleonic Wars. The building of the railways and WW1 finished the process off.