
Nineteenth-century art critics, and writers on trees and woodland, constantly refer to the delicious coolness of the woods. Titles of paintings - A Cool Spot on a Summer's Day, Rest in the Cool and Shady Wood - stress the relief such scenes provide from the claustrophobic crowds and heat of a London summer. Artists, poets and picnickers evidently liked to find shady glades, nooks, glens (all rather old-fashioned words) - whereas today, I would suggest, we are more likely to go to open spaces on sunny days, to the Ridgeway or the South Downs or a beach.