The Archaeology of Abbey Wood, Strata Florida, Ceredigion, Wales

ABSTRACT Abbey Wood today is a beautiful, if ill-kept, mixed deciduous woodland a few hundred metres to the south of the former Cistercian monastery of Strata Florida in the Upper Teifi Valley in central Ceredigion, Wales. It consists of a number of different elements of land use and ecology, largely self-regenerated wood and scrub, some older tree specimens and patches of open rough pasture. There are ecological traces of historic management such as pollards and coppice boles, as well as extensive areas of archaeological earthworks on the woodland floor. These appear to demonstrate that the wood, as its name suggests, was originally planted onto open agricultural land perhaps as early as the twelfth century at the time of the Abbey’s foundation. The present extent is approximately 80 hectares (c.200 acres), but early estate maps show that 250 years ago it was larger and much more coherent as a managed wood. Some conifers were planted by the Forestry Commission in the mid-twentieth century. This article will argue that the historic wood was the main source of timber for the Abbey and that this re-founded institution, as part of its re-shaping of a pre-existing traditional landscape sacrificed good arable land for the purpose.