The West Wickham Common
we see today is heavily influenced by the way the land has
been used in the past. The needs of livestock and forestry
have worked hand in hand over many centuries creating the
landscape of heathland, woodland, scrub and magnificent oak
pollards.
Various circular features which have been interpreted as 'pit
dwellings' and straight banks, which form part of a field enclosure
system that extends over much of Hayes Common provide a link to
past land use. Even more exciting is a substantial earthworks
on the brow of the hill, thought to be prehistoric and probably the
remains of an unfinished Iron Age fort although this remains
inconclusive. This plateau area is referred to on a 1485 map
of field names as Wikham Hethe, suggesting that between at least
1485 and 1880 this area was relatively open.
In contrast, the lower eastern part of the site is remnant wood
pasture with a small but important population of ancient oak
pollards. These would have been cut above head height
(pollarded) in the past so that the livestock grazing the pasture
below did not browse the regrowth. This dual system of land
management was practised here since at least 1632, and possibly
much earlier.
One of the oak pollards was made famous by the Victorian artist
J.E.Millais who used the common as a setting for his painting The
Proscribed Royalist 1651 (painting completed in 1852/3). The
picture depicts a young Puritan passing food to a Cavalier hiding
in an old oak tree. One of the older, larger oak pollards at the
western periphery of the site is believed to be that very tree.
Sadly this tree died several years ago but its slowly rotting stump
remains.
With the decline in the traditional management of grazing and
pollarding, the Common has become progressively more wooded at the
expense of the open heathland habitat.