1) Wood dug out of peat moors and burnt for fuel or used as torches.
In Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis is a section headed ‘Mosses’ in which he states that at a good Depth in the Peat-pits, are found Pitch-trees,. Joseph Hughes made the same point in The History of Meltham, commenting on the great quantities of fir wood dug out of the moors by local people: it was being used as torches by the cottagers in the nineteenth century, they cut it into long splinters, and made it serve for candles. It is a practice recorded in the court rolls: 1601 Thomas Estwod … foder’ et perquisiv’ lign’
1634 no person dwelling out of the Lordshipp shall get any Firwood … every cartload 6s 8d
1724 we lay in pain that every person that shall dig to get any firwood shall fill up the holes, Meltham. In Scotland it was called ‘candle-fir’.