UNIVERSITY OF B.C. LIBRARY
SIGNAGE ITE
PEOCESSING-CNE
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U.B.C. LIBRARY
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FORESTS OF ENGLAND
IN BYE-GONE TIMES.
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND
AND
THE MANAGEMENT OF THEM
IX BYE-GONE TIMES.
COMPILED BY
JOHN CROUMBIE BROWN, LL.D.,
Formerly Government Botanist at the Cape of Good Hope, and Professor
of Botany in the South African College, Capetown, Fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the Linnean Society, and
Honorary Vice-President of the African Lnstitute of Paris, etc,
EDINBURGH:
OLIVER AND BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT,
LONDON : SDIPKIN, MARSHALL & CO.
18S3.'
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
University of British Columbia Library
http://www.archive.org/details/forestsofenglandOObrow
ADVERTISEMENT.
In the spring of 1877 I published a brochure entitled
The Schools of Forestry in Europe : a Plea for the Erection of a
School of Forestry in connection with the Arboratum in Edinburgh.
It -was addressed " To the Right Honourable the Lord
Provost, the Magistrates, and Town Councillors of Edin-
burgh ; to the Office-Bearers of the Scottish Arboricultural
Society ; to the Promoters of the purchase of ground at
Inverleith, to be transferred to Government, for the for-
mation of an Arborotum; and all others whom it may
concern."
In this Plea I had occasion to state : —
" I went to the Cape of Good Hope to act as Colonial
Botanist in the beginning of 1863. On my arrrival I was
officially informed that the office had been created some
five years before with the two-fold object (1) of ascertain-
ing and making generally known the economic resources
of the Colony, as regards its indigenous vegetable produc-
tions, and its fitness for the growth of valuable exotic
trees and other plants ; and (2) of perfecting our know-
ledge of the flora of South Africa, and thus contributing
to the advancement of botanical science.
" On making my first tour of the Colony to see its flora
and its capabilities, I found myself face to face with a
vi ADVERTISEMENT.
difficulty in the way of the development of these capa-
bilities, arising from a reckless destruction of forests and
forest products which was going on, and a progressive
desiccation of the climate, accompanying or following the
destruction of forests and the burning of herbage and
bush in connection with agricultural operations and pas-
toral husbandry. And I knew not then, nor do I know
now, of a single work published in England from which I
could then procure information in regard to the treatment
required by aboriginal forests, to secure their conservation
and improvement, excepting ' The Forests and Gardens of
South India,' by Dr Cleghorn, then Conservator of Forests
in the Madras Presidency ; ' The Forester,' by Dr James
Brown ; ' The Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum] by
Louden ; and ' English Forests and Forest Trees/ an
anonymous work published by Ingram, Cooker and Co.,
London. But none of these supplied the information I
required.
" Contrast with this the richness of Continental lan-
guages in literature on such subjects. I have had sent to
me lately ' Ofversight of Svenska Skogsliteraturen, Bibliograjiska
Studieren of Axel Cnattingius' a list of many books and papers
on Forest Science published in Sweden j I have also had
sent to me a work by Don Jose Jordana y Morera,
Ingenero de Montes, under the title of ' Apuntes Biblio-
graphic Forestale,' a catalogue rakonne of 1126 printed books,
MSS., &c, in Spanish, on subjects connected with Forest
Science.
" I am at present preparing for the press a report on
measures adopted in France, Germany, Hungary, and
elsewhere, to arrest and utilise drift-sand by planting
them with grasses and trees; and in Der Europaeische
ADVERTISEMENT. vii
Flug-sand und Seine Cultirr, von Josef VTessely General-Doma-
enen-Inspecktor, und Ford-Academie-BireJrtor, published in
Vienna in 1873, I find a list of upwards of 100 books and
papers on that one department of the subject, of which 30,
in Hungarian, Latin, and German, were published in
Hungary alone.
u According to the statement of one gentleman, to whom
application was made by a representation of the Govern-
ment at the Cape, for information in regard to what
suitable works on Forest Economy could be procured
from Germany, the works on Forst-Wissenschaft, Forest
Science, and Forst-Wirthschaft , Forest Economy, in the
German language may be reckoned by cartloads. From
what I know of the abundance of works in German, on
subjects connected with Forestry, I am not surprised
that such a report should have been given. And with
the works in German may be reckoned the works in
French.
" In Hermann Schmidt's Fach Eatalogue, published in
Prague last year (1876), there are given the titles, &c, of
German works in Font und Jagd-Litemtur, published from
1870 to 1875 inclusive, to the 31st of October of the latter
year, amounting in all to 650, exclusive of others given in
an appendix, containing a selection of the works published
prior to 1870. They are classified thus : — General Forest
Economy, 93 ; Forest Botany, 60 ; Forest History and
Statistics, 50 ; Forest Legislation and Game Laws, 56 ;
Forest Mathematics, 25 ; Forest Tables and Measure-
ments, &c, 148 ; Forest Technology, 6 ; Forest Zoology,
19 j Peat and Bog Treatment, 14 : Forest Calendars, 6 ;
Forest and Game Periodicals, '11 ; Forest Union and Tear
Books, 13 j Game, 91 J Forest and Game in Bohemian, 44k
riii ADVERTISEMENT.
In all, 652. Upwards of a hundred new works had been
published annually. Amongst the works mentioned is a
volume entitled DieLiteratur der letzten siebenJakre (1862-187 2)
aus den Gesammtgebiete der Land und Forst-wirthschaft mit
Eimchlus: der landiv. Geiveber u. der Jagd, in deutscker, /ran.
losischer u englisher sprache Herausg. v. d. Buchandl. v. Gerold
and Co., in Wien, 1873, a valuable catalogue filling 278
pages in large octavo."
This volume is published as a small contribution to the
literature of Britain, on subjects pertaining to Forest
Science.
It is after due consideration that the form given to the
work — that of a compilation of what has been stated in
works previously published — has been adopted.
It will be followed by another — now in the press — a
translation of the famous Forest Ordinance of France of
1669, with notices of the previous treatment of Forests
in that country.
JOHN C. BROWN.
Haddington, 1st March, 1SS3.
CONTENTS AND ARGUMENT.
PA6S
Introduction, 1
Reference is made to arrangements proposed by the British
Government in 1870 for the preparation and publication
of a compilation of information in regard to the past
history and management of English Forests (pp. 1-5) ;
and to circumstances which have led meanwhile to
arrangements for the publication of this compilation
(p. 5).
PART I. — The Forests of England.
Chapter I . — Ancient Forests, ... ... ... ... 8
Notices are given of the Forests of England in the time of
the Romans (p, 8), and in times of the Saxons (p. 9) ; of
the Forest Laws of England (p. 12) ; and of the technical
use made in these of the terms Forest (p. 13), Chase
(p. 14), Parks and Warrens (p. 15).
Chapter II. — Modern Woods and Forests, ... ... 17
Section 1. — Forests, ... ... ... ... ... 17
Of these there are selected for illustration — Sherwood Forest,
Epping Forest, Dean Forest, and the New Forest.
A — Sherwood Forest, ... ... ... ... 1 •
Robin Hood, his Tomb, and the Parliamentary Oak are
alluded to (p. 17) ; and then are cited accounts of the
Forest by Camden (p. 18) ; by Hutton (p. 19) ; by
Evershed (p. 20) ; by Jewitt (p. 23) ; by Stacye (p. 23) ;
with letter of directions by Sir Christopher Wren, re-
lative to beams required in the structure of St Paul's
Cathedral (p. 31).
CONTENTS.
B. — Epping Forest, ...
There are giren notices of the Forest in early times (p. 32) ;
of buried remains of mammoths, lions, bears, and other
animals found in the Forest (p. 33) ; and of hunts held
in the Forest at different times (p. 36).
C. — Dean Forest, ...
Details are given of its history from the times of the Romans
(p. 42) ; and of the mining population of the Forest
(p. 49).
D. — The New Forest,
Details of the erection of this Forest by William the Con-
queror are given (p. 57) ; and of mishaps which followed
(p. 52) ; of the boundaries of the Forest (p. 56) ; of the
characteristics of the native horses (p. 57) ; of the swine-
herding of a former day (p. 59) ; of the woodlands of the
Forest (p. 64) ; and of the game (p. 69) ; and Gilpin's
description of the scenery (p. 71).
Section 2. — Chases, ...
Characteristics of a Chase.
A. — Malvern Chase,...
Description of it by Mr Edwin Lees.
B. — Cannock Chase,...
Description of it by Mr Walter White.
C. — Hatfield Chase,...
Brief notice of it.
D. — Loxley Chase, ...
Brief notice of it.
E. — The Forest of Gaultries,
Quaint story of one of the Bishops of Durham.
Laws applicable to Chases ._
Section 3. — Paries,
Characteristics of Parks (p. 90) ; Notices of Windsor Park
(p. 91) ; Account of Windsor Forest and Park (p. 95) ;
Successive Rangers (p. 98) ; Rights of Common (p. 99) ;
Expenses and Revenue (p. 102).
AGE
32
42
51
75
75
85
87
88
88
89
90
CONTENTS. xi
PAGE
Section 4. — Warrens, 103
Characteristics of a Warren (p. 103) : description of the
Eoyal Warren of the Isle of Purbeck, by Mr Robinson
Hamilton (p. 103).
Section 5. — Woods, 105
Characteristics of Woods.
A. — Wistmaiis Wood, ... ... ... ... 105
Description of it by Dr Berger (p. 105) ; and by a writer in
the Journal of Forestry (p. 107).
B. — Ckarnwood, ... ... ... ... ... 110
Notices of it.
Section 6. — Forest Woodlands, 112
A. — Aliceholt and Woolmer Forest,... ... ... 113
Description of these given in the Journal of Forestry (p.
113) ; Maladministration (p. 114).
B. — Needwood, 117
Brief notice of it.
C. — Whittlebury Forest, ... ... ... ... 117
Courtship and marriage of Elizabeth Woodville by Edward
IV. (p. 117) ; Notices of the Woodland, given 4in the
Journal of Forestry (p. 119).
D.—Salcey Forest, 121
Malpractices (p. 120) ; Description given in Journal of
Forestry (p. 122).
E. — Ashdown Forest, ... ... ... ... 125
Description of it.
F.—St. Leonards Forest, 132
Brief notice of it.
G.—Tilgate Forest, 133
Brief notice of it.
Section 7. — Sir Henry Spelmans List of English Forests, 1 34
jdi CONTENTS.
FAGB
PART II. — Devastating and Destructive Treatment
of English Forests, and Measures taken to
Arrest this, ... ... ... ... ... 135
Reference is made to the former wooded condition of the
land.
Chapter I. — Sites of Woods perpetuated in Names of
Places, 136
Reference is made to this being the case in many countries
(p. 136) ; and instances of its being the case in England
are given (p. 137).
Chapter II. — Historical Notices of Woods and Forests
which are now no more, ... ... ... ... 140
There are cited Fitz-Stephens notices of "Woods around
London in the twelfth century (p. 141); M 'William's
comparison of Woods in different counties of England
with Woods mentioned by Sir Henry Spelman and
others (p. 142).
A. — Notices of Extinct Forests of the Northern Counties, 148
Westmoreland, and Cumberland, and Northumberland (p.
148) ; Forester's Raids and Feuds (p. 157) ; Gibbet-law
in the Forest of Halifax (p. 154) ; Legend of Forest of
Whitby (p. 156) ; and notice of Forest of Knaresboro',
(p. 158),
B. — Notices of Extinct Forests of Lancashire, ... 159
Forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland (p. 159) ; Pendle
Forest, with account of the Lancashire Witches (p,
160) ; and of the introduction of Cotton Spinning into
district (p. 163).
C. — Notices of Former Forests in Cheshire, ... 164
Chapter III. — Remains of Ancient Forests Buried in
the Ground and Submerged in the Sea, ... ... 168
Section 1. — Facts and Theories, ... 168
Relating to Hatfield Chase (p. 168); to Holderness, and
Yorkshire Coast (p. 170) ; to the Coast of Lancashire
and Cheshire (p. 175) ; and explanation given of pro-
bable mode of submergence (p. 177).
CONTENTS. xiii
PAGK
Section 2. — Indications of the Age in which Buried
Woods and Trees must have fallen, ... ... 178
In relation to Petrified Trees (p. 179) ; to Submerged Trees
on Cheshire Coast (p. 1S1); to Trees buried in the time
of the Romans (p. 184).
Chapter IV. — Conservation, Replenishing, and Extension
of Forests, 189
In the 16th century (p. 189) ; in the 17th century (p. 190) ;
substitution of Coal for Firewood (p. 192) ; devastation
occasioned by browsing animals (p. 194) ; and changes
consequent on change of habit relative to hunting (p.
197) ; expense of planting (p. 199).
PART III. — Forest Legislation.
Chapter I. — Summary of Forest Legislation in England, 200
Light thus thrown on the state of Forests and Forestry
(p. 201) ; Summary (p. 202) ; and inferences deduced
(p. 205).
Chapter II. — Forest Legislation anterior to the " Charta
Foresta," 207
Laws of Canute (p. 207) ; Laws of the Normans (p. 210) ;
Extracts from Magna Charta (p. 212) ; Charta Foresta
(p. 215) ; technical terms relating to the Chase (p. 220);
to Wood (p. 222) and to Forest Officers (p. 223).
Chapter III. — Forest Legislation subsequent to the
4' Charta Foresta " till the close of the Eighteenth
Century, ... ... ... ... ... ... 227
Summary by Mr M 'William.
Chapter IV. — Former Game Laws, ... ... ... 237
Summary by Mr M 'William (p. 237) ; paper on the same in
Farmers1 Magazine of 1799 (p. 238).
Chapter V. — State of Crown Forests in the Eighteenth
Century, ... 242
Reports made by Commissioners, 1787 — 1793 inclusive.
XIV
CONTENTS.
TAGS
PART IV. — Forestal Literature Previous to the
Sixteenth Century, 24G
Notices of Manwood'a Forest Laws (p. 246) ; Spelman's
List of English Forests (p. 247) ; Hearne's Collection of
Curious Discourses, and the Academy for the Study of
Antiquity and History, founded by Queen Elizabeth
(p. 247) ; Agarde's Antiquity of Forests (p. 249) ;
Broughton on The New Forest (p. 252) ; Lee on Old
Forest Laws (p. 253) ; Standlish's Commons' Complaint
(p. 257) ; Evelyn's Silva (p. 258) ; Cook's Manner of
liaising, Opening, and Improving Forest and Fruit Trees
(p. 260) ; Watkin's Treatise on Forest Trees (p. 262) ;
Gilpin's Forest Trees and Woodland (p. 262).
INDEX TO AUTHORITIES CITED,
Agarde
Andrews
Beatson
Beckstein
Berger
Bigland
Bishop
Blackstone . . .
Blount
Bonnemere ...
Booh of Dennis
Broughton
Camden
Care
Caesar
Chateauvieux
City Press
Clave"
Coke
Cook
Cornhill Magazine
Crammer
Dallas
Darwin
Duchange
PAGE
.. 249
.. 202
.. 195
.. 197
.. 105
.. 44
64, 113
.. 239
.. 52
.. 206
.. 46
.. 252
19
215
8
195
33
196
219
260
138, 179
261
262
195
194
Evelyn ... 168, 190, 258
Evershed 20
English Forests and Forest
Trees 32, 148, 157, 164,
168, 175, 1S3, 207
Fabian
Farmers' Magazine
Fitz-Stephen . . .
Fleming
PAGE
37
238
140
177
Goeffry or Monmouth ... 9
Gilpin ... 57, 71, 157, 261
Giraldes 193
Hamilton
... 103
Hamsen
... 189
Harrison
... 69
Hearne
... 247
Henry of Huntingdon
... 54
Holinshed ... 54, 1SS,
189, 193
Hume ...
... 181
Hunter
... 197
Hutton
... 19
Illustrated London News ... 37
Journal of Forestry 21, 42,
95, 107, 113, 119, 122,
202, 222, 223
Kemble 193
Lee
Leeds
Lees ...
Llewellyn Jewitt
253
1
23
23
Manwood 12, 13, 90, 220,
Marsh 68, 136, 193, 194, 205
xvi
INDEX.
PAGK
M'William 142, 185, 208,
211, 227, 236, 237
Menzies 97, 100
Miners Laws and Privileges 4 i
Morton 102
41
110
NOTT ...
Oliver
Paris ...
Pearson
Pollock
Serva
Shelley
Spectator
Spelman
Standlesh
Stacye
Stowe ...
213, 219
65
200
174
92
126
11, 12, 133, 210, 257
247
25, 28
36
Strabo
Strype
Sturtevant
Surtees
Swift ...
Tacitus
Taylor-
Thomas
Thoresby
Thorpe
Vaupell
AOB
8
36
191
153
89
186
260
78
28
193
196
Watson 154
Watkins 261
Way 193
White 85, 171, 191
William of Malmsbury ... 55
Wren 32
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND,
A>'D
THE MANAGEMENT OF THEM IX BYE-GONE TIMES.
INTRODUCTION,
Some twelve years ago application was made by Mr H.
Leeds, then Conservator of Forests in Bengal, for per-
mission to visit the Crown Forests in Europe, and the
Naval Ordnance timber depots. It was granted to him,
and letters of recommendation to the forest authorities in
France and Germany were given to him by the Home
Department of the Government of India. He presented
to the Government a report of the observations he had
made ; and he subsequently addressed to the Under
Secretary of State a communication, of which the
following is a copy : —
"Sir,
" 1. For several years past I have felt that a standard
work on Sylviculture, in our own language, was very much
needed, not only for the use of landed proprietors at home,
but especially as a guide for the use of forest officers in
India.
" 2, Some books are to be found on the subject (those
of Grign and Brown, for instance), but they are not of the
class we require.
B
2 INTRODUCTION.
" 3. During my late visits to our Royal forests and
other woodlands in England, I found that we possess a
vast deal of valuable information on the history and man-
av nt of our forests among our public records, published,
for the most part, at the time when searching inquiry was
made as to the management of our forests, the ljress at
that time teeming with articles on the subject; and the
excellent management of the woodlands of many of our
nobility and other large landed proprietors (which, from
the various geological features of this country, present
almost every variety of growth), show that, although the
wooded portions of Great Britain do not extend over im-
mense areas, the science of forestry has occupied much
more attention than is generally believed.
" 4. The gentlemen employed as stewards and managers
on our lands, many of them of the highest talent, have
far too much to do to think of sitting down to write
books, and thus it happens that year by year the most
valuable experience is lost to us ; and, publications being
scarce, and forest questions shelved, so to speak, since the
Forest Act was passed, a general idea has spread abroad
that in this country we are comparatively ignorant on this
subject. Such, however, is not the case.
" 5. There are now only a few men in the country who
know where to lay their hands on the records, scattered
about in many of our public offices and institutions, which
would be required in order to compile any book on the
history and management of the forests and woodlands of
Great Britain. They went through the Parliamentary
inquiry of some SO years ago ; age is creeping on, and
unless we seize the information they possess now, it will,
in the course of a few years, pass away from us.
"6. It is under these circumstances that I venture to
bring to the notice of Government the advisability of at
once collecting, in a standard volume, the history and experi-
ence learned in our forests and woodlands. It is amply
evident that Government must first move in the matter,
.or nothing will be done. I would suggest that a sum of
INTRODUCTION. S
money should be voted for the purpose of bringing out a
complete work worthy of Government authority, and that
the matter be submitted to our deputy surveyors of Royal
forests and our technical societies for consideration, to
draw up a plan of the work, to be referred by them to
Government for final approval. I would suggest that the
work be copiously illustrated by good and judiciously
chosen photographs, to illustrate and explain portions of
the text. It is unnecessary for me to enter into any
detail of what the work should contain. This will be far
better settled by those to whom the matter will be
referred.
'• 7. Excellent as many foreign publications on fbi
matters are, the language in which they are written clo
them to the many ; and even good German and
French scholars shrink from books written in technical
language, inter persed with long compound words, fir
which it is difficult to extract a definite idea, and especially
is this the case with Indian officers, who have laid aside
European for Asiatic languages. But, besides this ob-
jection, they are far too elaborate, and more fit for profess
in-doors than the active and practical forest officer who
must scour the country and not live on his book, There is
no mystery in forestry, and it is easily learnt. The scientific
student and the good j:>ractical forester are perfectly distinct
in their avocations.
" 8. Writing from many years' experience in behalf of
forest officers, I know that they are starved for want of
one standard source of information, and, situated as they
are, it is most difficult to get at sources whence they
could procure any. A work, such as might be prepared,
would not only be of immense value to them, but to every
landholder in this country who feels the want of a guide
before he enters upon planting or thinning on his property.
Such a work would soon be in the hands of a very large
section of our countrymen, and its preparation is indeed a
national requirement.
" 9. Before closing this letter I may perhaps be per*
4 INTRODUCTION.
mittecl to suggest that if it were made the duty of some
Government officer, to whom "forest matters" are entrusted,
to watch our scientific and technical societies' publications,
and to purchase a few copies whenever essays or papers
appear relating to forests and their products, for distribu-
tion to conservators of forests, whose duty it would be to
circulate to their district officers, much good would result.
Perhaps if these papers were collected into one volume
once a year and distributed, it would be a better plan, as
they would form a complete record of the year's informa-
tion on the subject, and remain a record, not easily lost,
in our public offices.
"10. I trust that the interest I feel in all connected
with the progress of forestry in India, and my natural
anxiety to obtain for myself and officers every kind of
information which will assist us in the administration
of the immense charge entrusted to us, will be deemed
sufficient reason for having, perhaps, stepped beyond my
province in addressing Government direct on the eve of
my return to duty." — I have, &c
"Henry Leeds,
" Conservator of Forests, Lower Provinces, Bengal.
" The Under Secretary of State for India."
The receipt of this letter led to the following cor-
respondence:—
" India Office, 2d April, 1870.
" Gentlemen,
" You were kind enough to comjDly with the request of
his Grace the Secretary of State for India, conveyed to you
in the letter from this department of the 16th of July
last, and enable Mr H. Leeds, the Conservator of Forests
in Bengal, to inspect the systems and operations carried
on in the management of the Crown forests, and I am now
directed to transmit to you a copy of a letter from Mr
Leeds (who has now left this country on his return to his
duties in India), enlarging upon the benefit which would
accrue to this country, as well as forest officers in India, if
INTRODUCTION. 5
a handbook of the information to which he has had access,
by your permission could be published, and stating his
conviction that such a work would find a ready sale.
" In submitting this letter for your consideration, I am
desired by the Duke of Argyll to inquire whether there is
any likelihood of such a work being undertaken by your
department, and to state that his Grace would not object
to give such assistance as was in his power towards its
accomplishment. — I am, &c,
" Herman Merit ale.
"The Commissioners of
"Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, Whitehall Place."
" Office of Woods and Forests, 8th April, 1870.
"Sir,
" I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 2d inst.j transmitting, by direction of the Secretary of
State for India, a copy of a letter from Mr H. Leeds,
the Conservator of Forests in Bengal, conveying his
opinion of the benefit which would result from the publi-
cation of a handbook of the information relating to the
Crown forests and woodlands in this country, to which he
has had access while on leave, and I have to request that
you will convey to the Secretary of State for India my
thanks for the communication, and inform his Grace that
I have long contemplated the desirability of having such
a handbook compiled.
" I trust the time is not far distant when I may have
the pleasure of placing such a work at his Grace's dis-
posal, and I feel much obliged for the offer of his Grace's
assistance. — I am, &c.,
" James K. Howard.
" Herman Merivale, Esq."
From the years 1863 to 1866 inclusive, I held the
office of Colonial Botanist at the Cape of Hope. When I
was appointed to this I was informed that the office, origin-
ally established in the year 1858, was created with the
G INTRODUCTION.
twofold object — 1st, Of ascertaining and making generally
known the economic resources of the Colony as regards its
indigenous vegetable productions, and its fitness for the
growth of valuable exotic trees and other plants; and 2nd,
Of perfecting our knowledge of the flora of South Africa,
and thus contributing to the advance of botanical science.
To my report as Colonial Botanist for 1863 was
appended a memorandum on the conservation and exten-
sion of forests as a means of counteracting disastrous con-
sequences following the destruction of bush and herbage
by fire.
By the Legislative Council of the Colony, there was
appointed a Special Committee to consider this report. I
was called before this Committee to give evidence, and in
answer to Q. 95 : Will you give us an idea of the changes
you would recommend? I said, amongst other things,
" Thirdly, I recommend the procuring information in regard
to the most approved measures of forest economy which
are applicable to the management of the forests of this
colon)7, by commissioning some one acquainted with these
forests to visit the Forest Schools of Germany, and, if it
be thouo-ht advisable, to visit also the forests in other
parts of Europe, and report thereafter what is seen, or is
suggested by what is seen there, applicable to the man-
agement of forests in this country, whether relating to
matters connected with private enterprise or Government
control/'
It is only on the Continent of Europe, and now in
India, that the advanced forest science of the day has
been applied to the management of extensive indigenous
forests, as exist at the Cape of Good Hope, and in others of
our colonies and dependencies. 1 speak from personal
knowledge. But in the administration of the woods and
forests of England evils have been encountered like unto
some which have been encountered in the administration
of forests in our colonial possessions, and I have felt the
want of some such work as was desiderated by Mr Leeds;
while others who had to do with the administration and
INTRODUCTION, 7
management of the Woods and Forests of England have,
I doubt not, felt the same.
In the absence of some such work as was projected by
the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, now twelve
years ago, I prepared for myself a rough sketch of the
history of British forests, and the treatment of them from
the earliest times to the present ; and this having served
my purpose, I have filled up the outline and revised the
compilation for the press, hoping that in the lack of
something better it may be acceptable to others desiring
such information.
The treatment of forests and woodlands in England
admits of division into that to which they were subjected
previous to the present century, and that to which, in
consequence of wars arising out of the French Revolution,
they have since received. That in the former era alone is
reported in this volume.
PART I.
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT FORESTS.
When Britain was invaded by the Romans, about the
commencement of the Christian era. the country was
extensively covered with forest. The people were liter-
ally a savage — salvage people. Csesar found upon the
South Coast people engaged in agriculture, and some
towns inhabited by traders between Britain and the Con-
tinent ; but all beyond appeared to be a vast and horrid
forest ; and he tells, apparently with a feeling of con-
tempt, " A town among the Britains is nothing more than
a thick wood, fortified with a ditch and rampart, to serve
as a place of retreat against the incursions of their enemies."
Strabo, the historian, who died A.D. 25, in his treatise
on Geography — a work celebrated for its elegance and
purity, and for the erudition and extensive knowledge
which it displays — devotes a chapter to notices of Gaul
and Britain, and tells of our ancestors: — "Forests were
the only towns in use among them, and these were formed
by cutting down a large circle of wood arid erecting huts
within it, and sheds for cattle." It may be the case that
the generalisation was carried further than was warranted ;
but much is known which is in accordance with these
pictures of ancient Britain ; and though Geoffrey, of Mon-
ANCIENT FORESTS. 9
mouth, Bishop of St Asaph in the twelfth century, alleges
that at a time long anterior to this the Britains were a
civilised and settled people, there is much to lead us to
conclude that at that period the country throughout much
of its extent was forest, and moorland, and marsh.
" The Romans," writes the author of ' English Forests
and Forest Trees/ a work published anonymously in
1853, which I shall have occasion to quote frequently
in the sequel, "were not mighty hunters, and during
the time they occupied Britain they appear to have used
the forests only for purposes of utility. They had, if we
are to believe some historians, iron furnaces in the forest
of Dean ; and through that forest ran one of their great
roads. They must also have required a large supjjy of
timber for their galleys, especially in the neighbourhood
of such ports as Chester, subject to sudden and frequent
incursions of the native inhabitants, who had taken refuse
in Wales. But no forest boundaries were marked by
them, no enclosures were made, and the woodland parts
of the country remained as they were under the Britons.
"When the Saxons came, this state of things was
entirely altered. That hardy race were hunters from
their childhood. They loved to chase the wild boar and
the deer through these primeval forests ; and they talked of
their exploits in hunting with as much pride as of their
daring deeds in war. They loved to burnish their hunt-
ing weapons, and to keep their horses and hounds in a
high state of training. Both kings and nobles delighted
in the pleasures of the chase ; and among their highest
accomplishments, and the part of their education most
carefully attended to, was reckoned skill, courage, and
address in hunting. In Asser's l Life of King Alfred '
this is specially referred to.
" The forest hunting grounds of the Saxcns extended
over many woodland districts, whose character in our days
is entirely changed. The Saxon noble had his large house
or hall built in the forest, which supplied the timber of
which it was constructed. Here, with his numerous re-
10 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
tainers, his billmen and bowmen, his hunters, his 'born
tli rails,' and his swineherds, he indulged in that coarse
gross, plentiful way of living, and almost unlimited hospi-
tality, which characterised his race. The forest enabled
him to be generous and profuse, for it then abounded with
game. His mornings were spent in the chase, pursuing the
boar and the deer ; and his evenings in boisterous mirth,
and often excessive drinking, in his old halls, surround
by his retainers and by trophies won from the forest
game. A wandering minstrel or a holy pilgrim occasionally
enlivened the scene ; and often the mirthful troop was
broken up by a hasty summons 'to arms/ to defend
themselves from the attacks of organised and almost
licensed robbers, or to march to the assistance of the king.
No books shed their influence over these assemblies ; and
even Christianity had scarcely had time to. eradicate all
traces of the old pagan superstition. But there were
other mansions besides those of the nobles in the pleasant
places of the forests. The clergy had (about the time of
the Norman invasion) obtained possession of nearly one-
third of the country, and in the most agreeable spots,
amid shady woods and by silvery rivers, had erected their
religious houses. Many forest districts belonged to them ;
and traces of their claims on forest produce lingered long
in the history of our country. Many a band of outlaws,
living by plunder, found refuge in those days in the
forest; and many a holy man, disgusted with the world
around him, sought refuge in the forest, where,
• Far in a wild remote from public view,
From youth to age the reverend hermit grew ;
Eemote from man, with God he passed his days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.' "
To the usages of these times it is that we are indebted
for the legal and technical use made of the word Forest
in England.
It might prove interesting to trace the application made
of the term forest to different descriptions of woodlands,
ANCIENT FORESTS. 11
till it acquired the conventional application made of it in
our day to a somewhat extensive, dense, and irregular
growth of self-sown trees, like to the silva horrida of
Roman authors. But here it must suffice to state that
in colloquial phrase in the olden time, and in legal
phraseology still, the connection of the term with trees is
only incidental and adventitious. Startling as the state-
ment may be, if it be now met with for the first time by
any reader, it is nevertheless true that there may be a
forest where there are no trees, and a boundless continuity
of primeval woods, without its being entitled to be legally
designated a forest.
In other countries, as for example in France and in
Germany, such terms as forests, forestry, or terms corre-
sponding to these, are terms applied constantly to laws
and proceedings regarding forests as consisting of wood-
lands and productions of fuel, wood, and timber ; and thus
it is with the popular use of such terms in England at the
present time, and, in the scientific or technical phrase,
Forest Economy. But in England in legal phraseology,
and even in tales relating to the olden time, the same
terms are applied almost exclusively, if not entirely so, to
laws regarding the forests as affected by the Game Laws,
and to the conservation and shooting of deer; and so
different are the imports of such words now when used in
legal deeds, and when they are used in common conser-
vation, that the adoption of foreign terms has been in some
cases deemed necessary to secure accuracy and precision.
The etymology of the word is involved in obscurity. It
is formed from the Latin word/cmta, which first appears
in the Capitulars of Charlemagne, and this is said to have
been derived from the German word first, which was
applied to the same thing. Sir Henry Spelman, a dis-
tinguished antiquary who lived in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, conjectured that it may have been derived from
fores restat, applied to what remains outside the town. It
would thus correctly describe what was the case in the
time of Caesar, and in the time of Spelman, and it may be
said also still.
12 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
In Man wood's " Forest Laws," published in 1598, and
held as high authority, it is stated : "A forest is a certain
territory of wooddy grounds and fruitful pastures, privi-
ledged for wild beasts and foules of forrest, chase and
warren, to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the
king for his princely delight and pleasure ; while territorie
of ground so priviledged is meered and bounded with
irremoveable markes, meeres, and boundaries, either
known by matter of record, or els by prescription. And
also replenished with wilde beasts of venerie or chase, and
with great coverts of vert for the succour of the said wilde
beastes to have their abode in; for the preservacion and
continuance of which said place, together with the vert
and venison, there are certen particular lawes, priviledges,
and officers belonging to the same, meete for that purpose
that are onely proper unto a forrest, and not to any other
place." Blackstone thus defines a forest : — " Forests are
waste grounds belonging to the king, replenished with all
manner of chase or venery, which are under the kings
protection for the sake of his recreation and delight."
The so-called Forest Laws of England relate to these
royal hunting grounds, and refer primarily to the land
o-ame, and onlv in subordination to this to the trees
affording covert and shelter, excepting in recent times
when wood had begun to fail, and venerie or hunting,
though continued, had lost some of the importance attach-
ing to it as an amusement of kings.
Sir Henry Spelman gives a list of the forests existing in
his time, and Man wood supplies similar information, from
which it appears that the principal English forests are
these : — The Sherwood Forest, on the Trent ; the Dean
Forest, on the Severn ; the Windsor Forest, on the
Thames ; the New Forest in Hampshire, erected by
William the Conqueror; and that of Hampshire Court,
erected by Henry VIII.
But, besides these, mention is made of upwards of sixty
ANCIENT FORESTS. 13
other forests, besides chases, of which there were thirteen
mentioned, and parks, of which there were upwards of
600 fully recognised,
The essential characteristic of a forest, Manwood inti-
mates, is its being set apart for the conservation of game.
The timber trees, which in modern times are supposed to
be the constituents of a forest, are, according to llanwood,
treated in the laws of the forest chiefly, if not exclusively,
as cover for game ; and the pasturage of forests, as provi-
sion for the support and nourishment of the same. He
affirms expressly : — " A forest must always have beasts of
venery abiding in it, otherwise it is no forest ; and if
there be neither beast of forest, nor beast of chase in the
same, then may men fell their woods that they have
within the forest and destroy their covers, for that there are
no wild beasts remaining in it to have cover therein;" and
the same thing is reiterated in language, if possible, still
more explicit.
In another part he says : — A forest having neither
beast of venerie, i.e., as he elsewhere explains the terms,
hart, hind, hare, boar, and wolf; nor beast of chase, i.e.,
buck, doe, fox, marten, and roe : — a forest having neither
beast of venerie nor beast of chase in it is no forest at all.
It thus appears that in English law a forest is a royal
hunting ground, including both woods and fields, and
comprising, it may be, private property ; and in virtue of
its being a royal hunting ground legally constituted alone
is it so designated.
By the Redbook Liber rubrus, it is declared that a
forest cannot be made in every place, but only in fit places,
that is, woody countries.
" By this it appeareth," says Manwood, " that it is inci^
dental to every forest to be as well replenished with woods
as to have pleasant food and lands for the king's deer.
The manner of erecting a forest, according to law, is
thus described : — " Certain Commissioners are appointed
under the Great Seal, who view the ground intended for a
14 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
forest, and fence it round j this Commission being returned
into Chancery, tlie king causeth it to be proclaimed
throughout the country where the land lieth that it is a
forest; and prohibits all persons from hunting there
without his leave. Though the soverei^.i may erect a
forest on his own ground and waste, he may not do it on
the ground of other persons without their consent ; and
agreements with them for that purpose ought to be con-
firmed by Parliament."
Of the more ancient forests in England I have found no
record or history which makes any certain mention of
their erection, though they are mentioned by several
writers and mentioned in several of our laws and statutes.
According to Manwood, the sovereign alone can make a
forest, and by a sovereign alone can a forest be held ; and
thus is a forest distinguished from a chase, a park, a
warren, or a pasture.
It appears that while a forest cannot be held by any
but the sovereign, it is competent to a sovereign to make a
grant of a forest to a subject on request made in Chancery ;
but b}' this very act it ceases to be a forest, and in accord-
ance with this statement, it is observed by Crompton that
that which would otherwise be called a forest, when it is in
the hands of a subject, loses its name and becomes a chase,
which is a place of retreat for deer and wild beasts, but
having not the privileges, laws, and coverts of a forest, and
being subject to the control of common law. It differs
also from a forest in not being enclosed.
Pennant states that Sir Henry Munro, of Fowlis, holds a
forest from the Crown upon a very whimsical tenure — that
of delivering a snowball on any day of the year that it is
demanded ; and, it is added in the notice of this which I
have seen : he seems to be in no danger of forfeiting his
right by failure of the quit rent, for snow lies in the form
of a glacier in the chasm of Ben Nevis, a neighbouring
mountain, throughout the year. According to the law
laid down by Manwood, this ce-devant forest would, in
ANCIENT FORESTS. 15
virtue of the transfer, be no longer a forest, but thence-
forward its legal designation should be a chase.
A park is so named from the French parque, i.e., locus
inclusus ; it is a large space of ground enclosed and privi-
leged for wild beasts of chase, by the king's grant or
prescription, according to Manwood, tarn sylvestris quam
campestris ; nor can a park be erected without license
under the broad seal.
To constitute a park three things are required : — 1, A
grant thereof; 2, Enclosures by pale, wall, or hedge; 3, Beasts
of a park, such as the buck, doe, &c. ; and it is declared
that when all the deer are destroyed, it shall no more be
accounted 'a park : for a park is determined by vert, veni-
son, and enclosure, and if it is determined in any of them
it is a total disparking. It may be mentioned parks are not
governed by the forest laws, but are subject to the common
law.
In forest-law mention is made also of warrens. A
warren, I find it stated, is a franchise or free place, privi-
leged by prescription or grant from the king, for the keep-
ing of beasts and fowls of the warren ; wdrich are hares and
coneys, partridges, pheasants, and some add quails, wood-
cocks, water-fowl, &c. These being ferce natures, every
man had a natural right to kill as he could; but
upon the introduction of the forest laws at the Norman
Conquest these animals, being looked upon as royal game
and the sole property of the sovereign monarch, this fran-
chise of free warren was invented to protect them by
giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing
such game, so far as his warren extended, on condition of
preventing other persons. A man, therefore, that has the
franchise or wrarren is in reality no more than a common
gamekeeper; but no man, not even a lord of a manor,
could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, or
even on his own, unless he had the liberty of free warren.
This franchise has almost fallen into disregard since the
16 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
new statutes for preserving the game, the same being
now chiefly maintained in grounds that are set apart for
breeding hares and rabbits.
A warren may be unfenced and open ; there is no legal
necessity for enclosure of it, as there is of a park, to con-
stitute it such.
CHAPTER II.
MODERN WOODS AND FORESTS.
Section I — Forests.
The technical distinction drawn aforetime between woods
and forests, and chases and parks, it is expedient to adopt
in treating of the woods and forests of England. We
have found that technically, according to older usage, the
characteristics of a forest in England are these : — It must
contain animals for the chase ; trees or underwood for the
shelter of them ; and it must belong to the sovereign.
Amongst the principal old forests, were reckoned by Man-
wood — the Sherwood Forest, the Dean Forest, and the
New Forest; but he makes mention of about sixty others.
From amongst these Eppiug Forest may be cited as sup-
plying in its early history information in regard to early
forestal , usages, and as having local peculiarities differing
from those in the others.
A, — Sherwood Forest
The mention of Sherwood Forest at once calls up
memories of much which has been heard in regard to
Robin Hood, or Robin i the IVood, and his bold com-
panions. But beyond this allusion to the fact we may not
tarry, excepting to tell that near to the ruins of an old
nunnery, the Kirklees, not far from Huddersfieid, is a
tomb over which wave the branches of the pine, while the
whole surrounding scenery is befitting companionship to
18 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the tomb of a child of the forest, and on the tomb is the
following epitaph : —
"Here, underneath this laith steun,
Laz Robert Earl of Huntington ;
Nea archers were az hie sa geud,
An piple kauld him Robin Heud.
Sick utlawz az hi and is men
Wil England niver si agen.
Obiit 24 kal. Dekembris, 1247.:'
On the brow of a gentle hill in the neighbourhood of
this old hunting- seat of King John, stands a crumbling
fragment of a tree, called the " Parliament Oak." Tradi-
tion says that Edward I. and a princely retinue were
merrily chasing the panting deer through the entangled
paths of the forest, when a messenger arrived in breath-
less haste, bearing intelligence that his majesty's new
subjects in Wales were in open revolt. The monarch
instantly called his knights around him, and under the
branches of this once noble tree held an urgent council.
The knights, with brief resolve, called out for prompt
suppression and exterminating war.
The " Parliament Oak " is supposed to be above a thou-
sand years old ; it is now 20 feet high, varying from 27
to 32^ feet in circumference. From the ancient trunk
start forth youthful branches, which, in the autumn of
1842, brought forth above three hundred acorns. The
Duke of Portland, the owner of Clipstone Park, has caused
this tree to be braced and supported by poles. A young
oak, raised from an acorn of the present tree, was planted
in the very heart of it, but some rude hand has broken
down the top.
" Sherwood Forest was once very extensive. It covered
the whole county of Nottingham, and extended into both
Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It was well stocked with
beasts of the chase, and was one of the favourite hunting
resorts of the Norman kings. The Conqueror seems to
have spared it in his northern devastations. Camden's
description of it is very short, and gives little information.
SHERWOOD FOREST. 19
He says: — 'More inward lies Shirewood, which some
interpret a clear wood, others a famous icood; formerly,
one close continued shade with the boughs of trees so
entangled in one another that one could hardly walk
single in the paths. At present it is much thinner, and
feeds an infinite number of deer and stags ; and has some
towns in it, whereof Mansfield is the chief.' The forest is
sadly altered now ; only a few vestiges of its olden
glories survive, and these have been so maimed, and
mauled, and battered about by time, and storm, and
tempest, that their very age inspires melancholy feelings.
No hunter's bugle-horn is ringing now ; there are no long
shady avenues to saunter along and dream of bold outlaws
and ruthless Norman kings ; no spreading oaks under
whose shade one could lie down and watch the gambols of
the deer. Civilisation has come, and the forest has gone.
It is at Bilhaugh where the best specimens of the old
tenants of the forest are to be found. Here are oaks that
cannot be less than six or seven centuries old ; that carry
us back through the days of the ' mighty hunters of the
forest' — the pedantic James, the haughty Elizabeth, the
Henrys, the Edwards, and the Williams, the lion-hearted
Richard, and the pusillanimous John. Ay, and the fore-
fathers of these oaks must have been there when the
Saxon dwelt in the land, when the Druids cut the mistle-
toe, and higher and higher still, when wild beasts alone
ruled and ravaged our island."
Such musings tell of the thing which has been. It has
been alleged that the forest oaks are only in the park of
Thoresby House, and that the domains here comprise by
far the most attractive part of the forest. Mr John
Hutton, of Woodcote, Epsom, writes, in a letter to the
editor of the Spectator : —
" On the contrary, by far the most attractive part of
Sherwood lies, north and south, between the park and the
village of Edwinstowe, and, east and west, between Cock-
glode — Mr Foljambe's place — and the Centre Riding, and
is known as Birkland. The Major Oak, the oak called
20 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
'the Butcher's Shambles/ the Parliament Oak, and others,
are all outside the park, and so are all most fantastic and
grotesque old oaks. There also, and nowhere else, are all
the graceful and lovely birches — so marked a feature of
Sherwood — and there is the magnificent group of the nine
Scotch firs, not far from the Buck Gate, which we knew
amongst ourselves as the Nine Muses. Within the park
the scenery is very lovely, but comparatively tame, not-
withstanding the extensive sheet of water. Its great
attractions are certainly not the oaks — which are very
numerous but not to compare to the Birkland oaks — but
the avenue of Spanish chesnuts, perhaps the finest in
England, and two or three (I forget which) unrivalled
beeches near the Proteus Lodge, than which the New
Forest itself can show nothing grander.
"If your readers want to see oaks in majesty and in
weird grotesqueness, let them make their headquarters at
Edwinstowe, and wander about Birkland."
Of Sherwood Forest, Mr Henry Evershedr writing in
The Journal of Forestry (vol. iii., page 190), says: —
" If we were asked when Sherwood Forest first became a
forest, we reply, ' When was it not one ? ' It was a royal
forest before and after the Conquest. From the earliest
times all our hunting monarchs paid frequent visits to
Sherwood. The Saxon kings came to Edwinstone, the
Normans to Clipston. King John was much at Clipston,
where the ruins of his 'hunting box* bears his name.
Edward I. held a sreat council under the shade of an oak
of sri^antic size, whose trunk still stands at the corner of
Clipston Park, on the side of the road between Mansfield
and Edwinstone, bearing the name of the Parliament Oak.
Our last hunting and hawking monarch, James I., was
particularly attached to the same neighbourhood, and
came sometimes to Newark, and frequently to Newstead
Abbey. Bad times followed, and at the last royal chase
which history has recorded, after all the merry meetings
that had gone before, Charles I. was himself the quarry.
SHERWOOD FOREST, 21
On the 16th of August, 1645, the king was at Welbeck
House with a flying army. From thence he went to
Southwell, and not long after to the scaffold.
" Many of the woods of the forest were at this time
destroyed, and during the Protectorate the privileges of
the forest were vested in the keeping of several of the
more important local gentry, who, with few reservations,
enjoyed full liberty of destruction. Thorston, the historian
of Nottinghamshire at that period, says, ' The state of the
forest at this present consists of a warden, his lieutenant,
and his steward, a bow-bearer and a ranger, four verderers,
twelve regarders, four agisters, and twelve keepers or
foresters in the main forest ; besides these are now four
keepers in Thorney Woods ; . . . they are all reduced
under the Chief Forester, the Earl of Chesterfield, and
his heirs.' "
In connection with interesting facts relative to the
history of Robin Hood, he states what more closely
concerns the subject of our study, that the area of Sher-
wood Forest was about 100,000 acres, and "that this mag-
nificent deer forest was not all of one monotonous character,
like some of the deer forests of Scotland, but diversified
and picturesque, partly in timber, partly in extensive
tracts of greensward, heather, and gorse or broom. The
green and gold livery of the outlaws was taken from the
two prevailing colours of the forest in the early summer
when the campaign began, — the green of leaves and the
gold of blossoming gorse and broom.
During winter the outlaws lived secluded in the recesses
of Cresswell Crags and Markland Grips, near Welbeck
Park. These cavernous rocks are little inferior to those
of Matlock Dale, and their deep clefts formed natural
strongholds extremely difficult to approach."
In another article in the same Journal (Vol. i. page
256), it is stated: —
" Many perambulations of this forest were made in dif-
ferent reigns ; one in the 28th of Edward I., another in
22 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the 30th of Henry VIII., and a third in the 14th of
Charles II. The forest is described in a survey made in
1009, as being divided into three parts or districts, called
the north, south, and middle parts. The whole quantity
of ground was as follows according to that survey:—
Inclosures
Woods .
Wastes .
Clipstone Park
Beskwood Park
Bulwell Park
Nottingham Park
A.
R. P.
44,839
1 11
9,48G
0 23
35,080
2 6
89,406
0 0
1,583
1 25
3,672
0 0
326
3 2
129
3 9
95,117
3 36
" According to this survey there were found to be in
1609, 21,000 oak trees in Berkland, and 28,000 in Bilhalgh,
and the trees in general, even at that time, were past
maturity. By another survey in 1686, there were in
Berkland 12,516 trees, and 923 decayed hollow trees, and
in Bilhalgh 21,080 trees, and 2,797 hollow trees. By a
survey in 1797, there were in Berkland and Bilhalgh
together, only 10,117; these at the time were estimated
at £17,147, 15s. 4d., so that in seventy-seven years (from
1609 to 16S6) 2,593 trees had been cut down, and in 104
years (from 1686 to 1790) 27,199 trees were so dealt with,
but in so long a period many may have been laid low by
the effects of the wind."
The whole histor}7-, I had almost said of every park in
the Sherwood Forest, is full of romance, comprising much
beside what relates to Robin Hood ; and scarcely can a
volume, great or small, which treats of it, be opened but it
is found teeming with details of romantic incident, all of
SHERWOOD FOREST, 23
them historical, or founded on history written or traditional.
The temptation is strong upon me to break bounds and
cite one and another of the tales of romance associated
with this forest ; but I may not.
The following details are given from an article entitled
Sherwood Forest, and some of its more Notable Trees, which
appeared in the Journal of Forestry for 1881 [vol. v.,
pp. 385-399, 457-472], by Mr Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A.,
illustrated richly with ballad lore, reproductions of old
cuts, and modern plates.
" But few of our old forests can compare in point of
historical importance and legendary interest with 'merrie
Sherwode,' whose picturesque features have for ages proved
a prolific source of subjects for the pencils of artists of all
classes to delineate, and formed a never-ending theme for
innumerable prose writers and poets to dilate upon, while
its various characteristics have tempted scientific men into
long disquisitions, and found food for ballad-mongers of
all periods.
" Originally a royal forest, and one of the proudest of the
proud possessions of the Crown, Sherwood, or Shirewood,
was of vast extent, and second in importance for its timber
and its deer to none in the kingdom, while various events
and scenes enacted within its boundaries give it an histo-
rical interest, that in some points raises it above most
other localities. In dimension it at one time covered an
area of some twenty-five miles one way, by eight or ten the
other, and embraced within its boundaries monasteries,
townships, and knightly seats. At one of its extremities
was Nottingham, where kings and princes stayed, c nobles
did congregate,' and sheriffs swayed despotic power ; at
another was Mansfield, 'a favourite hunting-seat of the
kings of Mercia,' and where, later on, a royal palace was
built, and royal court held ; and Worksop, and a score
other places of interest were included within, or closely
adjacent to, its confines.
" The name of Sherwood or Shirewood is, there can be
24 THE FORESTS OP ENGLAND.
no reasonable doubt, derived from the open-air assemblies,
or folk-moots, or witenagemotes of the shire, being there
held in primitive times, and this is well borne out by the
fact of the village of ' Shireoaks ' taking its name from an
enormous oak tree, the Shire Oak, under which the folk-
moots weie held, and which stood then at the point of
junction of the three counties of Derby, Nottingham, and
York. Under the branches of this tree, it is said, shelter
was found for 230 horsemen. It is curiously described in
Evelyn's ' Sylva.'
" The Nottinghamshire ' moot ' was held under a large
oak in the forest ; and very many instances are on record
of similar trees being used for the moots of other counties.
Thus the ' Shire Oak' of Staffordshire stood by the side of
the road from Lichfield to Walsall, about four and a half
miles from the latter place ; that of Lancashire on ' Sher-
rocks (or Shire Oaks) Hill,' and so on. Then, as recounted
by Gomme, we have ' Shrieves Wood ' mentioned as one
of the boundaries of Clarendon Forest ; and a most im-
portant example, the ' Shyreack/ at Headingly, ki York-
shire, of which it is said, ' mediaeval tradition declares this
to have been the tree under which, in Saxon times, the
shire meetings were held, and from which the name of
Shireoak, or Shyrack, has been imposed upon the Wapen-
take/ and 'the Wapentake of Shireake seems to have
received its name from some such a convention at some
noted oak, or to use a local word, ' Kenspack-ake.'
" What these ' moots ' or shire meetings were, it is not
necessary to my present purpose to inquire into in detail,
but it ma)- be well to say, that at these primitive open-air
assemblies, causes were heard and arranged ; disputes as to
ownership of lands, and what not, settled ; crimes or acts
of violence against the person adjudicated upon; and
indeed all matters that required the voice of freemen to
be heard, arranged. There can be little doubt but that
even in the earliest prehistoric times, some of the stone
circles which still remain to us might have been used for
the purpose, as well as oak or other trees ; and many
SHERWOOD FOREST. 25
records in later days attest the fact of the use of trees
as meeting-places.
" In the Celtic period, the district in which Sherwood
Forest is comprised, formed a part of that division of our
country that was occupied by the Coritani, and some few
remains belonging to that period have, I believe, at one
time or other, been exhumed within what were once its
boundaries. During the Romano-British period, there is
abundant evidence of occupation, for Roman camps have
been discovered in various parts of the forest, and other
remains have been brought to light. Of some of these,
Hayman Rooke furnished an account to the Archceologia .
Among these, were one near Pleasley, 600 yards in length,
by 146 in breadth, of pretty regular form, with its ditches
remaining ; another, which he considered an exploratory
camp, near the east end of his own village of Mansfield
Woodhouse, on an eminence called Whinny Hill ; a third
in Hexgrave Park ; a fourth at a place called Combs,
near the same neighbourhood, and others. Remains of
Roman villas have also been exhumed. Beyond this,
writes Mr Stacye, ' a Roman road appears to have crossed
the forest, branching off from the great Foss Way, pro-
bably at the station named Ad Pontem in the Antonine
Itinerary, which is supposed to have been situated at
Farndon, near Newark. It passed through or near Mans-
field, where Roman coins have been found, and so by the
camp near Pleasley Park to the neighbourhood of Chester-
field, when it would join the road from Derventio, or Little
Chester, near Derby, to the north.
" During Anglo-Saxon times the forest must have been
not only well known, but much frequented, and many
places within its boundaries bear undoubted Saxon names,
and are, indeed, known to have belonged to King Edward
the Confessor, and afterwards become the property of the
Conqueror. Among these, according to Stacye, are ' Mans-
field, Edwinstowe, Warsop, Clune, Carburton, Clumber,
Budby, Thoresby, and others;5 and ' it is worthy of obser-
vation/ he continues, fas regarding the Saxon times, that
2G THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the great battle in which Edwin, the first Saxon king of
Northumbria, was slain, when fighting against Penda, king
of Mercia, and Cadwallader king of Wales, most probably
took place, not as has generally supposed, at Hatfield,
near Doncaster, but at Hatfield in this neighbourhood, and
that his body was buried at the village at this place, which
from that circumstance derived its name of Edwinstowe,
or, the place of Edwin.' Although Sherwood, as a forest,
is not directly named in Domesday Book, many places
comprised within its district are described as portions of
of the kings great manor of Mansfield ; and this circum-
stance of the Crown possessing already so much property
here would greatly facilitate the operation of converting it
into one of the great hunting-grounds of our Norman
sovereigns, who were, most of them, passionately addicted
to the chase. It would thus become a royal forest, and be
brought under the cruel operation of the forest laws, which
punished the least infraction of their injunctions with
the severest penalties, even to the loss of life or limb.
The earliest express notice of the Forest of Sherwood
occurs in the fifth year of King Stephen, in which a
William Peverel, of Nottingham, gave account of £23 6s. 8d.
of the pleas of the forest ; and, next, in the first year of
Kino- Henry II., when William Peverel the younger also
answered respecting the plea of the forest. The elder
William Peverel had charge of the castle of Nottingham,
and held, in all, 162 manors. In Derbyshire he held
twelve manors, and in Nottingham alone he had forty-eight
merchants' and traders' houses, thirteen knights' houses,
and eight bondsmen's cottages, besides ten acres of land
granted to him by the king to make him an orchard, and the
three churches of SS. Peter, Mary, and Nicholas, all three
of which he gave, with their land, tythe, and appurtenances,
by his charter, to the Priory of Lenton.
" In the twelfth year of Henry II., Robert de Caux, of
Cans, Lord of Laxton, a farmer under the Crown, answered
for £20, and in the fifteenth year of the same reign Regi-
nald de Laci for a like sum (pro censu foresto?) under the
SHERWOOD FOREST, 27
then sheriff, Robert FitzRalph. In the ' Foreste Booke
conteyninge the Lawes, Statutes, and Ordinances of the
Foreste of Sherwood in the countie of Nott,' in the pos-
session of Earl Manvers, is preserved a copy of a charter
granted by John Earl of Mortem or Mortyn (afterwards
King John) to Matilda de Caus and her husband, Ralph
FitzStephen, confirming to them and her heirs the office
of chief foresters in the counties of Nottingham and Derby,
and of all the liberties and free customs which any of her
ancestors had ever held. She died in 1233, and was
buried at Brampton, near Chesterfield, where her monu-
mental slab is preserved. It bears her half-figure within
a quatrefoil, and the inscription, ' Hie jacet Matilda de
Caus, orate pro anima ef pat' nos'J She was succeeded in
her office of chief forester by her son and heir, John de
Birkin, and he, in turn, by his son and heir, Thomas de
Birkin, who respectively did homage for this hereditarv
office, and their lands, in the eighth and eleventh years of
King Henry III. A few years later the office devolved
on Robert de Everingham, in right of his wife, Isabel,
daughter of John de Birkin. With Everingham it re-
mained till the time of Edward I., when it was seized by
the Crown as forfeited, and since that time the guardian-
ship of the forest has been conferred upon various persons
of high stations, as a special mark of royal favour.
" In the sixteenth year of Henry III. a survey of Sher-
wood Forest was made by royal commission —
" ' by Hugh Nevil, justice of the forest, and Brian of
the Isle, and others, and the parts that bad been brought
under the forest laws by previous kings, since the beginning
of the reign of Henry II., were disafforested, or set free
from those stringent enactments [of the Charta de Foresta] ;
and the bounds and limits of the forest, still preserved as
such, were clearly stated to be thus defined. These were
fixed ; ' to be firm, and stable, and abide for ever.'
Starting from a place called Conyngswath, i.e., the King's
Ford, the line was drawn by the highway that goeth
towards Welhaugh unto the towne of Welhawe towards
23 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Nottingham, so that the close of the towne of Welhawe is
is out of the forest, from thence by the side way that goeth
betwixt Welhawe and Nottingham unto Blackstone Hau^h,
and from thence unto that place where Doverbeck river
goeth over the side way, and so following the Doverbeck to
where it enters the Trent. Again, starting westward from
Conyngswath by the river Maiden, the boundary follows
the river to Warsop, and from thence by the same stream
to Plesley Have, and from thence to Otterbridge, and from
thence turning by the great highway which leads to
Nottingham unto Milford Bridge, from thence unto
Maidenhead, and from thence betwixt the field of Hard-
wick and Kirkby to a corner called Nuncar, and from
thence by the assart of Iwan Britan unto the Earl's Steigh,
and from thence unto Stolgate, and from thence by the
great highway under the old castle of Annesley, and from
the same castle unto the towne of Linby, passing through
the midst of the towne to the mill of the same place,
situated on the river Leen, and so following that stream
to Lenton, and so to the Trent, where the Leen - entered
by its old course, and so along the river Trent to the fall
of Doverbeck, saving Walhaw Hagh, and other the king's
demesne woods in the countie of Nottingham.' " —
Thoresby MS.
"Another survey of Sherwood Forest was made in 1300,
when the above-named bounds were, under certain stipula-
tions, confirmed. In the ' Forest Book ' in which this is
recorded the following note, which I quote from Mr Staeye,
is appended : —
"'And yt is to understand that the foresaid walks, by
the afore-named walkers, that there are put out of the
forest, the wood of B-oomwood, the towne of Carburton,
with the field of the same ; Owthesland, the towneshippes
of Clumber, Scofton, Reniton, half of the towneshippe of
Btidby, \vth the north fields of the same ; the towneshippe
of Thoressbie, and all the towne of Skegbie, wth the fields
of the same, except a little pcell of the field of the same
SHERWOOD FOREST. 29
towards the east ; all the towne of Sutton-in-Ashfield, with
the fields of the same; and the hamlets adjoyninge the
towneshippe of Bui well, with the wood adjoyninge that is
called Bulwell Rise, and the King's Hay of Wellay. Item,
the wood of the Archbishop of York, that is called Little
Hagh, was disafforested by John of Lithgrows, and after-
wards all the towneshippes aforesaid, wth hedges and
woods adjoining, were put again into the forest by the
aforesaid King Edward, son of King Henry III.'
" The places which, were thus again put into the forest
were parts of the old demesnes of the Crown, even as far
back as the time of Edward the Confessor.
"From an Inquisition of the 35th of Henry III. it appears
that there were within the forest three keepings, viz., the
first between Leen and Doverbeck, the second being the
High Forest, and the third Rumewood ; and that Robert
Everingham, as chief keeper, ought to have a chief servant
sworn, going through all the forest at his own costs, to
attach trespassers and present them at the attachments
before the verderers. In the first keeping he must have
one forester riding, with a page and two foresters on
foot, and there were to be also two verderers and two
agisters ; in this keeping were three hays, or parks, viz.,
Beskwood Hay, Lindby Hay, and Welley Hay. In the
second keeping, or the High Forest, Robert ought to have
two foresters riding, with their two pages, and two foresters
on foot without pages ; and there were to be two verderers
and two agisterers ; in this keeping there were two hays,
viz , Birkland and Billahaugh, and also the park of Clipston,
and in these hays and parks two verderers and two agisters.
In the third keeping, Rumewood, Robert ought to have
one forester on foot, aud there were to be two woodwards,
one for Carburton and another for Budby, also two verd-
erers and two agisters. He ought also to have a page
bearing his bow through the forest, to gather chiminage.
By the same document it is made clear that the hays of
Linby, Birkland, and Billahaugh, and the park of Clipston,
30 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
were often under the immediate keeping of the king's
Justices in Eyre beyond Trent, and that they ought to
have one forester riding alone through all the forest. Also
that the abbot and monks of RufTord, from the time of
Henry II., who granted them the privilege, had liberty to
take vert in their wood, within the reward of Sherwood,
and ' whatsoever was to them needful for their owne use,
and to all their house boote and hay boote, as well as to
all their granges in the forest and without ; and they
might have a forester of their owne to keep their said
wood,' who was to do fealty before the justices of the king,
and to report at the attachments of the foresters and
verderers of the Crown what trees were taken by the said
monks.
"The officers of the forest in later times seems to have
been a ' Lord Warden, Steward, and Keeper of the Forest
of Sherwood,' appointed by letters patent from the Crown;
a Bow-bearer and Ranger ; four Verderers ; a Clerk of the
Forest ; a Steward appointed by the Lord Chief Justice
in Eyre ; a Clerk of the Swainmote and Attachment
Courts ; a Beadle ; nine Keepers appointed by verderers,
one for each of the nine walks into which the forest was
then divided (viz., Newstead and Popplewick ; Langton
Arbour, Blidworth, and High wells ; Kirkby, Sutton, and
Annesley Hills ; Mansfield and Lyndhurst ; Mansfield
Woodhouse and Norman's Woods ; Birkland, Bilhaugh,
and Clipston Skroggs ; Roomwood and Osland ; Blidworth
and Farnsfield ; and Calvert on and Arnold Hill) ; a Wood-
ward for Sutton, and another for Carlton ; and others.'
"Inroads by grants, enclosures, and the like, upon the
old forest lands, and the constant cutting down of trees
for naval, household, building, and carpentering purposes,
have, in later times, taken away the glory of old Sher-
wood, and reduced its confines to very narrow limits.
Still there are at Welbeck, Birkland, Clumber, Thoresby,
and other places, many acres of unalloyed beauty, and
hundreds of trees of surpassing interest and grandeur.
SHERWOOD FOREST. 31
" Sherwood Forest, especially that portion which includes
and surrounds Welbeck and Clumber, has ever been as
famous for the grand and majestic character and the
soundness and high-class quality of its oaks, as for its
picturesque beauties and the peculiar excellence and
abundance of its game. At various periods many of its
best and soundest oaks have been cut down for use in
in public buildings and in other works, but some of its
oldest and finest trees have remained untouched and
unscathed except by time.
"Among gifts of Sherwood timber for public purposes
one of the most interesting was a grant by the then Duke
of Newcastle, to whom Welbeck belonged, of oak trees,
towards the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, after the
great fire of London.
"Connected with the grant of oak trees towards the
rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, his Grace the Duke of
Portland has in his possession an autograph letter of Sir
Christopher Wren. It is as follows : —
' For Mr Richard Neale,
' Steward to His Grace the Duke of Newcastle,
at Welbeck. ' Lond., April 4th, 1695.
' Sir,
'Having in my letter of June 23, 1G95, signified
to you a particular of all the scantlings of the Timber wee
might use in the roofe of St Paules, that His Grace's
noble benefaction might be as usefull as may be to the
worke, and understanding that what is already designed
is none of the Great beams, wch is what wee are most
sollicitous for, and being given alsoe to understand that
wee must expect this season but Ten of the great trees ; I
jDresurne once more to acquaint you with the scantlings of
the great Beames to prevent mistake.
47 feet long, 13 inches and 14 inches at the
small end, growing timber, this scantling to
hold die square, as neer as can be without sap.
32 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
1 Mr Longland, our chiefe Carpenter, will be sent down
this season to take care of this concerne, & the timber
brought down to Bawtrey, whom I desire you to converse
with in particulars wch at this distance I can hardly deter-
mine, and beseech you to present with all advantage our
utmost sence of his Grace's Favour, of wch also I am very
sensible, as becomes
1 Your humble servant,
CER Wren.'"
B. — Epping Forest.
Of Epping Forest, the information immediately follow-
ing, as supplied by a chapter entitled The Forests of
Epping and Hainault, in the anonymous volume entitled
English Forests and Forest Trees, Historical, Legendary ,
and Descriptive, published in 1853, already cited.
" The once very extensive Forest of Epping was formerly
called the Forest of Essex, being the only forest in that
county, the whole of which was anciently comprehended
in it. By a charter of King John, confirmed by Edward
IV., all that part of the forest which lay to the north of
the highway from Stortford to Colchester (very distant
from the present boundaries) was disafforested. The
forest was further reduced by perambulation made in
the year 1640. The boundaries then settled include the
whole of eleven parishes, and parts of ten other parishes.
The extent of the forest is estimated at 60,000 acres, of
which 48,000 acres are calculated to be enclosed and
private property; the remaining 12,000 acres are the
unenclosed wastes and woods.
"As the extent of the forest became abridged, it was at
first called Waltham Forest ; but as the distance between
that town and its outskirts was gradually increased by the
forest-felling hatchet, it borrowed a name of a town more
immediately in its thick recesses, and called itself Epping.
" As is common in ancient forests in the neighbourhood
of man's wants, the trees in many parts of this forest are
EPPIXG FOKEST. 33
dwarfed in height by repeated loppings, and the boughs
spring from the hollow gnarled boles of pollard oaks and
beeches ; the trunks, covered with mosses and whitening
canker-stains, or wreathes of ivy, speak of remote antiquity;
but the boughs which their lingering- and mutilated life
puts forth, are either thin and feeble, with innumerable
branchlets, or are centred on some solitary and distorted
limb which the woodman's axe has spared. The trees
thus assume all manner of crooked, deformed, fantastic
shapes — all betokening age, and all decay — all, despite
of the solitude around, proclaiming the waste and ravages
of man."
In Epping Forest there are, it is mentioned in the
volume cited, but in another connection, several curious
specimens of " inosculated " oaks, exhibiting the singular
mode of growth so designate I, by which two trees are
united together — or a branch crossing a trunk becomes
united to it — a mode of growth, the observation of which,
it is supposed by some, to have first suggested the idea of
grafting.
There are here remains from very remote times of wild
beasts, which here found their lair. In an article in the City
Press it is stated, " The earliest inhabitants of which we find
the remains buried around Epping Forest, are a strange
and curious assemblage. They are not monsters or abor-
tions of Nature, such as the earlier poets and chroniclers
loved to describe as haunting the priscan forests of Britain.
Their graves in the valleys around their old home have
enabled us to repeople the forest scene — the glade, the
thick brakes, the dense woodland, the open plain, the
valley, the river side. And of these sites the glade, the
covert, and the open pasture alike seem to have had their
appropriate occupants. Elks and stags, elephants and
rhinoceroses, bears and bisons, lions and wolves, here found
food convenient for them. The mammoth, or northern
elephant, and her calf would seem to be the chief figures
in the picture, if we may judge from the abundance of
their remains. In the midst of an ample vegetation, with
D
34 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
broad and brimming valleys on three sides of their forest
home, these varied and interesting forms of animal life
lived and flourished for untold centuries, vastly out-
numbering the early and struggling race of man. The
zoological account of the times which are thus brought
before us and of those which succeeded, relates to three
distinct periods. The first and the second of these periods
are prehistoric, and belong to the so-called Stone Age in
South-Eastern Britain. But although named prehistoric,
these times, as we shall see, are far richer than the suc-
ceeding historic age in the variety and character of the
animal life they have bequeathed to us. They were of
vastly longer duratioD. Everything favoured the multi-
plication and perpetuation of animal life, and the conse-
quence has been a bequest of memorials in the form of
the remains of the animals themselves, of which — great as
are the discoveries of the past quarter of a century — we
at present can form no estimate. Indeed, the stores of
fossil relics which have so far been recovered are probably
but the beginning of a vast national museum and of
innumerable private collections in the future."
Some of the caves in which such remains are found
are places of popular resort by holiday visitors to the
forest. One of the localities is the Danes' Holes and
Turpins Cave, of which the same writer says : —
" The ancient British troglodyte, returning to his native
land, would still find ample underground dwellings ready
for his use. Indeed, the caves of Essex are among the
oldest and most interesting of its antiquities. The myste-
rious subterranean chambers in Hanging Wood not only
tempt the footsteps of the Saturday afternoon rambler to-
day ; for centuries they have sorely perplexed the anti-
quaries who have examined them. The central shaft down
which we descend some 60 or 80 ft. deep; the wide
chambers at the base in which we find ourselves as we
peer into galleries around — supposing our light not to
have been extinguished, and our breathing to have been
EPPIXG FOREST. 35
unimpeded by the stagnant air ; the skeletons of the ferce
natures of the forest, unlucky victims of these fateful traps,
which crack beneath our feet as we tread the dubious
floor and cautiously venture into the gloom — all these lend
romance to the descent into these ancient caverns. Such
are the mysterious ' Danes' Holes,' as they are called by
the peasantry around — sacred and safe places of refuge for
the scared inhabitants at the time when old sea-rovers,
the predatory Siguards and Thonds, were wont to ravage
the shores of the Thames. To-day these immemorial
( earthworks/ if we may so call them, have yielded up their
secrets. The archaeologist has at length learned the objects
of their excavators. Suffice it for the present that even
Tropin's Cave in Epping Forest, as viewed by antiquarian
eyes, can scarcely rival the ' Danes' Holes ' in interest. This
is not, nor ever was, a subterranean cavern. It is an open pit.
The roof of wattles and boughs has long since vanished,
but once they sheltered the most renowned of modern
knights of the road, when the inns of Epping— those
favourite haunts of the highwaymen of the .Newmarket
road at the beginning of the eighteenth centuary — were
closed to his visits. Such at least are the cherished
traditions of the old settlers round the forest. Certain it
is that the memory of Turpin is cherished at Epping, as
at Chadwell Heath. Turpin's Cave is as much one of the
exhibitions of Epping Forest as Turpin's Oak is of Fiuchley
Common ; and who shall begrudge to the admirers of each,
in these unromantic and prosaic days, the indulgence of
their tastes !
The essential character of a forest, in legal and technical
phrase, we have found to be its being a Royal hunting-
ground ; and we have mediaeval records of Epping Forest
being so used, and notices of permission to make such
use of it at specified times being, by Royal favour, granted
to the citizens of the metropolis.
The first circumstantial mention of the rights of the
City of London is in a charter of Henry L, and in this
& THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
mention is made of the privilege of hunting in Chittro,
Middlesex, and Surrey; but their rights were afterwards
compounded for by " a day's frolic at Epping."
u Henry III. granted a privilege, in 122G, to the citizens
of London to hunt once a year, at Easter, within a circuit
of twenty miles of their city. In the olden times, there-
fore, the lord mayor, aldermen, and corporation, attended
by a due number of their constituents, availed themselves
of the right of chase ' in solemn guise.'
u By the close of the sixteenth century, however, the
citizens had discontinued to a great extent the pastime,
not for want of taste for it, says Stowe, but of leisure to
pursue it. Strype, nevertheless, so late as the reign of
George I., reckons among the modern amusements of the
Londoners, ' riding on horseback and hunting with my
lord mayors' hounds when the common hunt goes out.'
This common hunt of the citizens is ridiculed in an old
ballad called ' the London customs,' of which we have
selected the following stanzas :
' Next once a year into Essex a-hunting they go,
To see 'em pass along, 0, 'tis a most pretty show !
Through Cheapside and Fenchurch Street, and so to Aldgate pump,
Each man's with 's spurs in 's horse's sides, and his back-sword cruiS
his rump.
My lord he takes a staff in hand to beat the bushes o'er ;
I must confess it was a work he ne'er had done before.
A creature bounceth from a bush, which made them all to laugh ;
My lord he cried, A hare ! a hare ! but it proved an Essex calf.
And when they had done their sport, they came to London where they
dwell,
Their faces all so torn and scratch'd, their wives scarce knew them well ;
For 'twas a very great mercy so many 'scaped alive,
For of twenty saddles carried out, they brought again but five.'
" Always attentive to the means of ingratiating himself
with the Londoners, towards the close of his reign
Edward IV. invited the principal citizens to hunt with
him in his forest of Waltham ; a feast was spread for them
Under green bowers, and the courteous monarch refused
EPPING FOKEST. 37
to sit until he saw his guests served. With his usual gal-
lantry towards the fair sex, he admitted them into a
participation of the favours conferred upon their male
relations; sending to the lady mayoress and her sisters,
the aldermen's wives, two harts, six bucks, and a ton of
wine, with which, we are told, they made merry in
Drapers' Hall.*
The Epping Hunt was long entirely discontinued, as
it had for many years become a mere pretext for a holiday
to all the idle, dissolute, vagabond ish people of London.
In fact, there was no hunt. A deer was carted about from
one public-house to another, the spectators gazing at the
deer, and the deer gazing at the spectators, and the
keepers drinking ale and eating beef until they could
neither drink nor eat any more, when the stag was turned
out and was soon captured, and the hunt was over. But
the day's sport was not over ; for there was always an
( adjournment,' after the running down of the stag, which
resulted in late suppers, parabolical movements homewards,
and dreadful headaches in the morning. The following
graphic account of a modern Cockney sport we give from
the Illustrated London News.
" The Epping Hunt, on Easter Monday, brings back
many recollections of the good old days of suburban sports,
when the Nimrods of the metropolis we it forth, as in the
earlier days of Chevy Chase,
1 To hunt the deer with hound and horn,'
and gathered in host$ as numerous in Epping Forest as
did the borderers of Northumberland on the warlike
frontiers of Scotland. Fortunately the sportsmen of the
metropolis were not so pugnacious, or at least not so blood-
thirsty, as their northern predecessors ; for though it must
be admitted that on more occasions than one the pleasures
Fabian ,
38 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
of the chase were diversified by a pugilistic encounter or
two, arising from too vehement a desire to excel in the
display of horsemanship, or from the resentment of indig-
nation at being unhorsed and laughed at in the ardour of
the pursuit, the combatants were never seriously injured,
and a couple of black eyes and a bloody nose corrected the
exuberance of momentary excitement, and restored the
parties to reason. Easter Monday was a glorious day, not
only for that class of sportsmen with which, in the days
alluded to, Whitechapel and the northern districts of
London abounded, but to the whole class of bold riders
from every part of the town who could procure any thing
in the shape of a horse to ' carry them up to the hounds ;'
and fortunate, perhaps, it was for some of the quadrupeds
employed for that purpose that the hounds were tolerably
well fed, or for the moment more anxious for sport than
food, or it is much more than probable that the living-
carrion which constituted on these occasions a large portion
of the ' field' would have furnished a hearty meal for the
canine participants in the ' day's diversion.' But be this
as it may, the sportsmen from Whitechapel were on this
eventful day joined by the sportsmen from all other parts
of London and Westminster. On that occasion even the
peripatetic commercials from Duke's Place and the regions
of St Mary Axe were seen mounted on capering steeds
careering to the scene of action, through Houndsditch, as
triumphant as Mordecai when honoured by Hainan in the
palmy days of their Hebrew ancestors. Tothill-fields — or,
in the sporting phrase, Tothill-downs — sent its contribu-
tion of ' rough-riders' to the chase ; and many a gallant
Rosinante, reserved for a season from the inexorable pole-
axe of the knackers of Loman's Pond and Bermondsey,
left the studs of the late Bill Gibbons and the celebrated
Caleb Baldwin to make use of their last legs in the forest-
glades of Epping. But it was not only on horseback that
the Acta3ons of that day made their way to Fairmead
Bottom — the ' venue,' as the lawyers call it, or the ' meet,'
as the mighty hunters before the Lord pronounce the
EPPING FOREST. 39
locality of the commencement of the chase. It was in a
vast variety of conveyances that the anxious and impatient
mobs wended their way to that beautiful spot in the forest,
Fairmead Bottom, to see the deer let loose from the cart,
and join in the labours of his re-capture or death. There
was a pleasing diversity of vehicles employed, and in
motion from day-break, and long before the rosy-fingered
morn unbarred the turnpike of Phoebus. There were
then to be seen in long and rapid succession the Corinthian
teams of the noble and rich, the 'heavy drag' of the more
bulky and less opulent sportsmen, the four-in-hand, and
the hackney-coach ; the ' go-cart' and the cart that was
1 no-go ;' the capacious omnibus of modern interpolation
was then not known, or in its neophytic state as a fly-
waggon, rolled heavily over Lea Bridge with a load of
foresters anxious for the chase and the sylvan honours of
the glades.
1 Some pushed along with four-in-hand,
Whilst others drove at random,
In curricle, dog-cart, whisky, one-
Horse chaise or tandem.'
The Eagle at Snaresbrook presented at an early hour a
busy scene. The large pond in the immediate neighbour-
hood was well calculated to quench the thirst and cool the
flanks of the 'locomotives,' and the fluids supplied by the
landlord added fresh vigour to the drivers and riders of
the same. This was a half-wav rendezvous of the engines
and engineers, and here all bavins: recruited their strength,
and confirmed their resolution of being in at the 'take,'
proceeded to the well-known Eald-face Stag, the 'where-
abouts ' of ' Thomas Rounding/ Esq., huntsman in ordinary
and also extraordinary of the day. Here Tom was to be
seen in all his glory. His hunting-cap and coat, his
buckskin-breeches and top-boots, mounted on the horse
that had borne him through the toils of many a busy day.
He was — for alas ! he has been gathered to his fathers and
grandfathers for some time — a famous fellow in his day.
His acquaintance with the forest was as intimate as the
40 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
knowledge of a pickpocket with the labyrinth of the
Seven Dials.
' He knew each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle and bushy dell of those wild woods,
And every rocky bourne from side to side, —
His daily walks and ancient neighbourhood.'
And he had need of all his knowledge on Easter Monday
to keep his sylvans in order, prevent his hounds from being
crushed to mincemeat by the feet of the horses and the
wheels of the carriages, and rescue the deer from ultimate
destruction, or premature capture, from the entanglement
of actual lanes of men, women, children, quadrupeds,
bipeds, carts, coaches, cars, &c, &c.
" The animal, on being released from the cart in the
ordinary way. usually made its way for the thickest part uf
the forest, as if conscious that some hundreds of the pur-
suers would very soon be unable to thread their way
through the intricacies of the ground ; and such was the
case. All four-wheeled and all two- wheeled carriages
were very soon put hors de combat. 'What shall he have
that kills the deer ? ' was a question that in a very few
minutes became of personal interest to very few persons.
It was not long before
'A chosen few alone the sport enjoyed ;'
and as the c chase' increased, a series of accidents was
inevitable : some fell from their horses; many horses fell
from their riders ; some wrere eugulphed in mud and mire ;
some were knocked 'up,' others were knocked 'down ;' and
before half-an-hour had elapsed, not a tithe of the original
4 field ' were to be seen in the forest. The deer had a
trick, which was to some peculiarly annoying, though
others thought it capital fun : he would betake himself to
one of the herds of his own species grazing in the forest,
and then, instead of one quarry, the hounds and hunters
had their choice of a score or two which to pursue. Here
was perplexity, and that not a little increased by the
hallooing of Tom Rounding, the yelping of dogs, the
EPPDs'G FOREST. 41
cursing of men, the cracking of whips, and the blowing of
horns,
' All this discordance, this discord,
Harmony not understoci.
was at length amended by the skill of Tom Bounding;
who managed by some means or other tc get a part :
his pack upon the scent or track of the right deer, and the
animal was, for the most part, ultimately driven to I
when, after a contest with the dogs, he was secured, and
taken back to the place from whence he came, not to
immediate but to ultimate execution, i - another day's
sport at a subsequent anniversary. All this was followed,
and indeed accompanied, by eating, drinking, singing,
speechifying, and so forth ; and if no great encouragement
to stag-hunting in its more legitimate sense, it was the
means of amusement to hundreds of people, excited mirth
and merriment, enforced good-fellowship, and furnished
good exercise and diversion."
A hunt with more dignity, perhaps, was he! I in c ::nec-
tion with the opening of Epping Foi m Queen,
when formally declared a people's park.
An old tradition asserts that Henry Till, was hur~ _
in Epping Forest at the time of the execution of his
second wife, Anne Bolevn. We give the tale as related
by Dr Xott in his lAft of Surrey. ' On the fatal morning
Henry went to hunt in Epping Forest : and while he v
at breakfast his attendants observed thai nxious
and thoughtful. But at length they heard the report of
a distant gun — a preconcerted signal.
" • Ah ! it is done ! ' cried he, starting up ; ' the business
is done ! Uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the
sport.' "
In the evening he returned gaily from the ; and
on, the following morning he married Anne's maid of
honour, Jane Seymour.
42 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
C. — Dean Forest.
" The Royal Forest of Dean,"' according to a paper in the
Journal of 'Forestry (vol. v. p. 689-699, 761-776), " situ-
ated in the south-western angle of the county of Gloucester,
adjoining Hereford and Monmouthshire, like most of our
ancient Chaces, boasted in olden times of a far more
extended range than it at present commands, though in
this respect it has perhaps suffered less than any of its
greater relatives : the river Severn on the east, the Wye
on the west, and the Leaden on the north and north-east
formed its natural boundaries, while the line of the high-
way from Newent to "Ross, following the most convenient
level in the gap between the Leadon and the Wye,
defined its almost equally natural limits on the north and
north-west,
" Speaking broadly, it comprised the upland country
within the three rivers ; a triangular area with its apex
at Beachley below Chepstow, where the Wye discharges
its stream into the Severn, and its base extending from
Ross through Newent to Gloucester. It was famous for
its iron mines and oaks in the days when the Caesars held
sway in Britain ; when the illustrious Second Legion, after
building the massive stone walls and crates of Gloucester
(Glevum), was pushed forward into the heart of the
territory of their ever- restless foes, the fierce Silures, and
entrenched at Caerleon-upon-LTsk (Isca Silurum), where
it was stationed for three hundred years, to stop the
devastating raids made by the warlike and unconquerable
border tribes of Wales upon the fat and fertile Severn
valley and the rich western slopes of the Cotswolds, within
the Roman pale.
" In A.D. 4*20 the eagles of Rome finally retired : the
coins of Claudius, Gallienus, Yictorinus, Domitian, Nerva,
and Trajan, found in extraordinary numbers at Whitchurch,
Bollitree, Lydney, Coppet Wood Hill, at Lydbrook, Perry
Grove, and Crab Tree Hill: the vast mounds of cinders
DEAX FOREST. 43
near their old iron workings, and the marvellous paved
highways which still form the principal thoroughfares,
remain to tell us of the importance and prosperity of the dis-
trict as far back as the commencement of the Christian era.
" The chain of detached earthworks commencing with
the lines of circumvallation which enclose the promontory
of Beachley, the camp and entrenchments on the high
lands of Tidenham Chase, then the camp near Bearse
Common, terminating in the triple ramparts across the
neck of Symonds Yat, generally believed to be portions of
the great barrier known as Offa's Dyke, thrown up by that
king to prevent the invasion of his territory of Mercia by
f the wylde Welshe menne,' bring us up to the year 760.
" The chronicles of Florentius Yigorniensis tell of an
invasion by 'the Pao-an Pirates,' under Ohterus and
Hroaldus, who, sailing up the Sabrina '.Severn), incon-
tinently carried off the good Bishop Cymelgeac from the
pleasant mead of Yreeneheld fArchenfield; in the year of
grace 912, whom King Edward ransomed fur forty pounds
of silver. But it is in Domesday Book that we come upon
the first undeniable record of the Forest of Dean — ' has
tras c ce*sit rex E. quietas a gddo pro forestd custocV —
and Edward the Confessor having thus exempted this
forest from the payment of the Damgeld, it remained free
from taxation under the dominion of the Conqueror.
Already a Royal Chace, it became a favourite resort of the
first of our Xorman kings ; and it was while hunting in it
in the year 1069 that William received the news of the
invasion of Yorkshire by the Danes. Pioused to furv by
the tidings, he swore with a tremendous oath that not one
Northumbrian should escape his revenge, an oath which
he put into prompt and terrible execution.
"Between the years 1120 and 1135 the Castle of St.
Briavels was built by Milo Fitz- Walter, first Earl of Here-
ford, who appears to have been also the first Constable of
St. Briavells and Warden of the Forest of Dean. In a.d.
1140 the Abbey of Flaxley was founded by Roger, the
Earl's eldest son, who named it ' The Abbey of St. Mary
44 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
de Dene ;' Henry II. subsequently confirmed the institution,
and granted to the monks the right of grazing their cattle
and feeding their hogs in the woods, with permission to
use the timber for repairing their buildings, and to set up
and maintain an iron forge. A little later on the same
Sovereign gave permission to the Abbot of Flaxley to have
both an itinerant and a stationary forge, with wood for
fuel ; the two consumed more than two of the largest oaks
weekly, and to stop this devastation the king gave to the
Abbey 872 acres of woodland, known to the present day as
* Abbot's Woods/ Quite recently Mr E. Crawshay pur-
chased from the present holders of Flaxley Abbey ' the
vert/ and from the Government ' the Yenison ' (hunting
rights), of this estate, which has thus ceased to be the pro-
perty of the Crown.
" The Itinerary of King John shows that he visited St.
Briavels on November loth, 1207, and this, and other
places within the forest bounds, on no less than sixteen
occasions in the following years, his last visit being to
Flaxley on December 11th, 1214. From this date we get
in Bigland's County History a list of the f Constables and
Wardens' in almost unbroken succession: —
A.D.
1215 17 King John John de Monmouth
1260 44 Henry III. Robert Waleran
1263 47 ,, John Giffard (Baron)
1263 47 ,, Thomas de Clace
1282 12 Edward I. William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick
1289 19 ,, John de Bottourt (deprived)
1291 21 ,, Thomas de Everty
1298 27 ,, John de Handeloe
1300 29 ,, Ralph de Abbenhalle
1307 1 Edward II. John de Bottourt (restored)
1308 2 ,. William de Stanre
1322 15 ,, Hugh le Despenser (senior)
1327 18 ,, John de Xyvers
1327 20 ,, John de Hardeshull
1341 14 Edward III. Roger Clifford (Baron)
1391 14 Richard II. Thomas de Woodstock, Duke of
Gloucester
1436 14 Henry VI. John, Duke of Bedford
1459 38 „ John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester
DEAN FOREST.
A.D.
1466
6 Edward IV.
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick
1612
9 James I.
Henry, Earl of Pembroke
1632
10 Charles I.
Philip
1660
1 Charles II.
Henry Lord Herbert of Raglan, Duke of
Beaufort
1700
5 Queen Anne
Charles, Earl of Berkeley
1706
9
James ,,
1736
S George 11.
Augustus, , ,
175.5
•27
Xorborne Berkeley, Lord Bottetourt
1760
1 George III.
Frederick Augustus, Earl of Berkeley
1814
54
Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort
1838
2 Victoria
The Chief Commissioner of Woods and
Forests
45
" During the long reign of Henry III. pasturage was
granted to the men of Rodley, who also in common with
the king's people might hunt the boar. Commouage was
likewise given to the Abbot of Flaxley. The bailiwick of
Dean Magna was granted to Walter Wither. The men of
Awre were allowed, by custom, pasturage in the forest;
those of Rodley, estover, dead and dry wood, with pannage
and food for cattle as well.
"In A.D. 1282, the twelfth year of Edward I., a formal
perambulation of the forest was made, and the boundaries
were then precisely those which we have already described,
although there seem to have been some few freehold pro-
perties within the bounds. About this date the Abbot of
Gloucester purchased 36 acres of land in Hope Alaloysell,
held by Gilbert and Julian Lepiatte, receiving also the
gift of all the lands of Thomas Dunn in the same parish.
The most ancient of the justice seats for these parts sat
the same year at Gloucester Castle. By its proceedings we
learn that upwards of 72 tl Forgece err antes]' or movable
forges, were found here ; that the Crown licensed them at
the rate of 7s. a year ; that a miner received one penny or
the worth of it in iron ore, for each load brought to any of
the king's ironworks, but if conveyed out of the forest the
peDny was paid to the Crown, and that in those cases where
a forge was farmed 46s. was charged. No less than 59
mines were let at this time to Henry de Chaworth, who
had besides forges at work in the forest.
46 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
u In this reign, probably at the time of this first peram-
bulation (inasmuch as the boun igned to the forest in
the document* we are referring to were those known to
have prevailed at that time, but to have been considerably
diminished soon afterwards), the kiDg confirmed the
charters and privileges of the foresters, which were even
then regarded as ancient : — ' Bee it in minde and remem-
brance what yc customs and franchises hath been that
were granted tyme out of minde, and after in tyme of the
excellent and redoubted Prince, King Edward, unto the
miners of the Forrest of Deane, and the Castle of St
Briavells.'
"Any free forester might, with the approval of the
king's gaveller, dig for iron ore or coal where he pleased,
and have right of way for carrying it, a third part of the
profits going to the king, whose gaveller called at the
works every Tuesday, ' between mattens and masse.'
Timber was allowed for the use of the works above and
below ground.
" The same document alludes to ' the Court of the
Wood ' at the c Speech ' (the Speech-house on the hill in
the King's Walk) before the verderers, and also to the
court for debtors at St Briavell's Castle, and the Mine
Court held by the Constable, Clerk, and Gaveller, and a
jury of miners.
" The forest oath was taken by ' swearing upon a stick
of holly,' and no stranger or professional advocate could
plead in the forest courts : — ' And there the debtor, before
the Constable and his Clarke, the Gaveller, and the miners,
and none other folke to plead right, but onely the miners
shall bee there, and hold a sticke of holly, and then
the said myner demanding the debt shall putt hisjiand
upon the sticke, and none others with him, and shall
sweare.'t
* The document referred to is " The Miners' Laws and Privileges," published 1667.
t Extract from " The Book of Dennis."
DEAN FOREST. 47
"A record of the perambulation made in 1302 is pre-
served in the Tower of London, by which it appears that
the forest had shrunk into very much narrower limits,
which no longer extended from ChepstowT by Monmouth
to Ross, and from Beachley by Gloucester to Newent, but
had retreated on the north to somewhere about the line of
hills from Churcham by Blaisdon Edge, Huntly Hill,
Longhope and May Hill to Lea, with a still greater
shrinkage on both the south and west, the towns and
villages of Hewelsfield, Alvington, Ailberton, Lydney,
Purton, Box, Rodley, Westbury, Blaisdon, Huntley, Long-
hope, Newent, Tayton, Tibberton, Highnam, Churcham,
and Bulley being no longer included (as they had been)
within the bounds.
" About this time the question was raised as to the
Crown possessing the right of conferring the tithes of the
' assarted' forest lands, not being within the bounds of any
of the adjacent churches, and decided in the affirmative ;
the king, exercising his right, bestowed the tithes upon
the Church of Newlands.
"In the years 1310,1311, 1351, 1319, and 1355 the
foresters were summoned to furnish a quota of miners
and archers for the sieges of Berwick ; the unfortunate
border town changed owners no less than sixteen times
between 1174- and 1482, On one occasion 96 men went
up to do military service ; on another 200 were ordered to
Northallerton, and ' 20 of the strongest miners in the
bailiicick of St Briavells ' to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. John
de Abbenhall held his bailiwick by the service of guarding
it with bows and arrows.
" In 1333 Parliament confirmed the perambulations of
26 and 28 Edward I., which reduced the forest to the
limits which, with some slight exceptions, remained in
force till within the last fifty years. At this time the
forest was farmed to one Guy de Brien, and the pay of the
warden was one hundred shillings a year.
" In 1450 the king's lands, manors, castles, and other
possessions therein were granted to Henry, Duke of
THE FOREST- OF ENGLAND.
Warwick, for £100 annual rental. The singular perquisite
of a bushel of coal, worth twenty pence, from each pit at
the end of every six weeks, was now attached to the office
of ' Capital Forester of all the Foresters.'
••After the battle of Edgecote, 26th July 1469, Earl
Kivers (the father of Elizabeth Woodville, recently
married by Edward IV., to the great offence of most
of his subjects) and his son, Sir John Woodville, fled
hither, but were captured and carried to Northampton
and executed.
•■ Edward VI. farmed the forest to Sir Anthony Kingston.
"In 1012 the Earl of Pembroke received a grant,
entitling him to cut 12,000 cords of wood yearly, for
twenty-one years, at 4s per cord, and the lordship of the
whole Forest of Dean, with the Castle of St Briavels, &c,
for forty years, at the yearly rent of £S3 ISs. 4d.
'• In lfjlo an order dated 28th January was made,
limiting the privileges of foresters to dig for ore, and
they were henceforth ' out of charity and grace, and
not of right,' to dig for mine, ore, and cinders ; the latter
were the ashes or refuse left by a former race of iron
manufacturers, whose skill was too limited to effect more
than the separation of a portion of the metal, but which
the improved methods beginning to be introduced turned
to good account."'
St Briavelis, of which mention has been made, was
built for the residence and defence of some of the lords-
marchers. St Briavelis, formerly a place of some
importance, is now a village. Its inhabitants enjoyed
some singular immunities, which are now obsolete ; but
they have still a right of common in Hudknoll's Wood, a
tract of land on the banks of the Wye seven miles long.
They are supposed to enjoy the privilege through the per-
formance of a strange ceremony on Whitsunday. Each
inhabitant pays twopence to the churchwardens, who buy
bread and cheese with the fund, which they cut into small
pieces, and distribute to the congregation immediately
after the service is ended, in the midst of a general
DEAN FOREST. 49
scramble.* They are also allowed to cut wood, but not
timber, in any part of the forest. It is said that a
Countess of Hereford procured for them their privileges by
the performance of a feat similar to that of Lady Godiva.
"Camden informs us that tbe destruction of the Forest
of Dean was prescribed in one of the instructions given to
the Spanish Armada. Evelyn also relates a fact not very
unlike that mentioned by Camden. An ambassador, he
says, in the reign of Elizabeth, was purposely sent from
Spain to procure the destruction, either by negotiation or
treachery, of the oaks growing in it. The same author, in
his Sylva, states that a dreadful hurricane occurred in his
time which caused great devastation among the trees,
'subverting many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating
the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole
regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the conquerer,
and crushing all that grew beneath them. The public
accounts,' he adds, 'reckon no less than three thousand
brave oaks, in one part only of the forest blown down.'
" The population of the Forest of Dean is about eight
thousand, and is almost entirely composed of free miners.
They are a fine, athletic, independent race of men, fond
of boasting that the produce of their own county is
sufficient for all their wants, without being obliged to any
other part of the kindgom. Their chief employment is
mining, in the exercise of which they could formerly earn
more money than any common labourers in England
besides. They have a proverb amongst them, which is
their favourite saying — ' Happy is the eye betwixt the
Severn and the Wye.' "
The salary of the constable of St Briavells, in the reign
of Edward VI., was £9 8s Id per annum, and that of the
keeper, ranger, and beadle, £9 2s 6d each. " The govern-
* At Twickenham and Paddington, and other parishes, it was formerly the custom
to throw bread from the church-steeple to be scrambled for. It is supposed that the
custom was derived from largesses bestowed on the poor by the Romish clergy on
occasion of the festival, and that it has been continued since the Reformation ; and
therefore, since the institution of p»«r-rates, without due regard to ita original object.
E
50 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
ment of the Forest of Dean is vested in a lord warden,
who is constable of the Castle of St Briavells, six deputy-
wardens, four verderers chosen by the freeholders, a
conservator, seven wood- wards, a chief- forester in fee, and
bow-bearer ; eight foresters in fee, a gaveller, and a
steward of the swanimote. The forest is divided into six
walks ; and these officers are empowered to hold a court of
attachment every forty days, a court of swanimote three
times in the year, and another court, called the justice-seat,
once in three years. These courts are held at the Queen's
Lodge, or Speech House, situated nearly in the centre of
the forest. The whole forest is extra-parochial, and its
inhabitants are exempted from rates and taxes, have free
liberty of pasturage, the privilege of sinking mines, and
access to the woods and timber for their works. 150
years ago the six lodges erected for the keepers were the
only houses in the forest ; now the number amounts to
nearly 1500.
In Dean Forest the devastation has been reckless and
wanton, and, latterly, this has been continued through the
demand of the miners' industry of the locality j but here
we have to do only with the olden forms of this.
It greatly abounds in coal and iron-ore ; and iron
appears to have been wrought there both by the ancient
Britons and Romans. In the time of Edward I. there
were seventy-two furnaces in this forest for melting iron ;
and it is related that the miners of those days were very
industrious in seeking after the beds of cinders where the
Romans of Britain had been at work before them, which
remains, when burnt over again, were supposed to make
the best iron. The following historical facts relative to
the forest are worth recording :
" Henry I. gave the tithes of all venison in the Forest
of Dean to the Abbey of Gloucester.
" Henry II. gave to the Abbot of Flaxley for his forge
two oaks every week. Wood was plentiful then, and
monks were bold.
" A forge was granted to Roger de Lacey in the reign
DEAN FOREST. 51
of Henry III. ; and the same king made an order that
none should have an iron forge in the forest without a
special license from the king."
It was in 1069 that William the Conqueror was huntino"
in the Forest of Dean, when he received the first news of
an attack on the city of York by a Danish army, assisted
by the men of Yorkshire and Northumberland, in which
three thousand Normans had been killed. No sooner had
he learned the catastrophe, than he swore, 'by the
splendour of the Almighty/ his favourite oath, that he
would utterly exterminate the Northumbrian people, nor
ever lay his lance in rest, when he had once taken it up,
until he had done the deed. This fearful vow he carried
into effect. A havoc more complete and diabolical was
never perpetrated ; it overpowered men's minds with a
wild horror and wonderment. William of Malmesbury,
who wrote about eighty years after, says, ? From York to
Durham not an inhabited village remained. Fire, slaughter,
CD 7 O J
and desolation made a vast wilderness there, which con-
tinues to this day.' Orderic Vitalis says, that more than
a hundred thousand victims perished.
D. — The New Forest.
From the preceding accounts of different Forests, it may
be gathered that with the specific application made of the
old English term forest, to a royal hunting-ground of great
extent — a use not unknown in the use made of the corres-
ponding term in other languages of Europe, but different
from the use generally made of the term at the present
day — a forest may present a very different aspect from
such extended stretches of woodland, almost entirely
covered with trees, as are met with on the Jura ridge,
between France and Switzerland, on the Suabian Alps,
upon the Upper Rhine, upon the Hartz Mountains in
Germany, and in the more northern regions of Scandinavia,
Finland and Russia.
52 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
England may be described as a richly wooded country ;
but what are seen everywhere are private woods and planta-
tions of limited extent, of great beauty, and widely diffused.
And like unto these are the Crown forests, whatever may
have been their condition a thousand years ago, when not
only they, but much, if not all, of the land besides was
much more densely wooded than now.
Most of the forests enumerated by Manwood have entirely
disappeared without leaving behind either historical or
arboreal remains to tell of what they were. But with some
— as is the case with Sherwood Forest — it is otherwise ;
and thus is it with what was at first called the New Forest,
and is called so still, though it has existed from the times
of William the Conqueror, which may now be considered
somewhat remote. And it has associated with it tales not
inferior in interest, though it may be inferior in romance,
to those associated with the old Forest of Sherwood.
Blount tells us " that the New Forest was raised by the
destruction of 22 parish churches, and many villages, and
chapels, and manors, for the space of 30 miles together."
And he alleges that this " was attended with divers judg-
ments on the posterity of William I., who erected it : for
William Rufus was there shot with an arrow, and before
him, Richard, the brother of Henry I.; and Henry, nephew
to Robert, the eldest son of the Conqueror, did hang by
the hair of his head in the boughs of the forest like unto
Absalom."
Of the New Forest, an anonymous writer, whom I have
had frequent occasion to cite, says : — ° Some writers will
not allow any charge of cruelty to be brought against
William the Conqueror for his conduct in making the
New Forest. According to them it was made, not so
much from the desire of hunting, as from state policy
The forest, extending over the south-western part of
Hampshire down to the sea, might be regarded, say these
writers, as a great place of secret rendezvous for the
troops of the Conqueror, should he meditate any atttack
on France, or in the event of any serious insurrection
THE NEW FOREST. 53
among his English subjects, who were sullen and unruly
under the Norrnan sway. This opinion, however, seems
to be ill-founded, for neither William nor his successors
gave the slightest indication of an intention to use the
forest for military purposes ; and the conjecture seems to
have arisen among those who wished to give the Conqueror
a good name and conceal his cruelties, or those who, as
Eapin observes, think that so politic a prince as William
could do nothing without a political end.
M It is certain, however, that William seized an immense
tract of land, which he cleared and converted into a forest,
and which in course of time became extended so that it
was bounded by Southampton Water on the east, by the
Avon on the west, and on the south by the channel of the
Isle of Wight as far as the Needles.
"The New Forest at present contains about 66,291
acres, and extends over a district of 20 miles from north-
east to south-west, and about 15 miles from east to west.
It consists chiefly of open and enclosed woodland, heath,
bog, and rough pasture. 6000 acres are enclosed expressly
for the growth of timber, and about 2000 acres for other
purposes ; so that more than 48,000 acres consist of land
enclosed merely against forest cattle, but not against deer.
These 6000 acres are not all in one place, but scattered
over the forest; the largest enclosure does not exceed 500
acres, and their total number is from 40 to 50. All this
district is subject to the forest laws ; but besides the above
66,000 acres, there are, within the purlieus of the forest,
26,073 acres of freehold property, acquired at various
times, which are not subject to forest law, and whose
proprietors claim certain rights and privileges in the
forest itself.
" This wide expanse — before called Ytene, or Ytchtene,
a name yet partially preserved — was to some extent in-
habited, and fit for the purposes of the chase, abounding
in sylvan spots and coverts ; but it also included many
fertile and cultivated manors, which William caused to be
totally absorbed in the surrounding wilderness, and many
54 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
towns and villages, with no fewer than thirty-six parish
churches. The towns, villages, and ancestrial halls were
all demolished, and the people driven away :
4 The fields are ravish'd from the industrious swains,
From men their cities, and from gods their fanes ;
The levell'd towns with weeds lie covered o'er ;
The hollow winds through naked temples roar ;
Round broken columns clasping ivy twined ;
O'er heaps of ruins stalk'd the stately hind ;
The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,
And savage howlings fill the.sacred quires.' *
" No compensation was made. According to Domesday-
book, 108 places, manors, villages, or hamlets, suffered in
a greater or less degree. The traditional names of places
still used by the foresters — such as ' Church Place, ' Church
Moor/ ' Thomson's Castle ' — seem to mark the now solitary
spots as the sites of ancient buildings where the English
people worshipped their God, and dwelt in peace, ere they
were ruthlessly swept away by the Norman. The late Mr
W. S. Rose, who had long held the office of bow-bearer
for the New Forest, was of opinion that the termination
of ham and ton, yet annexed to some woodlands, might be
taken as evidence of the former existence of hamlets and
towns in the forest.
"The historians who lived about the period are not
sparing in their denunciation of the arbitary conduct of
William and the cruel nature of his forest laws.
" Henry of Huntingdon says of William, ' If any one
killed a stag or a wild boar, his eyes were put out, and no
one presumed to complain. But beasts of chase he cherished
as if they were his children (an expression used by other
chroniclers) ; so that to form the hunting-ground of the
New Forest, he caused churches and villages to be de-
stroyed, and driving out the people, made it a habitation
for deer.' And Hollinshed says, in his quaint old way,
'The people sore bewailed their distres, and greatlie
Pope's Windsor Forest.
THE NEW FOREST. 55
lamented that they must thus leave house and home to
the use of savage beasts ; which crueltie not onely mortall
men living here on earth, but also the earth itselfe, might
seeme to detest, as by a wonderful signification it seemed
to declare by the shaking and roaring of the same, which
chanced about the fourteenthe yeare of his reign, as writers
have recorded.'
" On account of the great crimes and cruelties which
William committed in forming this hunting-ground, it was
the universal belief of the people that God would make the
New Forest the death-scene of certaiu of the Norman
king's own relatives or descendants.
" The first of the Conqueror's blood who met with his
death in the New Forest was Richard, his second son in
order of birth, but whom some make illegitimate. He was
gored to death by a stag as he was hunting. l The judg-
ment of God,' say the old English annalists, ( punished him
in his father's dispeopling of that country.' The next was
William Rufus."
Of the circumstances connected with the death of Wil-
liam Rufus, a graphic account is given in the chronicle of
William of Malmsbury, who was born about 1090 and died
1143, and who must therefore have been alive at the time
(1100) that it occurred. It pertains not to my design to
quote his details. Let it suffice that I state that a stone
was erected long afterwards on the spot on which it is
alleged that Rufus fell, with the following inscription com-
memorative of the fact : —
" 1. Here stood the oak on which an arrow shot by Sir
Walter Tyrrell at a stag glanced and struck King William
the Second, surnamed Rufus, in the breast, of which he
instantly died, on the 2d August, A.D. 1100.
" 2. King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, being
slain, as is before related, was laid in a cart belonging to
one Purkess, and drawn from hence to Winchester, and
was buried in the cathedral church of that city.
"3. a.d. 1745. That the place where an event so
56 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
memorable had happened might not be hereafter unknown,
this stone was set up by Lord John Delawar, who has seen
the tree growing in this place."
There is an old tradition in the forest that the body of
William was found by a poor charcoal-burner named
Purkess, living in a miserable hut in the forest, and that
he placed it on such a rude cart as was then in use in those
days and took it to Winchester. As a reward he received
a grant of a few acres of land around his house or hut.
His descendants remained in possession of this little pro-
perty until a few years ago, never rising above the posses-
sion of a horse and cart. In the hut a piece of wood was
preserved, said, with the most glaring shew of improbability,
to be part of one of the wheels of the cart that conveyed
the royal body. When George III. visited the forest he
wanted to see this relic ; but he was told it was lost ; the
probability being that the keeper of the hut had some
scruple of conscience about deceiving the king.
The ancient boundaries of the New Forest included the
whole of that part of Hampstead which lies between
Southampton Water on the east, the British Channel on
the south, and the River Avon en the west. By a peram-
bulation on the 22d of Charles II. it was ascertained that
it extended from Godshill on the north-west to the sea, on
the south-east, about 20 miles ; and from Hardley on the
east to Ringwood on the west, about 15 miles, containing
within these limits 92,362 acres : of these 24,797 belong to
individuals; 901 acres are encroachments; 1192 are en-
closed land in the possession of the master, keepers, &c,
and the remainder, being about 63,845 acres, constitute
the woods and waste lands of the forest.
There are within the precincts of the forest buildings
famous in their day, and famous still : amongst others
Beaulieu Abbey, Netley Abbey, and Hurst Castle, and
each of these has its traditions if not its history.
The most important character of a forest is, as has been
THE NEW FOREST. 57
intimated, the provision contained in it for the semi-bar-
barous amusements of the chase.
" The New Forest has always been celebrated for
its deer, both stag and fallow deer, with which it
once became so overstocked, that in the year 1787
upwards of three hundred of them are said to have
died in one ' walk ' alone. The right of deer-shooting
is now confined to the Lord "Warden and those appointed
by him ; and the annual supply required by that officer is
sixty-four brace ; a few of which are sent to her majesty's
currier and the great officers of the crown, and the rest are
distributed amongst those persons to whom old customs
have assigned them.
" The deer commit great depredations on the corn lands
of the borderers upon the New Forest. When these animals
have gotten a haunt of the corn-lands, the owners of them
are often obliged to burn fires all night for the purpose of
driving them away.
"Several methods are practised by the poachers for
catching the deer : one common way is to bait a hook with
an apple, and hang it from the bough of a tree.
"In the vicinity of Hounds' doon two posts have been
fixed at the distance of eighteen yards from each other, to
commemorate the leap of a stag, who, after receiving a
keeper's shot, collected its dying energies in a bound that
cleared that enormous space."
In addition to those nimble denizens of the forest —
these " native burghers of the wood " — we have the horse,
returned almost to a state of nature. The Rev, W. Gilpin,
in his Forest Scenery, supposes that the peculiar breed of
half-wild horses with which this forest abounds are a race
descended from the Spanish jennets driven ashore on the
coast of Hampshire in the dispersion of the Spanish
Armada.
" The New Forest horses are not bred for size, symmetry,
or any other particular character, but are left, as we may
say, to the general development of all the properties of the
58 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
horse — good or bad, as man may esteem them. These
horses belong to the borderers on the forest, who have
rights of pasturage, or to the cottager. Until they are fit
for the market the New Forest horses are left to shift for
themselves as they best can ; and though they are some-
body's property, they are not property which is cherished
or decently protected. In summer they show that instinct
upon which the domestication of the horse depends, by
associating together in considerable herds ; and as they are
tolerably well fed and correspondingly frisky at this season,
the sight of them scampering about through the forest,
with a freedom and glee quite unknown among home-bred
horses, is exceedingly pleasing. In winter, the scantiness
of the pasture forces them to break up their associations,
and they live dispersedly, generally in the cover of trees
adding the withered leaves, especially the beech, to the
other produce of the soil ; and at this season of the year
they are very shaggy in their appearance, though the
cleanness of their limbs and the fleetness of their move-
ments are not a jot abated. In the humid parts of the
forest they often suffer severely when the winter is
peculiarly inclement, because the withered grass is flooded,
and the frost seals it up under a coating of ice ; but when
they can find their way to the elevated and dry moors,
upon which no trees will grow, they find a winter's repast
in the furze, with which these are covered in all situations
where the soil is of a quality superior to the crag-sand.
" When these forest horses are allowed to run wild till
they are about seven or eight years old, their constitutions
are fully established, and they can undergo much and
severe labour, far beyond the ordinary age of artificially-
reared horses. It is true they are difficult to train ; but
when they are once trained, they are exceeding valuable
— hardy, swift, sure-footed, and seldom, if ever, subject to
disease. In their manners they bear some resemblance to
the wild horses of South America, as described by Sir
Francis Head. The foresters who are employed in cap-
turing them sometimes attempt to take them with a noose
THE NEW FOREST. 59
something after the manner of the guachos ; but their noose
and their mode of using it are very clumsy and bungling
compared with the American lasso." *
The forest borderers have a right to feed their hogs in
the forest during the pannage month, which commences
about the end of September, and lasts six weeks.t The
swineherd, who generally takes charge of a drove of five
or six hundred hogs at once, by feeding them in the first
instance to the sound of a horn, can always collect them
afterwards and prevent their straying by means of the
same rude music. Droves of these most inharmonious
animals are most frequently encountered in Bolderwood
Walk, on account of the profusion of its beech-mast.
Besides those ' seasonal' hosfs, there are wild hogs.
The true New Forest breed of hogs may be said to be
peculiar, and not known, at least generally, even in the
adjoining parts of the southern counties. The usual
account of these peculiar hogs, which are found only in the
uninhabited and thickly-wooded districts of the forest, is,
that they are a ' cross' from the wild boar of Germany,
imported into this forest by Charles I.} Their colour is
generally dark brindled, and sometimes entirely black.
Their ears are short, firm, and erect ; and when they are
excited, there is a fiery glance or glare in the eye. They
are social animals, and are generally seen in small herds,
led on by one patriarchal male. In their pereginations of
the forest they do little mischief, and appear to fear as
little. Their number is now much more scanty than it
once was.
The following graphic account of the swine-herds of the
New Forest is given by the Kev. Mr Gilpin, who spent
the latter part of his life id the town of Boldre, in the
New Forest, where he died in 1804 at the age of four-
* Martin's History of the Horse.
t The right of fattening hogs in this and the other royal forests is very ancient, cer-
tainly anterior to the time of the conquest, but how long anterior we have not the
means of ascertaining. The borderers pay a trifle to the steward's court at Lyndhurst.
♦ The king's experiment of restoring the hunting of the noble game— the wild boar—
was defeated by the wars which broke out between him and the people.,,
60 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
score ; and who published not a few most graphic sketches
of the forest scenery.
" These woods afford excellent feeding for hogs, which
are led in the autumn season into many parts of the
forest, but especially among the oaks and beeches of
Soldre Wood to fatten on mast. It is among the rights
of the forest-verderers to feed their hogs in the forest
during the pasturage month, as it is called, which com-
mences about the end of September, and lasts six weeks.
For this privilege they pay a trifling acknowledgment to
the Steward's Court at Lyndhurst. The word pannage
was the old term for the money thus collected.
" The method of treating hogs at this season of migra-
tion, and of reducing a large herd of these unmanageable
brutes to perfect obedience and good government, is
curious.
" The first step the swineherd takes is to investigate
some close sheltered part of the forest, where there is a
conveniency of water, and plenty of oak or beech-mast,
the former of which he prefers when he can have it in
abundance. He fixes next on some spreading tree, round
the bole of which he wattles a slight circular fence of the
dimensions he wants, and covering it roughly with boughs
and sods, he fills it plentifully with straw or fern.
Having made this preparation, he collects his colony
among the farmers, with whom he commonly agrees for a
shilling a head, and will get together perhaps a herd of
five or six hundred hogs. Having driven them to their
destined habitation, he gives them a plentiful supper of
acorns and beech-mast, which he had already provided,
sounding his horn during the repast. He then turns them
into the litter, where, after a long journey and a hearty
meal, they sleep deliciously.
The next morning he lets them look a little around
them — shews them the pool or stream where they may
occasionally drink — leaves them to pick up the offals of the
last night's meal, and as evening draws on gives them
another plentiful repast under the neighbouring trees,
THE NEW FOREST. 61
which rain acorns upon them for an hour together, at the
sound of his horn. He then sends them again to sleep.
" The following day he is perhaps at the pains of pro-
curing them another meal, with music played as usual.
He then leaves them a little more by themselves, having
an eye, however, on them in the evening hours. But as
their bellies are full, they seldom wander far from home,
retiring commonly very orderly and early to bed.
" After this he throws his sty open, and leaves them to
cater for themselves; and from henceforth he has little
trouble with them during the whole time of their migra-
tion. Now and then, in calm weather — when mast falls
sparingly — he calls them together, perhaps by the music of
his horn, to a gratuitous meal, but in general they need
little attention, returning regularly home at night, though
they often wander in the day two and three miles from
their sty. There are experienced leaders in all herds,
which have spent this roving life before, and can instruct
their juniors in the method of it.
u 1 would not, however, have it supposed that alJ the
swineherds in the forest manage their colonies with this
exactness. Bad governments and bad governors will every-
where exist, but I mention this as an example of sound
policy — not as a mere Platonic or Utopian scheme, but
such as hath been often realized, and as often hath been
found productive of good order and public utility. The hog
is commonly supposed to be an obstinate, headstrong, un-
manageable brute ; and he may perhaps have a degree of
positiveness in his temper. In general, however, if he is
properly managed, he is an orderly docile animal. The
only difficulty is to make your meanings, when they are
fair and friendly, intelligible to him. Effect this, and you
may lead him with a straw.
" Nor is he without his social feelings when he is at
liberty to indulge them. In his first migrations it is com-
monly observed that of whatever number the flock consists,
they naturally separate in their daily excursions into such
little knots and societies as have formerly had habits of
62 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
intimacy together, and in these friendly groups they
range the forest, returning home at night, but in different
parties, some earlier and some later, as they may have
been more or less fortunate in the pursuits of the day.
" It sounds oddly to affirm the life of a hog to be envi-
able ; and yet there is something uncommonly pleasing in
the lives of these immigrants, something at least more
desirable than is to be found in the life of a hog,
JEpicuri de grege ; they seem themselves also to enjoy
their mode of life as one to them perfectly happy, going
about at their ease, and conversing with each other in
short, pithy, interrupted sentences, which are no doubt
expressive of their own enjoyment and their social feelings.
" Besides the hogs thus led out in the mast season to
fatten, there are others, the property of forest-keepers,
which spend the whole year in such societies. When the
mast season is over, the indigeneous forest hog depends
chiefly for his livelihood on the roots of ferns, and he
would find this food very nourishing if he could have
it in abundance; but he is obliged to procure it by so
laborious an operation that his meals are rarely accom-
panied with satiety. He continues, however, by great
industry, to obtain a tolerable subsistance throughout the
winter, except in frosty weather, when the ground resists
his delving snout. Then he must perish, if he do not in
some degree experience his master's care. As spring
advances, fresh grasses and salads of different kinds add
a variety to his bill of fare ; and as summer comes on he
finds juicy berries and grateful seeds, on which he lives
plentifully, till autumn returning brings with it the
extreme of abundance.
" Besides these stationary hogs, there are others in some
of the more desolate parts of the forest which are bred wild,
and left to themselves, without any settled habitation ;
and as their owners are at no expense either in feeding
or tending them, they are content with the precarious
profit of such as they are able to retain." He adds :-—
" Charles I., I have heard, was at the expense of pro-
THE NEW FOREST. 63
curing the wild boar and his mate from the forests of
Germany, which once certainly inhabited the forests of
England. I have heard that they propagated greatly in
New Forest ; certain it is there is found in it at this day
a breed, of hogs, commonly called forest hogs, which are
very different from the usual Hampshire breed, which
have about them several of the characteristics of the
wild boar."
To the lover of birds, whether as a sportsman or a
naturalist, the New Forest is a district of great interest :
for, in consequence of the diversity in the surface and
the vegetation, the note of every bird may be heard, from
the piteous note of the twite — the appropriate bird of
desolation — to the murmuring of the ring-dove, c in
shadiest covert hid/ The moorland places are not
sufficiently elevated for any of the species of grouse,
but the whistle of the plover greets one immediately
after quitting the lonely habitation of the twite ; and
then, as one approaches the mossy bottom, of which there
are several in the forest, the lapwing alternately tumbles
along the earth and twitches through the air, to decoy
the passenger from the habitation of its young. Some of
these birds, which are migrant in other parts of Britain,
are resident summer and winter within the natural district
of the New Forest.
The winter visitants, the survivors of all dimensions and
from all parts of the northern regions, are also plentiful,
when the winter seals up the waters, and drives them
from their native north. Some species which are rare
even in Scotland are found more plentifully here.
By an Act of Parliament, passed in 1857, the right of
the Crown to keep deer in the New Forest was extin-
guished, and compensation in lieu thereof was given.
But more important than the forest pastoral industry,
so pleasingly described by Gilpin, and more important
than the maintenance of game, is the production of timber.
64 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
The Act provides that the deer are to be removed
within two years ; and that the right to keep deer in the
said forest to cease. In lieu of such right Her Majesty is
empowered to enclose not exceeding 10,000 acres, in addi-
tion to the 6000 acres already enclosed ; which enclo-
sures are to remain in severalty in possession of the crown
freed from right of common and other rights. When the
trees within the enclosures are past danger of browsing of
cattle, or other prejudice, such enclosures to be thrown
open, and new enclosures to be made in lieu therof. The
expenses of the enclosures are to be defrayed by sale of
decayed or other trees (not being ship-timber).
"All her majesty's rights are preserved, save as regards
the keeping of deer.
" The Commissioners of Woods and Forests have power
to lease parts of the New Forest ; and her majesty may
grant licenses to sport over it
Of the arboreal condition of this forest, we are supplied
with the following account by Mr A. C. Bishop, iu a
paper in the Journal of Forestry (vol. v., p. 187-192),
entitled " The Ancient Forests of Hants." He writes : —
K ' There has been a time when Britain was well-nigh
covered with forests, and was without human inhabitants.
The elk, the bison, and the wild horse roamed in droves
over the land ; the beaver built in the rivers and fens ;
herds of elephants pastured in the Oxford woods j the bear
and the wolf, even the tiger and hyaena, lurked in the caves
of Devonshire, or infested the Yorkshire wolds ; the whale
gambolled in the waters of the Forth.'
" Such are the opening words of a history which has done
much to place before us a vivid and an accurate picture
of our country in its oldest times. The description suits on
more than one point the southern county which is the
subject of the present paper. Its state, at the time of the
first Roman invasion, was, with the exception of the downs,
one of almost continuous wood. On the thin soil of those
wind-swept heights there are no vestiges of former forests.
THE NEW FOREST. 65
The soft verdure of the Southdown Hills may be in part
derived from the flocks which pasture them, and the sheep
must have followed horned cattle after a long interval,
implying a country at all events partially cleared, and a
state of protection and peace. But though the grass may
have been coarser which first covered them, it appears to
have been their only growth. The ancient Briton, when
he became advanced enough to domesticate cattle, may
have used such spots for their pasture as well as for his
own summer home. But the ordinary hills and the plains
and valleys of Hampshire were one great wood ; even in
the days of the Saxons the Andred Weald is known to
have extended through three counties, with a length of
more than 120 miles, and a breadth of 30. The Norman
invaders found the country still densely wooded.
!C In a list of the Ancient Forests of England, given in
Mr Pearson's Historical Maps, the woods of Hampshire
a]3pear to outnumber those of any other county. Thev
may be considerably diminished in extent, but most of
them exist to this day. Lyss Wood, near Petersfield ;
Axiholt (the modern Alice Holt), and Wulvemere (Wool-
mer) perhaps were as truly portions of one and the same
great forest as Durley and Wigley, Rumberge and Brem-
blewood, Knightwood arid Kingwood, were but divisions of
the New Forest. Beyond Alton came the woods of Odiham,
Pamber, near ' the Vine,' Freemantle, in Kingsclere hun-
dred, and the Fecceswudu and Tadley Wood.
" Following to the south-west came Andover Forest and
Buckholt adjoining ; Wherwell, or Hare wood, lay farther
south, but at no great distance, towards Winchester.
" In the heart of the county were great woods about
Avington ; further to the south-east lay St. Clare's Wood,
near Exton (the Wudu (Erscte probably), and farther to
the south still, the Forest of Bere.
u Kilmiston, or Homceres, or the Hormeswudu, is to be
added to these, extending towards Bishop's Waltham on
the south and northwards to Old Park and Cheriton Wood,
the former a deer forest in the early Norman days, and
F
66 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
probably long before, with the " deer leap," still talked of
on the Common outside the Covert.
" The whole south-western peninsula (if the reader will
take the Avon for the western boundary of it), comprising
more than 90,1. 00 acres, was forest.
" Such was the state of Hants in the Norman days. I
am aware that forest, in the language of the time, meant
rather a Chase, a place excluded from cultivation (from
the Latin ' foris/ outside), than necessarily a wooded place.
In all probability the proportion of woodland in the New
Forest to the barren moor, was not larger then than it is
now. The greater part of the soil at present is as unsuited
for timber as it is for pasture or corn, and for thousands
of acres the bare heath has not a vestige of any former
trees upon it. There is, however, little danger of ex-
aggeration in saying that the Forests of Hants, as the early
Norman sovereigns found them, covered a large proportion
of the county ; and as the Romans had found them, formed
one great and almost impenetrable wood, a natural defence
against the Gauls.
" It need not be supposed that the intervening period
was insufficient for the partial clearing of these forests if
they had been so extensive as we have suggested. The
Andred Weald itself disappeared in the course of one
century in the furnaces of the iron-smelter,* and earlier
still, protecting laws and severe penalties showed that the
denudation of the country of its wood was felt to be pro-
ceeding too rapidly. ' If any man burn a log in a wood,
he must pay sixteen shillings,' say Ine's Laws, ' for fire is
a thief.' No man by Canute's laws, might cut brushwood
without permission in a King's forest, and there was a
heavy fine of twenty shillings for the destruction of any
tree ' that gave food to the beasts.'t We have only to
look at the improvident haste with which vast woods are
cleared away in modern colonies to see how soon the face
of a country may be changed in this respect ; and how
* Pearson's Historical Maps. t Fame, page 50.
THE NEW FOREST. 67
credible the legend is that the great wood of Harnpage
was felled by the Bishop of Winchester in the three days
which were the limit of his leave, — the only tree that was
spared being the Gospel Oak, a still surviving witness of
the time and of the fact.
" It is essential to a just conception of the ancient
forests of our land, that we should ascertain what were
the trees which composed them. What were the in-
digenous trees of Britain ? It is upon the character of
these that our mental picture must depend. Were the
forests an impenetrable bush ? Or a collection of bare
poles with all their foliage at the top, such as may be seen
in some of the Colonies or in the United States of
America? Or should we have a truer notion of them
from that large tract so strangely called the New Forest
still, though it is old enough to have a Latin name
besides ?
" The known native forest trees of England are singu-
larly few. The oak, the birch, the wych elm, the willow,
the alder, the ash, the maple, the aspen and the yew,
almost complete the list of timber trees found here by the
Romans. The Welsh name of the beech (fawydd) may
easily be traced to the Latin fag us ; Caesar's statement
(needlessly discredited) that this tree was not found in
Britain is not likely to have rested on the very scanty
opportunity he himself had of personal inspection. His
words f prater fagum et abietem ' do not except the Scotch
pine, but the silver fir. The lime and the beech were
well and widely established here before the Norman
period, but may both be set down to Roman introduction.
The great Tortworth chestnut, so called in Stephen's reign,
may be the oldest of deciduous trees in our land ; but this
it may be without being indigenous. We have more than
one Lyndhurst, so named from the lime, but yet the lime
did not exist in the ancient forests. Everything conspires
to assign precedence to the oak — the earliest records, the
. testimony of nomenclature, scientific researches, the nature
of the wood. In the vast bogs of Denmark, from which
C8 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
have been lately taken more than a million of trees,* the
succession of different kinds of indigenous trees is
distinctly marked as the successive periods of geological
strata. Lowermost are found the Scotch fir ; next, the oak ;
nearest to the surface, the beech. Each of these must
have had its reign, and apparently an exclusive reign, and
each in its turn may claim to have been indigenous. But
in singling out the oak as especially the ancient British
forest tree, there is also this to be said in justification ;
perhaps more than any other tree it will inhabit all soils ;
clay and gravel, sand or peat, chalk or limestone. Of
course it has its preference, but any one may notice how
the acorns shed from the trees standing in the rich strong-
soil of an old wood, find their way on to the adjacent heath
or moor, and flourish with the invariable vigour of what
is naturally planted.t
See " Glances at the Forests of X. Europe," Journal of Forestry, vol. II. p. 247.
! Of the kinds of trees composing the ancient woods and forests of England, Marsh
writes, in his work entitled "The Earth as Modified by Human Action":—
" England was anciently remarkable for its forests, but Caesar says it wanted the
fagus and the abies. There can be no doubt thztfagus means the beech, which, as the
remains in the Danish peat-mosses show, is a tree of late intoduction into Denmark,
where it succeeded the fir, a tree not now native to that country. The succession of
forest crops seems to have been the same in England ; for Harrison, p. 359, speaks of
the ' great store of firre ' found lying ' at their whole lengths ' in the ' fens and marises'
of Lancashire and other counties, where not even bushes grew in his time We cannot
be sure what species of evergreen Ciesar intended by abies. The popular designations
of spike-leaved trees are always more vague and uncertain in their application than
those of broad-leaved trees. Plans, pine, has been very loosely employed even in
botanical nomenclature, and Kiefer, Fichte, and Tonne are often confounded in
German.— Rossmassler, Der Wold, pp. 256, 289, 324. A similar confusion in the names
of this familv of trees exists in India. Dr Cleghorn, Inspector-General of the Indian
Forests, informs us in his official Circular Xo. 2, that the name of deodar is applied in
some provinces to a cypress, in some to a cedar, and in others to a juniper. If it were
certain that the abies of Caesar was the fir formerly and still found in peat-mosses, and
that he was right in denying the existence of the beech in England in his time, the
observation would he very important, because it would fix a date at which the fir had
become extinct, and the beech had not yet appeared in the island.
"The English oak, though strong and durable, was not considered generally suitable
for finer work in the sixteenth century. There were, however, exceptions. ' < u all in
Essex,' observes Harrison, Holinshed, i., p. 357, ' that growing in Bardfield parke is the
finest for ioiners craft ; for oftentimes haue I seene of then workes made of that oke
so fine and faire, as most of the wainescot that is brought hither out of Danske
[Danzig] ; for our wainescot is not made in England. Yet diuerse haue assaied to deale
with our okes to that end, but not with so good successe as they haue hoped, bicause
the ab or iuice will not so soone be rcmoued and clean e drawne out. which some attri-
bute to want of time in the salt water.'
" This passage is also of interest as showing that soaking in salt water, as a mode of
seasoning, was^practised in Harrison's time.
" But the importation of wainscot, or boards for ceiling, panelling, and otherwise
finishing rooms, which was generally of cak, con menced at least three centuries before
THE NEW FOREST. 69
" We shall probably be right, then, if we are guided by
the traditional veneration for the oak which still pervades
our land, and consider that the primaeval forests of Britain
were for the most part composed of this tree. If so, we
must not imagine these great woods to have been an
impenetrable jungle. What has taken place observably in
the highland forests of native fir, took place, no doubt, in
the oak forests of the south. Nature pruned and thinned
as well as planted. The strongest plants among the self-
sown oaks would domineer over the rest ; the natural
process of selection would go on, till all but one were
stunted and destroyed within the circle of the champion's
branches. What would eventually ensue would be rather
a natural park than a tangled forest, with glades of light
and verdure such as form the character of many parts of
the New Forest now, the kings of the wood sweeping for
themselves a privileged space around them, suited to their
remote antiquity and regal nature. In these deep glades
the wild deer could roam and pasture, the native Britons
aud their shaggy horses find a home ; and in later times
the outlaws of society live upon the spoils of the chase and
the plunder of the infrequent traveller. Where Robin
Hood and Little John could spend the less inclement
months of the year, the rude native of earlier centuries
might make his constant home and yet live out all his
days ; neither of them could have survived a single summer
in a forest which admitted neither air nor light.
What game inhabited these wide-spread forests must be
in some degree a matter of conjecture. Not to speak of
the earliest times, when those creatures roamed the woods
whose colossal bones are stored in many caves, now ran-
the time of Harrison. On page 204 of the Liber Albus mention is made of ' squared
oak timber,' brought in from the country by carts, and of course of domestic growth, as
free of city duty or octroi, and of ' planks of oak ' coming in in the same way as paying
one plank a cart-load. But in the chapter on the ' Customs of Billyngesgate,' pp. 203,
209, relating to goods imported from foreign couutries, an import duty of one halfpenny
is imposed on every hundred of boards called ' weynscotte '—a term formerly applied
only to oak — and of one penny on every hundred of boards called ' Rygholt.' The
editor explains ' Rygholt ' as ' wood of Riga.' This was doubtless pine or fir. The
vear in which these provisions were made does not appear, but they belong to the reign
of Henry III."— J. C B.
70 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
sacked by the palaeontologists of our day, and when man,
if he were contemporary, must have rather been the prey
than the pursuer, we may draw some fixed conclusions
from the few and scattered notices which have come down
to us on the subject ; and we may assume, from the great
virgin forests still existing, that there were no woods then,
any more than now, without some living creatures to
inhabit them, such as could find sustenance on the seeds
and berries of the trees, or on the herbage of the ground
around them. The hare must have been found at all
periods in the woods of England ; its great fecundity
(notwithstanding its defenceless nature) has long been
known. iEschylus calls it epiKv/mova (pepri, "extremely
prolific." In early Britain, its life was guarded from its
greatest enemy by superstition ; " leporem gustare fas non
putant," wrote Caesar. The red and fallow deer were to be
found, no doubt, in the woods ; wild-fowl would circle
above the waters, wherever the hindered rivers spread out
into a sedgy lake ; the badger and the fox had their earths,
already subject to be disturbed by those who even then
killed what they refused to eat. Perhaps the catalogue
may be more questioned, when to these are added the
birds which we are apt to associate in our minds with the
civilization and luxury of only modern times ; yet it is no
less true that the partridge and the pheasant had found a
home in this land at least as early as the Saxons, for a
charter of the Confessor's enumerates the beasts of the
chase as follows : —
"Hart and hind, doe and buck,
Hare and fox, cat and brock ;
Wild-fowl with his flock,
Partridge, pheasant, hen and cock."*
" To this list of indisputable authority we may, without
much misgiving, suggest that the bittern and the heron
may be added ; the woodcock and the snipe too would be
* Codex Dipl. 899, p. 1, Pearson's Maps.
THE NEW FOREST. 11
found in this island when its state was more suitable to
them than at any time since : and so our conclusion may
be drawn that a thousand years ago those who felt the
indefinable charm of capturing the wild creatures of the
chase, would return from the swamp and from the forest
with much the same rewards of their skill and toil as the
sportsmen of to-day.
* The reader may miss from the list in King Edward's
charter the proscribed wolf; but perhaps this may be
taken as a sign that the price set upon his head in an
earlier reign had exterminated him. We find his name at
least in the Forest of Woolmer (Wulvemere) ; but a single
specimen of the kind would have been as great a prodigy
when Queen Anne made her royal progress across that
forest, and had the five hundred red deer driven into
sight, as such a herd now would be to the traveller on his
way to Portsmouth.
" Many another of the names of the Hampshire woods
survives the prevalence of the creature which originated it.
Brockenhurst has ceased to be the haunt of the badgers ;
Hackwood is no longer distinguished for its hawks ; Boar-
hunt is not now infested by the wild boar out of the Forest
of Bere. The cry of a bird, all but lost to us, may no
more be heard at Bitterne.* But does not the very choice
of such names testify to that which has ever been a ruling
characteristic of the inhabitants of this land, a passion for
the sports of the field ?"
Mr Gilpin, of whom it has been intimated that he had
lived many years as a clergyman within the forest,
gives the following graphic description of its scenery in his
day: —
" On looking into a map of New Forest, and drawing an
imaginary line from Ringwood on the Avon to Dibden on
the bay of Southampton, the whole forest easily divides
* A bittern (one of a pair probably) was found close to a cottage called Stowchester in
Woodmancote Holt in the year 1S54, near a rushy pond. The bird drew persons from
all quarters to hear its bodming.
72 THE'FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
itself into four parts. That district which lies north of this
imaginary line we may call one part ; the river Av on and
Lymington river mark the boundaries of a second; Lym-
ington river and Beaulieu river of a third ; and the
country between this last river and the bay of South-
ampton may be considered as a fourth.
" When I spoke of forests in general as consisting of
large tracts of heathy land and carpet-lawns interspersed
with woods, I had a particular view to the scenery of New
Forest, which is precisely of this kind. Its lawns and
woods are every where divided by large districts of heath.
Many of these woods have formerly been, as many of the
heaths at present are, of vast extent, running several
miles without interruption. Different parts too, both of
the open and of the woody country, are so high as to com-
mand extensive distances, though no part can in any de-
gree assume the title of mountainous.
" Along the banks of the Avon, from Ringwood to the
sea, the whole surface is flat, enclosed, and cultivated.
There is little beauty in this part. Eastward from Christ-
church, along the coast as far as to the estuary of Lyming-
ton river, we have also a continued flat. Much heathy
ground is interspersed, but no woody scenery, except in
some narrow glen through which a rivulet happens to find
its way to the sea. In two or three of these there is some
beauty. Here the coast, which is exposed to the ocean,
and formed by the violence of storms, is edged by a broken
cliff, from which arc presented grand sea-views, somtimes
embellished with winding shores. As we leave the coast,
and ascend more into the midland parts of this division,
the scenery improves ; the ground is more varied, woods
and lawns are interspersed, and many of them are among
the most beautiful exhibitions of this kind which the
forest presents.
" In the next division, which is contained between the
rivers of Lymington and Beaulieu, we have also great
variety of beautiful country. The coast, indeed, is flat
and unedged with cliff, as it lies opposite to the Isle of
THE NEW FOREST. 73
Wight, which defends it from the violence of the ocean,
but the views it presents are sometimes interesting. It is
wooded in many parts almost to the water's edge ; and the
island appearing like a distant range of mountains, gives
the channel the form of a grand lake. As we leave the sea
the ground rises and the woods take more possession of it,
especially along the banks of the two rivers just men-
tioned, which afford on each side for a considerable space
many beautiful scenes. There are heathy grounds in this
district also, but they occupy chiefly the middle parts be-
tween these two tracts of woodland.
" In that division of New Forest which is confined by
Beaulieu river and the Bay of Southampton the midland
parts are heathy as in the last, but the banks and vicinity,
both of the river and the bay, are woody, and full of beau-
tiful scenery. This division is perhaps, on the whole, the
most interesting of the forest. For besides its woods,
there is greater variety of ground than in any other part.
Here also are more diversified water-views than are ex-
hibited anywhere else. The views along the banks of
Beaulieu river it has in common with the last division,
but those over the Bay of Southampton are wholly its own.
One disagreeable circumstance attends all the sea-views
which are opposite to the Isle of Wight, and that is, the
ooziness of the beach when the sea retires. A pebbly or
sandy shore has as good an effect often when the sea ebbs
as when it is full, sometimes perhaps a better, but an oozy
one has an unpleasant hue. However, this shore is one of
the best of the kind, for the ooze here is generally covered
with green sea-weed, which, as the tide retires, gives it
the appearance of level land deserted by the sea and turned
into meadow. But these lands are meadows only in sur-
face, for they have no pastoral accompaniments.
" The northern division of New Forest contains all those
parts which lie north of Ringwood and Dibden. As this
district is at a distance from the sea, and not intersected
by any river which deserves more than the name of a
brook, it is adorned by no water- views, except near Dib-
74 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
den, where the forest is bounded by the extremity of the
Bay of Southampton. The want of water, however, is
recompensed by grand woody scenes, in which this part of
the forest equals, if not exceeds, any other part. In noble
distances, also, it excels ; for here the ground swells
higher than in the more maritime parts, and the distances
which these heights command consist often of vast exten-
sive forest scenes.
" Besides the heaths, lawns, and woods, of which the
forest is composed, there is another kind of surface found
in many parts, which comes under none of these denomi-
nations, and that is the bog. Many parts of the forest
abound in springs ; and as these lands have ever been in
a state of nature, and of course undrained, the moisture
drains itself into the low grounds, where, as usual in other
rude countries, it becomes soft and spongy, and generates
bogs. These in some places are very extensive. In the
road between Brokenhurst aud Ringwood, at a place called
Longslade-bottom, one of these bogs extends three miles
without interruption, and is the common drain of all those
parts of the forest. In landscape, indeed, the bog is of
little prejudice; it has in general the appearance of com-
mon verdure. But the traveller must be on his guard ;
these tracts of deceitful ground are often dangerous to such
as leave the beaten roads and traverse the paths of forest.
A horse-track is not always a mark of security ; it is per-
haps only beaten by the little forest-horse, which will ven-
ture into a bog in quest of better herbage ; and his light-
ness secures him in a place where a larger horse, under
the weight of a rider, would flounder. If the traveller,
therefore, meet with a horse-track pointing into a swamp,
even though he should observe it to emerge on the other
side, he had better relinquish it. The only track he can
prudently follow is that of wheels.' '
It does not comport with my purpose to give details
here of all the forests of England ; nor does it comport
with my purpose to give details here of the recent history
MALVERN CHASE. 75
of tbe forests described. The details given are deemed
sufficient to give a general idea of the forests, or royal
hunting grounds of England ; and this is all which it is
sousrht to do here.
Section II. — Chases.
In regard to forests, we have found it stated that, while a
forest cannot be held by any bat a Sovereign, a grant of
one may, by a prescribed procedure, be made to a subject ;
but it, by this act, ceases to be a forest, and it is then
designated a Chase, and it is not required that it should
be kept surrounded by an enclosure. Chases and forests,
however, have much besides in common. They are less
frequently heard of than are forests, from the circumstance
that they are private and not public possessions ; but yet
the designation chase comes up from time to time, more
frequently perhaps in wTorks of fiction than in works of
history. Amongst these are Malvern Chase, Cannock
Chase, and Hatfield Chase.
A. — Malvern Chase.
In Malvern Chase we have a case of what was once a
forest, in the legal and technical sense of the term, as this
has been explained, being made a chase, by its being dis-
afforested by Charles I. in A.D. 1632.
An interesting account of this Forest and Chase was
published in 1877 by Mr Edwin Lees, F.L.S., F.G.S., Vice-
President of the Malvern and Worcestershire Field Club ;
and an abridgement of this appeared in the Journal of
Forestry (vol. v., pp. 537-554, 617-631). From this I
cite the following details : —
" It is scarcely possible to form an adequate idea of the
appearance of the Forest of Malvern in the early times
prior to the Norman Conquest, but at that period the
monkish chronicler, William of Malmesbury, mentions it
76 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
as ' a wilderness thick Bet with trees.' Previous to that
time the whole country from the hills to the Severn must
have been a waste tract, fit only for the lair of wolves, and
other savage animals ; and in places not covered by trees
or underwood, except where a few bare eminences like the
Wold Hills contrasted with the gloomy forest scene, was a
flat marshy expanse with difficulty explorable by day, and
a dangerous extent of immeasurable gloom at night. This
tract of land west of the Severn was included in the
country of the Silures, but it was probably only visited on
hunting forays, for no traces have been discovered of any
permanent occupation, and scarcely a single British imple-
ment has been anywhere exhumed, nor are memorial
stones or sepulchral barrows to be found. Very few Celtic
names remain in the district, and with the exception of
Malvern, and perhaps Pendock, all the names of parishes
are evidently of Saxon origin. Nor did the Romans mark
their presence visibly in the flat country between the
Malvern Hills and the Severn, for no decided Roman road
crosses the Chase, nor have any Roman remains (a few
coins excepted) been found in it except near Upton, where
there seems to have been a camp, or secondary station,
probably to guard the ford across the Severn ; and another
Roman or rather auxiliary camp existed at Kempsey, four
miles below Worcester, but this was on the eastern bank
of the river. The Saxons do not appear to have entirely
conquered the country between the Severn and the Wye
before the reign of Athelstan, and whether they did much
more than divide the Chase into parishes does not clearly
appear. Some grants of land were probably made by
Saxon kings, and Edward the Confessor exercised that
right ; but the greater part of the Chase must have been
unappropriated, and as forest ground was therefore seized
upon by the Norman sovereigns.
" Tanner, alluding to the hermitage here in Edward the
Confessor's reign, says it was ' in the wild forest ; and the
hills and the country around their bases for many miles
were generally termed a wilderness, and are so called by
MALVERN CHASE. 77
William of Malmesbury. To what extent the Saxon
monarchs claimed this tract of country does not clearly
appear; but under William the Conqueror it was considered
and held to be royal property, and so continued till it was
granted by Edward I. to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of
Gloucester, commonly called the Red Knight, on his
marriage with Jean d' Acres, the king's daughter. Leland,
who wrote temp. Henry VIII. says — 'The Chase of
Malverne is biggar than either Wire or Feckingham, and
occupieth a great part of Malverne Hills. Great Malverne
and Little Malverne also is set in the Chase of Malverne.
Malverne Chase (as I hear say) is in length in some places
twenty miles ; but Malverne Chase doeth not occupy all
Malverne Hills.' Other authors describe it as extending
from the river Teme in the north to Cors Forest (now
Corse Lawn) in the south, and from the river Severn on
the east to the top of Malvern Hill westward. This last
boundary was so indeterminate that the bishops of
Hereford, who possessed lands at Mathon and Colwall, and
who claimed the western side of the hills for their hunting-
ground to the summit of the ridge, had a great dispute
with the potent Red Earl, which it is said was only ended
by a trench being dug along the crest of the hill to divide
the possessions of the disputants. This trench still remains
very clearly marked on the hills in several places, and is
particularly evident on the Worcestershire Beacon.
" There is some confusion in writers on the history of
the Chase of Malvern as to the occasion on which this
trench was made, though it was clearly meant as a boun-
dary line. Chambers (copying, I presume, from Dr Nash J
states that the ditch was made to ' divide the possessions
of the Bishop of Hereford from the Chase, and to limit
the two counties.' This would obviously appear to be
correct ; but Dr. Thomas, whose version of the matter I
have given further on, says that the trench had been made
1 to the damage of the Church of Worcester, and hence the
controversy ' on the subject between the Red Earl and
Bishop Godfrey Giffard.
78 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
" Dr. Thomas, I presume on documentary evidence, pro-
ceeds to give his account of the transaction as follows : —
'On the eve of the Lady-Day, 1289-90, there was a court held
by the king at Feckenham, and inquiries made throughout
the whole county who had transgressed in hunting in that
forest, and many were imprisoned, and others that were
indicted for the same found six sureties for their appear-
ance before the king at Wodestoke on the nones of April,
to hear his sentence of mercy or judgment, and because
there was no other equity but the king's will, the bishop's
(of Worcester) redemption was taxed at 500 marks, and
the prior's at 200. About this time he (Godfrey GifTard)
had a controversy with Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester,
and Jean his wife,' &c.
'•' Malvern Chase had its peculiar laws and customs, even
after it became the property of a subject, and { the foresters '
had very considerable power within its limits, extending
even to judicial functions. It is stated in documents given
in the appendix to the Forests, in Nash's Worcestershire,
that the foresters only had authority to arrest every felon
for felony and murder ' found within the said Chase,' and
they were to bring him before the chief forester, who held
of the chief lord in fee by a certain rent of an axe and a
horn ; and he had power to sit in judgment on the said
felonies and murders, as also to execute the office of
coroner, and if the persons tried were found guilty by a
verdict of twelve men thereupon charged and sworn, of
the four next townships adjoining unto the place where
the said felony and murder was done, his head was to be
struck off with the forester's axe at a place called Sweet
Oaks within the said Chase, where they always sat in
judgment on such persons, and the body was to be carried
unto the height of Malvern Hill unto a place called Bal-
deyate. and there to be hanged on a gallows, and so to
remain, unless licence was granted by the chief forester to
take it down. It does not appear that the ' chief forester'
was bound to be learned in the law, and perhaps a poor
fellow obnoxious to the chief or any other forester, if
MALVERN CHASE. 79
* found within the said Chase/ might have had but scant
justice allotted to him, and his head be placed in unpleasant
proximity to the forester's axe.
" The lord of the lordship of Han ley was the chief lord
of this Chase, and of all the royalties of it, and appointed
the constable of the Castle of Hanley, the parker of
Blackmore, the steward, the baliff, the master of the ^ame,
four foresters, and a ranger, to hold once in the year a lord
day and a court baron; and every three weeks to deter-
mine all manner of pleas and trespasses, debts, or detainer,
which exceeded not the value of forty shillings. To this
court, besides the homage and customary tenants thereof
were i free suitors,' the Abbot of Westminster, the Abbot
of Pershore, the Prior of Much Malveme, the Prior of
Little Malveme, the Lord Clifford for the lordship of
Stoke-upon-Severn, the Lord of Madresfyeld, the Lord of
Bromsberrow, and the Lord of Byrtes -Morton.
" Attached to the Chase were also certain verderers,
viewers, and riders, which by their tenure and holding of
land had power to ride and perambulate the ground, soil,
and townships of every lord, from Charmey's Pool upon
the south unto Powyke Bridge and Braunceford Bridge, to
oversee the highways and watercourses, and to take care
that the wood hedges adjoining to the Chase be lawfully
made for the preservation of the deer. The viewers and
riders were also to look to ' the hombling of the dogs,' and
to have the oversight and correction thereof twice every
seven years, and such manner of dogs as were found un-
lawful, that is to say, as could not be drawn through a
certain sterop of eighteen inches and a barleycorn in length
and breath compass, the farther joints of the two middle
claws were to be cut clean away, and the master and owner
of the dogs were to be amerced 3s. Id.
" The chief forester, who was generally a gentleman of
position, had various fees assigned to him, as ' crops of all
the oaks,' any excess of ' the mast ' in autumn beyond
what was required for the commoners' pigs, the ' windfall
wood,' the ' 3d penny of attachments made in the Chase,'
80 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
and the '3d penny of all felons' goods and forfeitures
within the Chase.' Every commoner might fall ' what
wood pleaseth him upon attachment,'— the attachment not
to exceed the value of the wood, and the Monster may
lawfully follow the commoner with his wain unto his own
house and attach him there; if he may come to put his
bow betwixt the foremost oxen and the gate-post of his
house.' The commoners and inhabitants in and about the
Chase were to give notice to the foresters of any deer
coming upon their premises, but they were on no account
to kill, molest, or disturb them, under penalty of answering
for the same at the Court of Hanley, with ' homble pie ' in
prospect. The commoners, however, were entitled to put
their pigs into the Chase in autumn to feed upon the
acorns from the oaks, and if it appeared that there was
more mast than the commoners' hogs would consume, the
public crier wras to announce the fact in the neighbouring
towns, and the surplus mast was to be sold for the benefit
of the lord, a portion going, of course, to the chief forester."
What was disafforested by Edward I. appears to have
been only a portion of what previously or subsequently
constituted the Forest, and the whole was formally dis-
afforested by Charles I. in 1632. " All these particulars,
laws, usages, and customs passed aw^ay when the Chase
was disafforested in 1632, and there only remains what
was reserved by a decree of Chancery, and the order in
Council explaining it, made at Whitehall, 5th September
1632, by which, after confirming the grant by the king of
the third part of the Chase to Sir Nicholas Vermuyden, it
is declared that the other two parts shall be left open and
free for the freeholders and tenants and commoners to
take their common of pasture and common of estovers
therein; with the restriction that no enclosures shall be
made, or woods or trees felled within the two-third pa;
subject to right of common.
" These reserved rights still remain where not altered
by modern enclosure acts, and the rights of the commoners
still appertain to all the waste within the extensive parish
MALVERN CHASE. 81
of Great Malvern, So that in the sale or grant of any
waste land for public or private purposes, the commoners
may demand compensation ; and in a recent railway case
when the Hereford railway was made they obtained it, the
money valuation of their abstracted rights being now
deposited at exchequer interest in the Worcester Old
Bank.
"The deer of the Chase were probably all destroyed at
its disafforestation, for nothing further is anywhere men-
tioned about them, and none appear to have been pre-
served in the paddocks of country gentlemen. If any
stray ones remained, doubtless in the lawless time of ' the
great rebellion' they were finished up without remorse.
Neither, as far as I know, has any account been left, in
story or ballad, of the exploits of the foresters, verderers,
and free suitors, in their forays and huntings after the
deer, or the record left of any f Merrie men' who might
have furtively sought after a fat buck ; or any caitiff
pjowler who by "the verdict of twelve men" found his
head placed under the Forester's axe, f in the said chase '
at Sweet Oaks, 'where they always sat in judgment on
such persons.'
" The homage-tenants and commoners living on the
borders of the Chase were not privileged to take or kill
any of the deer there abiding, even if they trespassed upon
homesteads ; but then they had the run of the open parts
of the Chase for their live stock in the summer season,
and other rights of ' estover,' loppings of wood, &c. I
should hardly dare assert that a joint of venison did not
occasionally get into some of the homage-tenants' houses,
for deer stealing, as Shakespeare's history shows, was
then considered rather a jolly, if illicit, pastime ; and the
bow did not give such an alarm in its discharge as the
gun. There were serious riots by the country people
(countenanced too by several landed proprietors) when the
Chase was first disafforested and partially enclosed, and
this seems to imply a disorderly population resident there-
about, not particularly moral in their habits, and who
Q
82 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
disliked the impending changes, which would interfere
with their unlicensed pilferings, and restrain their pursuits
Even late in the present century, the Commissioners of
Woods and Forests gave orders for the destruction of all
deer in the Forest of Dean, from the temptation they
presented to the labouring population to kill them when-
ever they could, and the immorality and crime that pre-
vailed while they were preserved in the woods and coverts."
In the work cited, details are given of the successive
holders of the Chase granted by Edward I. to the Earl of
Gloucester ; and of the complicated claims of others which,
after the decree issued by Charles I., in 1632, for the " dis-
afforesting of the Chase of Malvern, and for freeing the lands
within the bounds, limits, and jurisdiction thereof, of and
from the game of deer. These and the forest laws " led
to opposition by several powerful land-owners with rights
or claims upon the Chase. The execution of this decree,
and the presentation by others of a bill in Chancery pray-
ing for its reversal, and the exhibition of an information
in the Court of Star Chamber against others, "for certain
riots and other misdemeanours supposed to have been done
in opposition and hindrance of the execution of the said
decree."
" To end the dispute an order in Council was made at
Whitehall, 5th September, 1632, to explain the former
decree, and for 'the settlement of the differences' that had
disturbed the country. By this it is declared that the
third part to be enclosed should not be the best selected,
but ■ indifferently taken, bad and good,' and that ' the
other two parts shall be left open and free for the free-
holders and tenants and commons, to take their common
of pasture and common of Estovers therein ;' with the
restriction that no enclosure shall be made, or woods or trees
felled within the two reserved third parts. This ' Order of
Explanation ' was to be held as part of the said decree, and
still remains in force (being afterwards confirmed by Act
of Parliament 16th Charles II.) as to such waste lands in
MALVERN CHASE. 83
the parishes of the Chase that have not become subject to
enclosure acts, or been allotted according to the claims
made before the enclosure commissioners. But I believe
only Castle Morton, Great Malvern, Colwall, and Mathon
are now left exempt from later acts and orders of enclosure,
so it behoves the freeholders and commoners of Great
Malvern especially to see that they arc not despoiled of
their rights, which are yearly lessening!'
By this order in Council, certain rights and claims
which had been advanced were reserved ; and the decree
was ratified and confirmed by Parliament 16th, Charles II.
The whole appearance and condition of the Chase is
now very different from what it was before its disaffores-
tation, two hundred and fifty years ago, M when the ' beasts
of venery ' strayed over its unenclosed woods, and when
the neighbouring occupiers of land were compelled under
the forest laws to submit to the visitations of stray deer
without daring to prevent trespasses, and a court sitting
at Hanley had jurisdiction over all matters appertaining
to the Chase, while the chief forester's axe was at times
brought down upon the neck of any unfortunate marauder
who could not show good cause for being found within the
sacred pale of c the said Chase.' But almost to the close of
the last century the Chase was a great unenclosed waste,
for in the memory of men living but a few years since a
person could have ridden on horseback from Great
Malvern to the top of Bredon Hill and found no impedi-
ment to his course save only the passage of the Severn,
and that could be crossed at Upton Bridge.
" If we now turn to regard the size of Malvern Chase as
at present, we shall find but few extensive commons or
wastes left within it, and still fewer vestiges of real forest
ground. In the present state of the country, when en-
closure has done almost all it can, with barren ground
converted into green meadows and cultivated fields that
now meet the view almost everywhere between the Hills
and the Severn, it is scarcely possible to realize the Forest
scenes of the British and Saxon times. Little, if any of
84 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the original 'Forest ' as is now understood by that term,
remains, for the few woods that have been suffered to
exist, being merely allowed to form bushy underwood that
is felled every seven years, or permitted to raise thin and
lank hop-poles, give but a very inadequate idea of the
sylvan aspect of olden times. Every year, too, diminishes
these limited woodlands, which are lessened by grubbing
up, and made arable, and it would be difficult at present
to find many old forest veterans that existed when the
Clares and Despencers, or later still, the Beauchamps and
Nevilles, held their court at Hanley Castle.
* But although individual trees of great size and age are
of rare occurrence, yet some woodlands that have been
such from the earliest times yet remain, and this is
especially the case where yews and hollies grow, darkening
the ground with sylvan gloom at all times. In the parish
of Powick, about the Berrow, as well as in various parts of
Colwall and Math on, there are ancient woods sufficiently
embowered in foliage to reveal the picture Lucan has
drawn in Druidical times —
' Where in deep horror had for ages stood
A dark unviolated sacred wood ;'
for notwithstanding the various enclosures of late years
that have reduced the once extensive Chase of Malvern to
a comparatively narrow compass except in name, secluded
spots still exist environed with trees and bushes, almost as
lonely, solitary, and deserted, as when through uninhabited
wastes the chief forester galloped about with his axe, the
dread of prowling caitiffs, or yeoman prickers moved
merrily along to rouse the stag from his lair in the ferny
hollow. About the eastern base of the Herefordshire
Beacon, and on either side of the Ragged Stone and
Casend Hills more to the south, are dingles leafy as ' Merry
Sherwood ' ever beheld ; the dense woods upon the Holly-
bush Hill are as solemn as old hollies and sombre
evergreen yew-trees can make them, while Castle Morton
common still shows a wide green expanse, with here and
MALVERN CHASE. 85
there a pool, where the lovers of hunting may follow
harriers and fox-hounds, if the chase of nobler animals
than hares and foxes can now be no longer taken.
" In the autumnal and winter seasons Lonqxlon Marsh
covered with water used to present the appearance of an
extensive lake, and bordered by a dense growth of sea-
rushes, tall carices, and an army of plumose reeds, had a
wild and solitary aspect, a few clumps of silvery -leaved
poplars (Populus canescens) giving a peculiar character to
the aqueous scene. But the drainage of the marsh,
recently taken in band, will, if successful, change the
aspect of things entirely.
ft In the parish of Colwall, near the old hunting seat of
the Bishops of Hereford, is a good-sized fish-pool, though
now almost half choked-up and closely environed with a
dense growth of tall carices, which on the last occasion I
saw it was crowded with a flock of sable coots (Fulica atra).
These birds inhabit few pools in the Malvern district at
present."
Of woodland clumps and of remarkable trees, solitary
representatives of the denizens of the forest and of the
chase in days long gone bye, cuts and graphic descriptions
are given both in the volume cited and in the abridgement
of it given in the Journal of Forestry,
B. — Cannock Chase.
In Cannock Chase, not far from Litchfield, we have a
case of a Chase having been reduced to what may be called
a icaste. Mr. Walter White, in graphic details of a pedes-
trian tour made by him in Central England, published
under the title All Round the Wrehen, thus describes his
visit to this Chase, after having given details of his visit
to the Potteries, and of a brief sojourn at Stoke, whence
he went by rail to Colwich : — "I alighted here for a few
hours' ramble on Channock Chase, the flanks of which,
represented by a fir-crowned billy ravine, are in sight from
the station. Walking down the road to Little Heywood,
86 THE FORESTS OK ENGLAND.
turning there into a lane, and crossing the Trent by a
footbridge, in less than half-an-hour passing through a
be, you step suddenly from cultivated fields to the wild
wastes of Channock. Rounded slopes rise before you
covered with fern, heather, and gorse, offering to the way-
farer some of the attractions of a hill country. I followed
the trackway along the hollow for a while \ then struck
across the heights any whither, and found ere long that
which I sought — solitude. There, in a ferny coomb, a
little world within itself, I lay down and indulged in a
day-dream, such as can only be dreamt in a secret place,
under bright sunshine, while your eye roams afar in the
expanse of blue, and from distant tree-tops there comes
the sound as if of an aerial chorus.
" I rambled farther and descended into a woody dell on
the edge of a park, and explored the course of a brooklet
which, clear as crystal, and cool as an underground spring,
gambols along: beneath the thick shadow, now overhung
by alders, now bordered by thistles taller than a man,
while birches shut all out with their trembling screen. The
way is difficult in some places, with treacherous spongy
patches, and uncertain footing, but it entices you onward,
regaling vour nostril with the scent of mint, and vou will
be reluctant to turn back short of the lively springs from
which the brooklet takes its rise. Shortbrook the natives
call it, and truly it? course to the Trent is of the briefest.
" Then forcing a passage through the dense bracken on
the oppesite slope of the dell, I monnted to the boldest of
the fir-crowned heights, exchanging- the calm sultriness of
the hollows for a lusty breeze, and narrow limits for a
wide-spread view. Singularly contracted is the prospect ;
eastwards the fertile vale of Trent, chequered with
the warm tints of harvest, with farms and villages,
seemingly half-buried in abundant vegetation ; west-
wards the huge rolling undulations of the Chase, stretching
away for miles — a vast solitude, with here and there a
hardy fir, looking half-starved in its loneliness. Far i ff
HATFIELD CHASE. 87
the heights appear bold, but all are clothed with fern,
billberries, and heath, leagues upon leagues, variegated by
patches of gorse and ragwort. Apart from the expanse
there is a charm in the alternations of colour produced by
the innumerable undulations, some slopes appearing of a
bright metalic green, others dull and rusty, while screes
of gravel in plains vary the surface. The contrasted pro-
spect may be enjoyed to perfection while pacing to and
fro along the edge of the firs.
w Within the remembrance of persons now living, the
Chase, with its continuous wastes, stretched along the
county from near Stafford to a few miles south of Litch-
field— a bleak wild region, where travellers had at times
to struggle for their lives in snow-drifts. ( Antiently/
says an old topographer, ' Cank Wood was a barren
forest ;' now, as we see, there are no trees, and year by
year cultivation encroaches on its limits, and though the
surface be poor, the Chase is rich under ground ; nume-
rous coal mines have already converted its southern ex-
tremity into a black country, and as ' Cannock Coal ' is
now sent into the London market, we may look forward,
not without regret, to the time when the bright, breezy
Chase shall be hacked into deformity and smothered in
smoke."
C. — Hatfield Chase.
In the West Riding of Yorkshire is Hatfield Cbase, one
of the largest in England, containing above 180,000 acres,
and throughout much of its extent a swamp, but drained
and cultivated into arable and pasture land in the reign
of Charles I., by Sir Cornelius Yarmuyden — a Dutchman,
to whom it was sold, and being the property of a subject,
it received the appropriate designation: it was not a
forest ; it was a chase.
The place, it may be mentioned, had long before been
celebrated as the scene of a battle fought between Edwin,
king of Northumberlnnd. and Penda, a pagan king of
88 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Mercia, when the former was killed, and his army com-
pletely routed.
It possesses for us, however, some interest on other
grounds. In Malvern Chase we have a forest converted
into a Chase ; in Cannock Chase a Chase become a waste ;
in Hatfield Chase, we have a swamp made into a chase, a
morass which covered deep the remains of what was a rich
woodland fifteen hundred years before, and had perished
ages before the conventional distinctions of forests and
chases and parks were known, details of which remains,
and of inferences drawn from them, will afterwards be
given in connection with notices of remains of other
ancient forests which have been found buried in the
ground, or submerged in the sea.
D. — Loxley Chase.
Another Yorkshire Chase is Loxley Chase, a well-
known locality in the vicinity of Sheffield, much fre-
quented by the artizans of that town, and known in his-
tory as the birth-place of Robin Hood.
E. — The Forest of Gaultries.
Hatfield Chase and Hoxley Chase are both situated in
the West Riding of Yorkshire; in the centre of York-
shire there formerly existed an extensive hunting-ground,
called the Forest of Gaultries. It extended close up to
the walls of York, and enclosed portions of it still remain.
Whether it was a forest or a chase 1 have failed to learn.
The name would indicate its having belonged to the crown ;
but beyond this I have no evidence in the case. But the
portions of it which yet remain are now enclosed, and are
out of the jurisdiction of the crown. It was formerly a
favourite hunting-ground of the clergy ; and the following
quaint story is as quaintly told of one of the Bishops of
Durham while out hunting there :
" Sir Anthon Bek, Busshop of Dureme in the tyme of
THE FOREST OF GAULTRIES. 89
King Eduarde, the son of King Henry, "was the maist
prowd and masterfull busshopp in all England, and it was
comonly said that he was the prowdest lord in Christienty.
It chaunced that emong other lewd persons, this Sir An-
thon entertained at his court one Hugh de Pountchardon,
that for his evill deeds and manifold robberies had been
driven out of the Inglische Courte, and had come from the
southe to seek a little bread and to live by stalynge. And
to this Hughe, whom also he imployed to good purpose in
the warr in Scotland, the busshep gave the lande of Thik-
ley, since of him caullid Thikley-Puntchardon, and also
made him his chcife huntsman. And after this blake
Hugh dyed afore the busshop, and efter that the busshop
chasid the wild hart in Galtres forest, and sodenly ther
met with him Hugh de Pontchardin that was afore deid,
on a wythe [white] horse ; and the said Hugh loked ear-
nestly on the busshop, and the busshop said unto him,
'Hughe, what maketh thee here?' and he spake never
word, but lifte up his cloke, and then he shewed Sir An-
ton his ribbes set with bones, and nothing more ; and
none other of the varlets saw him, but the busshop only ;
and ye said Hugh went his way, and Sir Anton toke
corage, and cheered the doo-aes, and shortly efter he was
made Patriarque of Hierusalem, and he saw nothing no
moe ; and this Hugh is him that the silly people in Gal-
tres doe call Le Gros Yeneur, and he was seen twice after
that by simple folk, afore yat the forest was felled in the
tyme of Henry, father of Henry yat now vs.' "
Both from what is stated by Manwood and by Holin-
shed, it is evident that forests were subject to different
laws than those which were applicable to Chases ; and the
offender on a Chase could not be punished by the so-called
Forest Laws, or by any law proper to a chase, but only in
accordance with what is known as common law. A chase
had no court of attachment, no seat of justice ; but a
forest had, and the officers called foresters in a forest had
their representatives at a chase designated keepers.
90 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
From Man wood's statement it appears that none but
monarchs can have forests and exercise Forest Law ; but,
and apparently he admits the fact, in the Duchy Court of
Lancaster the Earl of Lancaster in the times of Edward II.
and III. had a Forest in the counties of York and Lancas-
ter, in which he is said to have exercised the Forest Laws
as fully as any soverign. This may be accounted for
without prejudice to the distinction drawn between a
forest and a chase, thus : the Earl of Lancaster may have
claimed or may have had conceded to him by others, if
not by his sovereign, royal prerogatives.
Section 1IL— Parks.
Parks, according to Manwood, must, like Chases, be
royal grants, and contain beasts of the chase ; but, unlike
Chases, they must be enclosed. Of parks there were some
GOO referred to by Manfield as being fully recognised.
Thus comes it that the designation is so often met with —
the combined vanity and ambition of many holders of a
country residence with a little land around it, thinking to
add to their importance by calling this also a Park, though
it be nothing of the kind ; but real parks being so
numerous, and no one having any interest in exposing the
assumptions, they have clone so with impunity. Like
unwarranted assumptions of designation, supposed to
bring with them distinction, are not infrequent.
Within the area of Sherwood Forest is Bestwood Park,
which was an unenclosed Hay or Wood until the time of
Edward III., when it was imparked. In the same Forest
boundary are enclosed Nottinham Park and Clipstow
Park ; and there are, or at least were within the present
century, titular Keepers of these parks. One of these
officials used to reside at Newstead and the other at
Annesley Hall, both of them places extensively known by
name, through painful incidents connected with them in
WINDSOR PARK. 91
the life of Lord Byron, and in the family histories of their
owners. Better known than any of these, however, is
Windsor Park, the residence of the Sovereign, and other
Parks in the vicinity of the Metropolis.
Windsor Park supplies an illustration of the differences
pointed out by Manwood between a forest, a chase, and a
park. He speaks of Windsor Forest, now-a-days we hear
more frequently of Windsor Park, and occasionally we
read of Windsor Forest and Park. There may be confusion
in the use made in conversation of these different designa-
tions ; but all of them are appropriate. In the case of
Malvern Forest a portion was made and named a Chase
in the time of Edward I., though the whole was not
disafforested till the time of Charles I.; and here a portion
of what in the time of Manwood was Windsor Forest has
been made a Park ; and the terms in question enable us to
specify at any time of what portion of the territory we
speak.
" Windsor Forest was once a forest of enormous extent,
comprehending a circumference of one hundred and twenty
miles. It comprised part of Bucks, a considerable part of
Surrey, and the south-east side of Berks as far as Hunger-
ford. On the Surrey side it included Cobham and
Chertsey, and extended along the side of the Wey, which
marked its limits as far as Guildford. In the lapse of
time, however, it dwindled away ; for we find that in the
reign of James I. its circumference was estimated by
Norden at only seventy-seven miles and a-half, exclusive
of the liberties extending into Bucks. At this period
there were fifteen walks within it, each under the charge
of a head keeper, and the whole contained upwards of
three thousand head of deer. This extent was somewhat
diminished in later years ; for in a subsequent map, by
Koque, the circuit is given as fifty-six miles.
" In the year 1813, an Act of Parliament was passed
for its enclosure. The portion which had been previously
92 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
enclosed, known as Windsor Great Park, was of small
extent compared with the whole range of the forest. The
area of the park was less than 4000 acres, of which 2000
were under cultivation ; while the open unenclosed forest
amounted to 24,000 acres. Scarce a vestige of the forest
is now left, except what has been apportioned to the crown,
adjoining the Great Park."
Norden thus defines the perimeter of the forest in his
time (1602). "This forest lyeth in Berkshire, Oxford-
shire, Buckinghamshire, and Middlesex. The Tam-is
bounds it north, the Loddon weste, Brodforde river and
Guldown south, and the Waye river east ;" and according
to him the Great Park, which was enclosed with a pale
fence, had a circumference of 10]- miles, and contained
3650 acres, all within the counties of Berks and Surrey,
while the open forest contained upwards of 24,000 acres.
In the summer of 1815, Shelley resided at Bishopsgate
Heath on the borders of the forest. Here he enjoyed
some months of comparative freedom from those mental
and physical sutYe rings to which his exquisitely delicate
organisation subjected him. He spent the greater portion
of his time in solitary rambles in the Great Park, from
whose glades, we are informed by Mrs. Shelley in her
edition of her husband's works, he derived those glowing
and vivid pictures of woodland scenery, with which his
remarkable poem of Alastor, or the Sjjirit of Solitude,
(written during his residence in the neighbourhood)
abounds.
The following is one of the most striking; a picture,
the original of which may be found in various parts of
Windsor Park and Forest.
' The noonday sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms.
The meeting boughs, and implicated leaves
WINDSOR PARK. 93
Wave twilight o'er the poet's path, as led
By love, or dream, or God, or mightier death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank —
Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate — the oak,
Extending its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar over-arching frame
Most solemn domes within — and far below
The ash and the acacia floating hang
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The grey trunks, and as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
Uniting their close union : the woven leaves
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
And the night's noontide clearness mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
Minuter, yet as beautiful.' "
" The Great Park is rich in varied woodland scenery.
There are not only fine thriving oaks, throwing out their
gigantic arms, but sturdy pollards without end, which
seem to have set time and seasons and decay at defiance.
They are gnarled and knotted, twisted and distorted, yet at
the same time vigorous and sound at heart. The beeches,
too, maybe seen of all ages and sizes, picturesque and beauti-
ful in their decay, but while in full vigour, and dotted with
their sparkling leaves, they are the richest ornament of
the wood. The holly loves to nestle under the shelter of
its graceful pendulous branches, affording a contrast to its
smooth white trunk, on which here and there some pretty
lichen may be seen. Many of the trunks are studded
with projecting knobs and other excrescences, and some-
times appear fluted or grooved. Here and there the roots
of some of these ' most lovely of forest-trees ' are thrown
out with great boldness, and when they appear above the
ground, are generally covered with mosses of a beautiful
soft green, differing in shades from those on the stems.
94 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
"Mr Jesse, in his account of Forest-Trees* says that
tlif venerable old pollards of Windsor Great Park inter si
him more than anything else there. ' In looking at them,'
he says, ' my mind is imperceptibly carried back to the
many interesting historical facts which have happened
since they first sprang from the earth. I can fancy that
our Edwards and Henrys might have ridden under their
branches, — that they had been admired by Shakespeare ;
and that Pope, whose early youth was passed iu the neigh-
bourhood, had reposed under their shade. At all events,
it is impossible to view some of these sires of the forest
without feeling a mixture of admiration and wonder.'
" The size of some of the trees is enormous ; one beech-
tree, near Sawyer's Lodge, measuring, at six feet from the
ground, 36 feet round. It is now protected from injury,
and nature seems to be doing her best towards repairing
the damage which its exposure to the attacks of man and
boast has produced. It must once have been almost hol-
low, but the vacuum has been nearly filled up. One might
almost fancy that liquid wood, which had afterwards har-
dened, had been poured into the tree. The twistings and
distortions of this huge substance have a curious and
striking effect. There is no bark on this extraneous sub-
stance ; but the surface is smooth, hard, and without any
appearance of decay.
" There are two magnificent old oaks near Cranbourne
Lodge; one of them is just within the park paling, and about
three hundred yards from the Lodge, and the other stands
at the point of the road leading up to it. The former, at six
feet from the ground, measures 38 feet round. The vener-
able appearance of this fine old tree, ' his high top bald
with dry antiquity' — the size and expanse of its branches
— the gnarled and rugged appearance of its portly trunk—
and the large projecting roots which emanate from it, fill
the mind with admiration and astonishment. The other
tree is 36 feet in circumference at four feet from the
ground."
■ Gleanings in Natural History. Second Series.
WINDSOR PARK. 95
One of the best known places in Windsor Park is
the Long Walk, which stretches some three miles in a
straight line from Windsor Castle. It is a fine sight, not-
withstanding its straightness. It is lined by dark rows
of giant elms, which, though forced into such formal
arrangement, have been allowed freely to grow in their
own way, aad it is pleasant to turn occasionally into the
aisle-like side-walks, and look up at the green roof of
trellis work formed by the interlacing boughs. A walk of
two miles brings us to a handsome pair of lodge gates
through which we pass into the Great Park, and the place
is changed as if by magic. We are in a vast solitude of
grassy mounds and giant trees in all their native lux-
uriance, spreading as far as the eye can reach ; the stillness
would be appalling but for the clamour of a million birds.
One of the adornments of the Park is Virginian Water
— a large lake, the extent of which alone is sufficient to do
away with all ideas of its artificial origin. This is com-
pletely enclosed by densely- wooded acclivities, rising almost
from the water's edge, one above the other, in agreeable
perspective, so as to exclude the slightest glimpse of the
world beyond. On one side of the lake, a broad pathway
of dark-green grass, yielding like a rich Turkey carpet to
the tread, extends from one end of the lake to the other.
Immediately on the left the shelving woods begin to rise.
There is not a sound to be heard except a gentle murmur
of the trees, that never ceases.
The following account of Windsor Forest and Park
is given in the Journal of Forestry, vol. i., p. 708 : —
'• Until its enclosure in 1817, Windsor Forest was an open
common, on which the crown and several subjects enjoyed
mutual rights. The period when the park was fenced off
from the common ground has not been ascertained. Nor-
den's map of 1607 shows the boundaries, and Sir William
Cecil was petitioned in 15 08 to allow two French glass-
makers the privilege of cutting wood and burning char-
coal in ' Windsor Great Park.' About the same date an
96 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
anxious Parliament took measures for increasing the sup-
ply of shipbuilding timber, and enacted that at the peri-
odic cutting of the Windsor copses twelve ' sfcandits or
stores ' per acre should be left to form a future wood. It
is probable that the fencing of the park from the forest
occurred long before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Re-
cords relating to this domain earlier than the time of
Charles I. do not exist, as the whole of those most inter-
esting documents were destroyed during the Civil War by
the parliamentary soldiers, who held the Castle through-
out the struggle, and who found the papers useful mate-
rial for lighting their fire. Prince Rupert used his utmost
efforts to dislodge the destructionists, but without success.
In the next reign he became a keeper of one of the forest
walks, 'and thirty other old soldiers occupied the Great
Park, which they farmed on the five-verst system, the
marks of their furrows being still visible.
" According to a survey of 1661, the king enjoyed a right
to twelve loads of hay. ' to be taken yearly from the mea-
dow called Runnymede,' for the feeding of the deer. The
principal forest walks were Cranbourne, New Lodge, and
Bagshot. Lord Mordauut was the head keeper and con-
stable of the Castle; the arable land was let to the old
soldiers at £200 a year. It was a good time for timber,
inasmuch as John Evelyn, a zealous royalist, had recently
delivered his ' Discourses on Forest Trees ' before the
Rcyal Society, and improvements were afoot. Fences
were now formed round the cultivated fields at Windsor,
hedgerow elms were planted, plantations filled up, and
grass seeds sown. Between the years 1670 and 1680 Eve-
lyn was a frequent guest at Windsor Castle, and the king
was constantly engaged planting rows of elms on the
French plan, which had been previously borrowed for the
adornment of Sayes Court. Before the time of Evelyn
the country must have been very poorly ornamented with
timber. The magnificent forests of ' nature's ' planting had
been sadly diminished and cut up ; the hedgerow trees
were horribly mangled and trimmed up for firewood, the
WINDSOR PARK. 97
elm being the favourite, in consequence of its large pro-
duction of successive crops of boughs, and its patience
under repeated mutilation. It was employed for the great
avenue of the Long Walk on the south approach to the
Castle. The couplet —
1 Here aged trees cathedral walks compose,
And mount the hill in venerable rows,'
applies to the present appearance of the avenue, which
Pope saw only in its infancy. The planting of the Long-
Walk was commenced in 1680, on the purchase of the
fields lying between the Castle and the Great Park. The
distance from the Castle to the statue of George III. on
Snow Hill is two and three-quarter miles, and the length
of the avenue is rather less. The distance between the
two inner rows is 150 feet. The trees are ten yards apart
in the rows, and each tree composing the aisles at the
sides is thirty feet from its neighbour, which is considerably
less than it should have been. There were originally
1,652 trees. Those on the low ground, and on good loamy
land, ten or fifteen feet deep, on chalk, at the Castle end
of the avenue, are twice as large as those on the cold
stiff clay on the ascent towards the statue, and at this
southern end there have been some failures and replanting.
Mr Menzies, resident deputy-surveyor, mentions in his
History of Windsor Great Park and Windsor Forest that
red tape has been amply manifested in their unprosperous
condition. All the oldest planted woods are of about the
same date as the Long Walk.
u In the plantation of oaks between Bishop's Gate and
the road running from the toj) of the Long Walk to Black-
ness there are thirty-two trees to the acre, containing on
an average 104; feet each of timber. They are sound,
healthy, and growing fast, the soil being a fine light loam
at top and a good clay below, and the land at planting was
trenched. There is a photograph of one of these oaks in
Mr Menzies; magnificent work. The height is 100 feet,
the circumference of the trunk is nine feet at five feet
08 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
from the ground. The tree will be found standing at the
edge of the wood close to the Royal Chapel. The planting
of the pleasure-grounds of the wilderness (now Cumber-
land Lodge) belong chiefly to the period between 109.3
and 1735.
"In 1711 Dean Swift visited Windsor, and wrote to
Stella how much the Long Walk surprised him. The
Duchess of Marlborough was then the Ranger, and so
continued till her death in 1744, setting the Court at
defiance in a very termagant fashion. Among her
numerous complaints she declares she is out of pocket,
keeping up the lodges and paying the keepers, and ' all
she got was a few Welsh knuts to eat and the grazing of
gome cows/ At the age of eighty-four she is still busy
about the park, and often 'in the vapours against knaves
and fools, both of which,' she says, 'I hate.' She com-
plains, too, that the Duke of St Albans, Constable of the
Castle, ' besieged her in both parks,' and broke open a
door at Cranborne Lodge without her leave, for which
offence she forbade his driving through the Park. ' I
have forbid it,' she writes to the Duke of Newcastle. ' He
urges a necessity for it on account of his supervising the
fortifications — a term in my mind extremely odd and
ridiculous. If he means by it the ditch that is inside the
Castle, I am so far from desiring to prevent the constable
from doing his duty in his military capacity, and putting
the place in a proper condition of defence, that ' — and here
she contemptuously promises that her keepers, or ' any
other engineers,' shall attend him when he pleases; but
she sees 'no immediate probability of an attack.' '
The Duchess of Marlborough succeeded William, Earl
of Portland, in the rangership in 1702, and continued in
that office until her death in 1744. About the year 1740
H.R.H. William, Duke of Cumberland, was appointed
ranger. In 1700 he was succeeded by Henry Frederick,
Duke of Cumberland, On his death, in 1791, King George
III. took the rangership into his own hands, and appointed
WINDSOR PARK. 99
as deputy, Major-General William Harcourt. In 1830,
King William IV. became ranger, with Sir W. H. Free-
mantle as deputy; and on his death, in 1850, Major-
General Seymour was appointed deputy-ranger.
In 1850 the Board of Woods and Forests, which had
been combined with that of Works and Public Buildings,
was separated from this Board, and Windsor Forest and
Park came under the sole charge of the Hon. Charles
Gore.
The Prince Consort, immediately after Her Majesty's
marriage in 1840, became ranger, and held the office till
his death in 1861. The present control of the manage-
ment of Windsor Park rests with the ranger, HR.H.
Prince Christian. Colonel the Hon. A. Liddel is deputy-
ranger, and the Commissioners of Woods and Forests have
charge, on behalf of that Department, of all matters
connected with the estate.
Windsor Park is maintained as a royal demesne for the
enjoyment of Her Majesty and her subjects, and with this
in view, more attention is given in the culture of the trees
to what will minister to pleasure and ornament, than to
the procuring of pecuniary profit for the sale of forest
products.
Both in the Park and in the Forest there are numerous
trees remarkable for age, for appearance, and for historical
associations connected with them.
There were rights of common enjoyed by many, and it
is alleged that during the two hundred years comprised
between the commencement of the seventeenth century
and that of the present, encroachments were constantly
being made; and what with these encroachments on the
one hand, and depredations by various persons who claimed
rights, the Lord Chief- Justice in Eyre, with whom it lay to
prosecute all offenders against forest laws, had no little
trouble.
The claims advanced were of the most extravagant
character. The rights were ill-denned, and they seemed
100 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
to extend over much if not over the whole area of the
forest. Silvanus Taylor in his treatise entitled Common
Good, dedicated to Parliament in 1052, when a sixth of
the land was in common, advised division and allotment.
This was ultimately done, but not until 160 years after
it was recommended by him — recommended with the
quaint remark " not that the commoners would work on
their own allotments, for while the parish has to maintain
them they will not work."
Taylor does not appear to have had a very high opinion
of the commoners in his day, and as things were then so
were they to the end ; but it should be borne in mind in
judging them that they had rights, and these rights they
were maintaining. In the History of Windsor Great Park
and Forest, by Mr Menzies, the author tells : — " An old
Commoner has described to me, with evident self-con-
gratulation, how, one moonlight night on Christmas Eve,
when the forest officers were tapping their elder wine (a
custom which still exists) and not likely to disturb him,
he worked all night long, and had a quarter of an acre
added to his land before morning. A moonlight night was
the season for such operations ; if a commoner could only
build himself a hut of turf, and have a fire lighted and a
pot boiled on the rudest chimney, the hut became estab-
lished as a house — was, in fact, his 'castle,' and was wholly
unassailable except by regular process of law, which the
forest officers frequently declined to institute ; the trouble
was immense, there was no remuneration, and the next
moonlight night saw the estate restored. If, however, the
pot had not been boiled on the hearth, the forest officers
might proceed without ceremony to pull the place down.'
" A short time since the Crown purchased a cottage and
garden near the park, and on enquiring for the title the
following was the reply of the owner : — ' You see, sir, my
wife's father as was, so I have been told, lived in another
house near this about seventy or eighty years agone, and
there was a piece of waste land, as was part o' the common
that was handy, and so he first plants taturs on it, and
WINDSOR PARK. 101
then he got some bricks and some sods, and he put up a
bit of a place to take shelter in, and at last he got to live
in it, and there was a deal o' bother made about it one
way and the other ; but he was servant to a gentleman as
was a magistrate in the neighbourhood, and he was friendly
to the poor people, and said the land was of no use to no-
body, and so he kep' it, and when I married his daughter
I came to live in it.'*
" To remove such customs as these, as well as to put an
end for ever to the frequent disputes, the Commissioners
were appointed to make a report on the state of the forest,
which they did in 1807, and again, finally, in 1808. Their
report was a sweeping condemnation of the laws (which
were, in effect, practically useless) under which the Forest
was then governed j in 1813 the xVct for the enclosure of
the Forest was passed, and in 1817 the awards to the
various commoners were made, the Crown obtaining; com-
plete possession of a large part of land stretching from
New Lodge to Sandhurst, containing upwards of 10,000
acres. With the exception of that part belonging to the
Crown adjacent to the Great Park, known as Cranbourne,
scarcely a vestige of the grand old forest now remains.
" The allotments to the Crown on the enclosure of Wind-
sor Forest, enabled good old George III. to enjoy the
luxury of farming his own land ; and upon the same ground
the Prince Consort afterwards established the famous
model farms which were noticed in the Windsor supple-
ment to the Gardeners Chronicle, October 31, 1874, and
• Accordiug to a statement made by John Mitchell Kemble, fond of old Saxon lore,
to William Thorns, an old bookworm, cited in The Nineteenth Century, July 1551,
p. 75, among other illustrations of ancient tenures, forest rights, inc., which he had
picked up at Addlestone when he was there living, and to which the old forest of
Windsor had formerly extended, was the custom of deciding how far the rights of the
owner of land extended into the stream on which his property was situated, by a man
standing on the brii:k with one foot on the land and the other "in the water, aud throw-
ing a tenpenny hatchet into the water ; where the hatchet fell was the limit. This, he
said, he had learned from an old man born and bred in the forest, who remembered
haying once seen it done. — J. C B.
102 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
described in Mr J. C. Morton's "Report on the Royal
Farms.''
" Between 1815 and 1822 roads were formed and a por-
tion of the crown allotments planted with oak on the
heavy, and fir on the light land, including 1400 acres be-
tween Windsor and Ascot race -course, and 4000 acres be-
yond the heath. The demolition of cottages, according to
the false exclusive taste of the time, thrust all labourers
to a distance from the castle, and, accordingly, they walked
daily a distance of from two miles to five miles to their
work, till, on Her Majesty's accession and marriage, the
Prince Consort, as ranger, devoted himself earnestly to
this, as well as other matters connected with the improve-
ment of the Crown property, At this time four farm
homesteads were erected, 2,000 acres of stiff clay land
were drained, a large school for workmen's children was
erected, and has since been supported by the Queen ;
herds of shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons were estab-
lished, and, among the other great improvements, Charles
the Second's idea of joining park and castle was carried
out,"
Windsor Forest and Parks shewed in 1852 an expendi-
ture of £7091, and an income of £4019. The following
were the heads of income : —
Sale of timber, windfall tree3, &c. - - - £1,067
„ bark 902
Grazing-rents - 60
Sales of live stock 792
Value of timber supplied for forest m - - 60
Venison -fees 200
Miscellaneous, - 38
£4,019
The expenditure in salaries and allowances was £3044
lis lOd ; this sum was divided among thirty-two persons.
The rearing of pheasants, attending buffaloes, and night-
watching, cost £72 ; and the wages of woodmen and
WARRENS. 103
labourers employed in nursery- work, the preparation of
produce for sale, &c, amounted to £3561. The provender
for the cattle cost £220 ; the food for the deer, £102 ; and
for the game, £625. The rent of premises near the Long
Walk was £420 per annum ; and of land at Virginia
Water, £84.
Section IV.— Warrens.
A Warren we have found described as "a franchise, or
free place privileged by prescription or grant from the king
for the keeping of beasts and fowls of the warren, which
are hares and coneys, partridges arid pheasants, and some
add quails, woodcocks, water fowl, &c." Such is the Royal
Warren of the Isle of Purbeck, in the south-eastern part
of Dorsetshire, which, like some other places in England
designated isles, may have been, and probably was, an
island once, but is no island now. It is thus described by
Mr C. E. Robinson Hamilton in a beautifully illustrated
work entitled, A Royal Warren, or Picturesque Ramble
in the Isle of Purbeck. " It is, or has been, a little
province, as it were, by itself, having its own ways and
customs, its own interests, and its own local centre, Corfe ;
and as much cut of from sympathy with the rest of
England as if it were a real island out on the ocean.
Natural and political circumstances have combined to keep
it for ages in this condition. The fertile inhabited parts
have been separated from the mainland, even on the sides
where the sea is not, by a river with marshy banks ; in rear
of that, by a wide and desert heath ; and behind that
again by the huge barriers of inhospitable chalk which
conceal the pleasant valley beyond. There, within his-
torical times, the Castle of Wareham, now long destroyed,
overshadowed the bridge by which lay the only road in, and
that road was again commanded at the gap in the chalk
downs by the royal fortress of Corfe. The possession of
the latter stronghold, and the remoteness of the neighbour-
104 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
hood, long enabled the Norman kings to retain the island
as a wild hunting-ground. Originally a deer forest, it was
only in the reign of Henry III. that the island was dis-
afforested, and thenceforth'considered only as a ' warren of
conies.' The hunting rights remained to the crown for
many centuries, King James the First having exercised
them in 1G15. Throughout this long period the pre-
servation of game necessitated the discouraging of roads
and fences, and the enforcing of stringent regulations,
interfering sadly with commerce and industry. Strange is
were thus excluded; new ideas filtered in but slowly; and
the indigenous inhabitants came to think and act very
much as if the whole world were enclosed within the limits
of the Royal Warren. Wherever one wanders in Purbeck,
the effects of this ancient seclusion are obvious in the self-
contained small townlets, with their institutions complete
as those of populous Cities ; in the remains of mere hamlets,
which we know by old records to have had their fairs and
market-places all to themselves in times gone by ; in the
numerous little manors, each with its ancient house in a
local phase of the architectural style prevalent at the
period when it was built ; and in many other directions, to
be discovered only when one knows the country well. So,
although there may be no one thing in Purbeck of com-
manding interest to all, except the unique ruins of Corfe
Castle, still this kingdom in little is a microcosm, to
appreciate the full quaint flavour of which as a whole, it
is necessary and pleasant to make oneself acquainted."
Of many of the spots, beautiful etchings produced by
the process designated "Typographic Etching," are gr.
The prettiest and quaintest corners, are often altogether
destitute of carriage roads, and some can only be con-
veniently visited by water; but detailing a series of
rambles by foot or otherwise, illustrated abundantly by
plates and cuts of sketches made by a companion of his
tour, the characteristics of the locality are by, Mr Robin-
son Hamilton, graphically depicted.
WOODS. 105
Section V. — Woods.
The designation of the superior officials entrusted with
the administration of the Forests of England is Her
Majesty s Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Accord-
ing to the legal use of the term, as we have seen, there mav
be forests in which there are no woods, and woods covering
an extensive area which are not forests : the one desio*-
nation having reference to hunting-grounds belonging to
the Sovereign ; the other to more or less extensive clumps
of copsewood or of timber trees, and these may belong
either to the Sovereign or to private proprietors without
this circumstance affecting the name.
A. — Wistmans Wood.
A remarkable Wood is one in Devonshire, high up in
Dartmoor, on the slopes of the West Dart, and comprised
within the area of Dartmoor Forest. It is known as
Wist man's Wood, and is almost the only piece of wood-
land within the forest.
Dartmoor, supposed to derive its name from the river
Dart, which rises on the moor in the midst of a bog at
Cranmere Pool, is twenty-two miles in extent from north
to south, and fourteen from east to west, and is said to
comprise nearly 100,000 acres. It is thus described by
Dr Berger in the Geological Transactions : —
" From Harford Church (near the southern limit
of Dartmoor), the country assumes quite a bare and alpine
appearance, presenting a vast plain, extending beyond the
visible horizon. The face of the country is formed by
swellings and undulations gradually overtopping each
other, without ever forming distinct mountains. There is
no vegetation, and few human dwellings ; we tread upon
a boggy soil of very little depth, and scarcely affording
sufficient food to support some dwarf colts, as wild as the
country they inhabit." *
" Geol. Trans, vol. i.
10G THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
An anonymous writer tells: — "Part of the waste is ap-
propriated by the surrounding parishes, the freeholders of
which possess the right of common, or, as it is termed, of
venville, on these appropriated parts. The rest of Dartmoor,
to which the name of Dartmoor Forest, frequently given
to the whole waste, strictly applies, and which belongs to
the Duchy of Cornwall, has been found by survey to con-
tain upwards of fifty-three thousand acres.
" The highest part of Dartmoor Forest, in which some
of the most important rivers of the county have their rise,
consists of a succession of morasses formed by the decay of
the successive crops of aquatic plants with which this part
teems ; these morasses are in some parts fifty feet deep, in
others not more than five.
" Dartmoor was made into a forest by King John. Ed-
ward III. gave it to his son the Black Prince, when he in-
vested him with the title of Duke of Cornwall. And
though Dartmoor is now desolate, and where the oak once
grew, there is seen nought but the lonely thistle and the
( feebly whistling grass,' yet that it was once, in part at
least, richly clothed with wood cannot be doubted. The very
name, so ancient, which it still bears, speaks its original
claim to a sylvan character — the Forest of Dartmoor; and
though of this antique forest nothing now remains save
one ' wasting remnant of its davs ' to show where the dark
old forest-trees once stood, yet evidence is not wanting to
prove what it has been, since in its bogs and marshes on the
moor, near the banks of livers and streams, sometimes em-
bedded twenty feet below the surface of the earth, arc
found immense trunks of the oak and other trees.*
" The ' lonely wood of Wistman ' is all that remains of
the original Forest of Dartmoor. It lies on the side of a
steep hill : at its base runs the western branch of the river
Dart, to the north-east of the river Tor. It consists of
scrubbed decrepit trees, chiefly oak, scarcely exceeding
■ Probably man}' of the trees that formed Dartmoor Forest were destroyed by fire, in
order to extirpate the wolves that formerly abounded in it. Those that remained may
have been destroyed by cattle afterwards pastured there.
WISTMAN'S WOOD. 107
seven feet in height ; their branches, almost destitute of
foliage, overrun with moss, bramble, and other parasitical
plants, exhibit a scene of uncouth and cheerless desolation.
The circumference of some of these hoary foresters almost
equals their height.
1 1 looked upon the scene, both far and near,
More dolefnl place did never eye survey ;
It seemed as if the spring-time came not here,
Or Nature here was willing to decay "
,- >
" A poet of far less extended fame has made the wood of
Wist man the subject of his song :
4 Sole relics of the wreath that crown'd the moor !
A thousand tempests (bravely though withstood,
Whilst, sheltered in your caves, the wolf ;s dire brood
Scared the wild echoes with their hideous roar),
Have bent your aged heads, now scath'd and hoar,
And in Dart's wizard stream your leaves have strew'd,
Since Druid priests your sacred rocks imbrued
With victims offer'd to their gods of gore.
In lonely grandeur, your firm looks recall
What history teaches from her classic page ;
How Rome's proud senate on the hordes of Gaul
Indignant frown'd, and stay'd their brutal rage.
Yet time's rude hand shall speed like theirs your fall,
That self-same hand so long that spared your age.' "
A writer in the Journal of Forestry (vol. v., p. 421) tells :
tl The trees are all dwarfs, apparently of the same age, and
growing on a singularly unfavourable site. Those who
have seen these oaks, and are aware that the wood was
described in a perambulation of the moor, dated soon after
the Conquest, as having then been in much the same state
as it is now, will find no difficulty in believing them to
be at least 2,000 years old. They owe their preservation
to an effectual defence, in the shape of a number of large
stones which cover the site on which they grow, and amid
which the venerable dwarfs lift their branch . The
trunks of the trees are about the height of a common
stool, such as clerks sit upon, and I sat down on the crown
of one in passing, and leaned upon the main limbs. The
108 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
bole of this tree was about 3 ft, high, and its total height
to the topmost branches 15 ft. The trunk was hollow, but
still full of life. Its circumference was G ft. It was at its
prime probably about the height of an average oak ; this
must have been at the period of the Norman Conquest,
and it is still as tough a dwarf, for a tree, as the notorious
Quilp was for a man. Time-worn as the stems and trunks
are, they are well covered by their spreading and flattened
heads. Seen at a distance in August, a sheet of green
seems spread upon the hill-side. I do not remember oaks
more uniform in the character of their umbrella-like heads,
or with foliage of a brighter green. Whether the trees
were planted by man or by nature, their security is due to
the sheltering blocks of granite amid which they stand,
and to the moss -covered props and slabs on which the
branches rest.
" There is, I think, no apparent reason for concluding
that this was a planted wood. It is true no acorn springs
at present, and even where the branches of youngest wood
lie along flat stones, embedded and sopped in moss, under
the most favourable circumstances for emitting roots, they
fail in that common means of reproduction in consequence
of the smallest branches even being too old, hard, and tough.
When, therefore, the old trees crumble a thousand years
hence, they will leave no successors.
" According to common report, Wistman's Wood swarms
with vipers. It is a damp and unlikely site for reptiles of
this kind, and perhaps the rumour may be in some way
connected with a common legend attaching to several
historical trees. A serpent guarded the Golden Fleece,
and the apples of the garden of Hesperides, and a sleepless
snake was coiled around the Yggdrasil.
" There was a widespread persuasion in Devonshire that
the Druids found mistletoe in Wistman's Wood, and col-
lected it with great ceremony on the occasion of an annual
festival ; but this must be an error, and the derivation of
the name of Wistman's Wood from that of the wisemen
i.e., the Druids, is no doubt incorrect [?]
WISTMAN'S WOOD. 109
"In the extensive forests of ancient Britain, when the
atmosphere was damper and less moved by wind, the
mistletoe may have grown on the oak more generally than
at present. It fastens now on more than a dozen sorts of
trees, including the fir, yet it almost invariably avoids the
oak. Mr Jesse, the surveyor of Her Majesty's parks, failed
to discover it growing on the oak even in a single instance.
But this ' branch of spectres,' which still covers the apple
orchards of the Isle of Avelon — that stronghold of Druid-
ism — does sometimes strike root on the oak in sheltered
situations. In the great oak wood of the Weald of Sussex
there is at present, if the tree has not been felled very
recently, a specimen at Burningfold Farm, in the parish of
Dunsfold. The Society of Arts obtained a specimen some
years since in Gloucestershire. This is not very far from
the site in question, where one would gladly affix the
mistletoe to the banks of the Dart, and confirm the story
of the sacred grove, aud prove our wood as old as Caesar
and contemporary with the birth of Christ. But the
mistletoe, which thrives in Siberia in certain situations,
does not climb in England higher than 500 ft. or 600 ft.
above the level of the sea, while the highest trees of
Dartmoor exceed 2,000 ft., and the site of Wistman's
Wood is not much less.
" With regard to the age and name of this mysterious
wood, the name seems to be connected with the legend of
the Black Huntsman, otherwise called WTistman, and
descended from Woden, whose spectral pack of Wist
hounds hunted here on wild nights, when they might be
heard as they drifted over Dartmoor at full cry, or jDassed
among the branches of these weird oaks. It would not
appear unreasonable that a situation so congenial should
have been selected by the famous Wistman or Wishman,
as one of his numerous hunting grounds.
" Whatever surmise as to the origin of its name we
may prefer, the age of the wood cannot be settled etjmio-
logically. Was it primaeval or planted ? Captain S. P.
Oliver, R.A., who was employed on Dartmoor making a
110 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
reconnoissancc previous to the autumn manoeuvres of
1873, stated iu a letter to the Gardeners Chronicle that
there is, high up the valley of the Ernie, another small
wood of scrubby oak bushes named Pileswode, from the
stakes or piles by which each tree was surrounded for its
protection. Pileswode was evidently a planted wood, as
shown in an ancient map of Dartmoor of the year 1241.
Captain Oliver believes that Wistman's Wood was also a
planted wood, and attributes the planting to the Scandin-
avian miners who visited this part of England a thousand
years before the Conquest, and even previous to the
destruction of Tyre by Alexander, at a period when the
ancient ports of Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Falmouth
were frequented by Phoenician traders."
B. — Charnwood.
Another interesting wood is Charnwood, a rough open
tract in the north-west part of Leicestershire. It sometimes
is called Charley Forest, and sometimes Charnwood'Forest ;
but I have not met with any record of its having been
constituted a Forest. It comprises a district ten miles in
length and six in breadth, and is generally considered to
have formed part of the Forest of Arden. It has been
alleged that arden is the British word for Forest, and that
that forest, there can be little doubt, extended right across
England, including what we now call the Forest of Dean,
Sherwood, &c. The so-called Forest of Charnwood claims
an antiquity higher than authentic history will carry us.
It comprises a district ten miles in length and six in
breadth. That it was frequented by the Britons, and
that the peaks of its picturesque hills were the resort
of the Druids, is proved by many Celtic remains. Crom-
lechs and barrows are of frequent occurrence ; and in
one part of the forest a curiously formed seat, excavated
in the solid rock, and with a kind of rude canopy, may be
seen, from whence, possibly, the arch-Druid addressed the
surrounding mutitudei There are traces also of the Roman
CHARS WOOD. Ill
power : a road which, if originally of British construction,
was unquestionably used by the conquerors ; the remains
of a Roman camp too, and many Roman coins, have been
dug up at different times in various parts of the forest. A
singular remain, perhaps of the Roman period, was within
a few years standing on Beacon Hill. This was ; an erection
of rude and ancient masonry, about six feet in height, of
a round, form, and having in its centre a cavity about a yard
deep and a yard in diameter, the sides of which were very
thickly covered with burnt pitch. This had evidently
been used for the " beacon-fire ; " and on digging round,
many fragments of mortar and dark-red brick were found,
which lead to the inference that it was Roman workman-
ship.' *
During the middle ages, the vicinity of Chamwood
was the dwelling-place of many a bold baron. The
powerful Earls of Leicester had parks here, and the
strong castles of Grobe and Mountsorrel rose close
beside ; but the greatest interest connected with Cham-
wood is princely Bradgate, the residence — probably
the birthplace — of Lady Jane Grey. The present
park of Bradgate is bounded by a wall of nearly seven
miles in length, and is also subdivided into several walled
lawns, some of which are of vary ancient enclosure. The
whole surface is of a very varied character, in which wild-
ness greatly predominates. The mansion, of which the
ruins form an object of such interest, is deserving of notice.
Thoresby mentions that James I. was entertained here for
some days ; as also William III. The following account
has been given of the destruction of the house :
" It is said of the wife of the Earl of Suffolk (Stamford),
who last inhabited Bradgate Hall, that she set it on fire at
the instigation of her sister, who then lived in London.
The story is thus told : ' Some time after the earl had
married he brought his lady to his seat at Bradgate ; her
sister wrote to her, desiring to know how she liked her
* Potter's Hiitory aud Antiquities of Chamwood Forest.
112 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
habitation and tbe country she was in : the Countess of
Suffolk (Stamford) wrote for answer, that the house was
tolerable, that the country was a forest, and the inhabitants
all brutes. The sister in consequence, by letter, desired
her to set fire to the house, and run away by the light
of it. The former part of the request, it is said, she
immediately put in practice ; and thus this celebrated and
interesting mansion was consigned to the flames." *
Charnwood, although now presenting different features
from what it did many ages since, when, to quote the
old Leicestershire tradition, 'a squirrel might be hunted
six miles without touching the ground, and a traveller
might journey from Beaumanor to Bardon on a clear
summer's day without once seeing the sun,' still abounds
in picturesque views ; and although trees are scanty, many
specimens of the oak are to be found there unmatched for
beauty.
Section VI. — Forest Woodlands.
In preceding sections have been described several
ancient forests of England, under different categories to
which they formally belong, and did so previous to the
present century — Forests, Chases, Parks, Warrens, and
Woods. But there are not a few other ancient forests
still existent which, in the absence of explicit information
in regard to their exact position in regard to one or other
of these categories, I find it convenient to describe under
the more general head of Forest Woodlands.
Of these, some may be supposed to retain a claim to
the technical designation Forest though few bucks or
does or other game are said to be found in them ; and
others may have neither game nor sylvan shelter for game
— neither beast of venerie nor vert, but which have no
better claim to be considered a chase, a park, a warren, or
a wood.
We need hardly tell our readers that the latter part of this account is apocryphal.
ALICEHOLT AND WOOLMER FOREST, 113
A. — Aliceholt and Woolmer Forest.
Amongst the ancient Forests of England given in Mr
o o o
Pearson's Historical Maps, cited by Mr Bishop, as found in
Hampshire, is the Forest of Axiholt, now known as Alice-
holt, and the Forest of Wulvemere, now known as Wool-
mer, which were considered by Mr Bishop as but divisions
of the New Forest. These two portions are separated by
intervening private property : one part containing 15,493
acres, and the other 2,744. Of the two forest woodlands,
Aliceholt and Woolmer Forest, the following account is
given in the Journal of Forestry, vol. i., p. 43 : —
" The Forest of Aliceholt and Woolmer is situated in the
east part of the county of Hants, on the borders of the
counties of Surrey and Sussex, and is bounded on one side
by the river Wey, which, becomes navigable at Godalming,
about ten miles from the middle of the forest, and com-
municates with the river Thames, affording an easy con-
veyance for the forest timber to the dockyards in that
river. The most ancient perambulation of this forest
recorded is dated in the 28th year of Edward L, from
which document it appears that this was one of the forests
enlarged by the four preceding kings, and reduced by
Edward to its more ancient limits. Another perambula-
tion was made in the 11th of Charles I., and the boundaries
of both appear to be the same. In 1787 the whole of the
forest consisted of about 15,493 acres, but of that quantity
about 6,799 acres belonged to private proprietors, and the
rest to the Crown. The forest consists of two divisions, the
one called the Holt, or Aliceholt, and the other Woolmer.
The two parts are separated from each other by consider-
able extent of intervening private property. Aliceholt was
formerly divided into three bailiwicks or walks, called the
North, South, and West Bailiwicks, but this distinction
has long been laid aside ; Woolmer is divided into two
walks, called Linchborough Walk and Borden Walk. As
is usual with English forests, there appear to have been
I
114 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
disputes concerning perquisites, and the advocates of
women's rights will not be displeased that a grant was
made to a Mrs Howe, of the rangership of Aliceholt Forest,
for a term of forty-five years commencing loth December
1699. Certainly she ought to have known something
about the duties, as her deceased husband officiated when
in the flesh as lieutenant of the same. But not content
with one-seventh part of the produce of a sale in 1729, of
1,170 ' dotarae' and decayed trees, which were sold by the
Surveyor-General for £980 (her receipt from such sale
being £140), Mrs Ruperta Howe claimed a right to the
lop, top, and bark. With respect to this transaction the
Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state and
condition of the Crown forests, and whose report is dated
25th of January 1787, remark, 'This claim having been
thus once admitted, it appears to have been made in one
shape or other at every sale since.' In the accounts of
the next sales in 1732 and in 1737-8, the price of the
trees only is accounted for to the Crown, clear of the lops,
tops, and offal wood of the said trees, the same being
claimed by the said Mrs Ruperta Howe by virtue of her
grant of the office of ranger of the said forest, and her
successors continued in her footsteps. But it is too
wearisome to pursue the subject further, as it is merely
the very old history of incompetent persons doing their
best to fill their pockets at the national expense. To
read the history of it, one wonders how even a fagot of
firewood was ever devoted to the service of the country.
During the eighteenth century no timber had been cut in
this forest prior to 1777 for the use of the Royal Navy,
probably owing to the trees not having till about that
time grown to the necessary size. A fall of 300 loads of
oak was then ordered by warrant from the Treasury for
the use of the navy, and delivered at the usual price
allowed for oak timber furnished to the dockyards from
other of the royal forests, being 38s per load. It was
argued at the time, that if the timber had been put up
for sale it would have realised nearly £2,500, whereas, at
ALICEHOLT AND WOOLLIER FOREST. 115
the arbitrary price of 38s it only produced £1,074 10s 9d,
to which was to be added about £80 for stackwood, taken
away by the people of Frensham under a pretended right,
and out of which was to be deducted £179 19s 9Jd for
the expenses of cutting, &c, charged in the surveyor's
account. In this case again it was a lady, Lady Hills-
borough, who was lieutenant of the forest, and bewailed
the loss of perquisites she was undergoing by the timber
being used in the national service. It is, however, cheer-
ing to know that she gained nothing by her complaint.
The Frensham folk, however, appear to have been the De
Morgans of the day, for in 1788 another fall of 500 loads
was ordered, and it being also ordered that the entire fall,
including offal wood, should be sold by public auction,
they openly carried the latter off, to the number of 6,365
fagots, in one day and night. The Royal Commission
observe, ' In case the lieutenant should establish a right
to the boughs and branches of all trees felled in the forest,
we apprehend it to be extremely necessary that it should
be determined what parts of a timber tree are compre-
hended under that description. It is well known that in
navy timber, some of the most valuable pieces, as knees,
crooks, &c, are taken from the limbs or branches of trees,
and that other parts of the branches frequently contain
timber fit for carpentry uses. It sometimes happens, also,
that trees apparently fit for the navy prove unfit for that
use, from some defect not discoverable while they are
standing: which trees, nevertheless, contain good building
timber, and large butts of trees and other pieces of timber are
frequently cut off as unfit for the navy, but which are very
useful for other purposes. So that if the lieutenant were
allowed to take all that is not fit for the use of the navy, as
was done in the fall of 1,000 loads in 1784, he would, upon
every fall made for the navy, have considerable quantities
of useful timber which could not be comprised under the
description of boughs and branches. It is equally neces-
sary,' continue the Commissioners, ' that this point should
be settled before any farther wood sales are made in this
116 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
forest, as few persons would choose to become purchasers
subject to such a claim, before it is determined what part
they would be obliged to leave for the grantee/ To us it
seems that the meaning of the clause relative to boughs
and branches could only be to give such boughs and
branches as might be left, after taking out all that could
be useful for house or shipbuilding. In 1608 there were
growing in this forest 13,031 trees fit for the navy, and so
many dotard or decayed trees as were computed to contain
23,934 loads. In 1635 the timber was valued at £13,24*7,
reckoning the value at 10s per load, underwood and thorns
included. In 1783 the total number of oak trees was
38,919, measuring 15,142 loads, and 6,119 saplings of one
and two feet each, besides beech, ash, and elm timber,
valued altogether at £45,862 8s 9d. These were days
when it was an important matter to have a good supply of
native oak for naval purposes; now, like other British
forests, old associations make its principal value, although
it still supplies good timber, and will doubtless continue to
do so for long years to come.
" Early in the last century, there were large herds of
red deer in Woolmer Forest, and it is said that no less
than five hundred head were on one occasion driven before
Queen Anne, who diverged from the Portsmouth Road at
Liphook to see the sight. The deer were subsequently
unconscionably poached by a notorious gang, known as the
' Waltham Blacks ;' and at length, to check the wholsale
demoralisation of the neighbourhood, the few remaining
were caught alive, and conveyed to Windsor. There is
little life to be seen in the Forest now. A few cattle crop
the heather, and perhaps the wild-looking inmate of one
of the few cottages in the Forest may be encountered,
while the ' chip' of the hatchet is heard from one of the
plantations. But stillness and loneliness are the prevail-
ing characteristics of the scene."
NEED WOOD FOBEST. 117
B. — Needwood.
The royal Forest of .Needwood, in Staffordshire, had
formerly four wards and four keepers, with each a lodge,
now in the hands of private gentlemen. In Elizabeth's
reign it was about 24 miles in circumference, and in 1658
it contained upwards of 92,000 acres. In 1684 it con-
tained more than 47,000 trees, besides 10,000 cords of
hollies and underwood, valued at upwards of £30,000. It
is now principally enclosed, leaving, however, a portion be-
longing to the crown, and one lodge. It contains still
some of the largest oaks in England, and is noted for the
fineness of its turf.
" The wildest and most romantic spot of Needwood
Forest is the Park of Chartley. It once formed part of the
possessions of the puissant family of De Ferrars, but they
were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrars, after his
defeat at Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious
barons against Henry III. This estate, being settled in
power, was alone reserved, and handed down to its present
possessor.
C. — Whittlebury Forest.
Whittlebury Forest, in Northamptonshire, was the scene
of a most remarkable triumph of love over sovereignty.
Tradition points out the exact spot of the first interview
between the lovely widow of Sir John Gray, a noted Lan-
castrian leader, and the youthful king Edward IV. The
lady, so well known to historical students by the name of
Elizabeth Woodville, waylaid Edward when he was hunt-
ing in the neighbourhood of her mother's castle at Grafton.
There she waited for him under a noble tree, still known
by the appellation of the Queen's Oak. Under the shelter
of its wide-spreading branches the fascinating widow ad-
ressed the young monarch, holding her fatherless boys by
118 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the hand ; and when Edward paused to listen to her suit,
she threw herself at his feet, and pleaded earnestly for the
restoration of part of the forfeited estates of her children.
" The king was deeply struck by the lady's beauty, and
his captivation was completed by her grace, modesty, and
sweetness ; he hung enraptured over the lovely suppliant,
and became in turn a suitor.
" The Queen's Oak, which was the scene of more than
one interview between the beautiful Elizabeth and the
enamoured Edward, stands in the direct tract of communi-
cation between Grafton Castle and Whittlebury Forest ;
it now rears its hollow trunk, a venerable witness of one
of the most romantic facts in the pages of history.
"Elizabeth was for a time subject to the licentious
addresses of the royal libertine ; but repulsing gently but
firmly, she riveted her conquest by her virtue. All his
arts to induce her to become his own on other terms than
as the sharer of his regal dignity were unsuccessful. On
one occasion the beautiful widow made this memorable
reply to his disgraceful overtures, — ' My liege, I know that
I am not good enough to be your queen, but I am far too
good to be your mistress.' She then left him to settle the
question in his own breast, for she knew that he had
betra}^ed others whose hearts had deceived them into
allowing him undue liberties. The resistance thus offered
to his suit increased the king's passion rather than
weakened it, and the struggle ended in his offering her
marriage.
" In the quaint language of Fabian the marriage is thus
described :
"In most secret manner, upon the 1st of May 1464,
King Edward spoused Elizabeth, late being wife of Sir
John Gray. Which sponsales were solemnized early in
the morning at the town called Grafton, near to Stoney
Stratford. At which marriage was not present but the
spouse (Edward), the spousesse (Elizabeth), the Duchess
of Bedford, her mother, the priest, and two gentlewomen,
and a young man to help the priest sing. After the
WHITTLEBURY FOREST. 119
sponsailles the king rode again to Stoney Stratford, as if
he had been hunting, and then returned at night. And
within a day or two the king sent to Lord Rivers, father
to his bride, saying that he would come and lodge with
him for a season, when he was received with all due honour,
and tarried there four days, when Elizabeth visited him
by night so secretly that none but her mother knew of it.
And so the marriage was kept secret till it needs be dis-
covered, because of princesses offered as wives to the king.
There was some obloquy attending this marriage ; how
that the king was enchanted by the Duchess of Bedford, or
he would have refused to acknowledge her daughter.'
Of Whittlewood, or Whittlebury Forest the following
notice is given in the Journal of Forestry : —
" The Forest of Whittlewood is situated on the borders of
the counties of Northampton, Oxford, and Buckingham,
and comprehends within its ancient bounds a considerable
territory extending into these three counties. This forest,
as well as that of Salcey, is part of the honour of Grafton,
and there were various perambulations made of it in the
reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. Another was made
during the reign of Charles L, extending the bounds of it
far beyond the former limits, but the Act of 16th, Charles
L. restricted it again to the old limits of James I. Indeed,
these arbitrary extensions of forests beyond their old
limits, and their subsequent confinement to such area, may
be taken as indicative of the temper both of king and par-
liament, and which led to the civil war by an aggregate of
such encroachments on the liberty of the subject and a
substitution of the royal will. The coppices were cut in
rotation at twenty-one years growth ; and after being en-
closed for nine years from the time of each cutting of the
underwood, were then thrown open to the deer and cattle for
the remaining twelve years, excepting Shrobb Walk, which
was not subjected to any rights of common. The cattle
allowed to depasture in the forest were horned cattle and
horses only; no sheep or swine were admitted. The
120 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
officers were a lord warden, or master forester, a lieutenant,
or deputy- warden, two verderers, a woodward, a purlieu
ranger, five keepers, and six page keepers, besides the
surveyor-general of the woods and forests.
In 1620 the number and value of the trees in the
Forest of Whit tie wood is stated to be as follows : — Oak
timber trees 50,040, value £25,755 ; decaying trees 3G0,
value £123 6s 8d. The number of loads of timber is not
stated in this survey, but the account of the value of the
trees enables us in some degree to supply that deficit. The
common price of oak timber at that period was about 10s
per load. The 50,056 trees then, valued at £25,755, must
have contained, one with another, about a load of timber
each, and making reasonable allowances for the tops and
branches of the trees, there must have been in the forest
from 40,000 to 50,000 loads of timber, girt price, or from
60,000 to 75,000 loads, square measure.
"The quantity of naval timber felled from 1772 to
1786 inclusive, was 3,158 loads, the produce of which,
with the bark and offal wood, amounted to - - £8,986 17 4
Fees, poundages, and expenses, - - - 1,338 8 3
Clear produce of navy timber to that time, - £7,648 9 1
From 1786 to 1790, navy timber was cut as follows : —
2,304 trees, 2,572 loads, and 19 feet, square measure,
which, at the then customary measure of £1 18s per load,
together with the tops, bark, &c, amounted to - £7,111 16 4
2,022 dotard and decayed oaks, and 331 ash trees,
sold for payment of officers' salaries,
Less expenses, salaries, &c,
Clear produce since 1786,
Ditto of Navy Timber, 1772 to 1786,
Less for expenses, salaries, &c,
1,437 14 10
8,549
2,496
11
1
2
0
£6,053
7,64S
10
9
2
1
£13,701
1,353
19
1
3
£12,34S
17
10*
And this sum shews the clear produce to the Crown since
the forest was in the hands of the Grafton family, being 85
years, at about an average of about £145 5s 7d a year.
WHITTLEBURY FOREST. 121
" In 1783 there were growing in this forest, of trees 30
feet and upwards, yielding navy timber, 5,211, measuring
7,230 loads, square measure ; and of dotard, decayed, &c,
502, containing 569 loads, square measure. By the same
survey it appears that there were 18,617 trees in the forest
constantly lopped for the browse of the deer, viz., 6,335
oaks, computed to contain 8,907 loads of timber, square
measure, and 12,282 ash trees, containing 3,512 loads ; so
that the number and quantity of the browsed oaks was
greater than that reported to be fit for tbe navy, of which
the number in the coppices was not quite more than three
trees to every two acres of land. Between the years 1772
and 1783 there had been felled for tbe navy 1,461 trees,
producing 1,335 loads. If these be added to the trees
growing in the coppices at the time of the survey, the
number would be still less than two trees to every acre;
and if the browse oaks be taken into computation, the
whole number of the trees of thirty feet and upwards
would be little more than three trees to an acre."
D. — TJie Forest of Salcey*
11 Salcey Forest is situated in the immediate neighbour-
hood of Whittlebury. Its extent is about 1280 acres ;
and it is the property of the crown, or rather the crown
claims certain rights, some of which are disputed by the
Duke of Grafton. The forest seems to have been quite
neglected until the beginning of the present century, when
the authorities began to plant it ; but since that time it
has been in a very thriving state, though the annual loss
to the public on such a young plantation is very consider-
able, when compared with the receipts.
" It is chiefly composed of coppice-woods, of which there
are 1841 acres, though a considerable number of oaks have
been planted. The remainder consisted of 1741 acres of
open plains, 127 acres of freehold land, and 32 of detached
meadow, making 3741 acres in all. This forest abounds in
122 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
deer, many of them the red-deer, who do great damage to
the young trees, and whose existence produces habits of
poaching and immorality among the people in this neigh-
bourhood. Of the red-deer, the woodman says that they
will break through every fence, even though it be seven feet
high ; and of the influence of the forest on the neighbour-
hood, the clerk to the magistrates says, c In its present
state it is attended with great disadvantages to the morals
and habits of the inhabitants of the adjacent districts and
forest parishes.' Wood-stealing is also very common ; the
offences, we are told, are almost innumerable, for not more
than one in twenty is prosecuted ; unless the case is very
outrageous it is passed over. Even those that do take
place entail a heavy expense on the county of Oxford,
whose ratepayers have to 'pay the piper.' The crown
claims in the forest the rights of soil, timber, minerals
and deer ; but all the officers are appointed by the
ranger, Lord Churchill, who claims the rights of timber
and deer. This is founded on a grant made by Charles II.
to the Clarendon family, ( to cut heath, fens, fern, bushes,
and shrubs in the open forest, and to timber for certain
specified repairs.' This right was purchased from the
Clarendon family, by the late Duke of Marlborough in
1751, and made over by him to the late Lord Churchill.
" This lord was very tenacious of his rights, or supposed
rights ; and in 1834 raised an action against the crown for
the settlement of the dispute, which was only abated at
his death. When ordered by the royal warrant to send
the customary annual supply of venison, instead of sending
the bucks whole, as they were sent from every other forest,
he retained the shoulders, asserting that they were his
privilege."
Of the Forest of Salcey, the following account is given
in the Journal of Forestry (vol. 1, p. 101) : —
"Salcey Forest, in the south-east part of Northampton-
shire, and on the borders of Buckinghamshire, appears to
have been perambulated as early as the reign of Henry III.
SALCEY FOREST. 123
and Edward I., and from the official account given of the
latter it appears that the limits of the forest had been
extended by King John, but that the woods and lawns
afforested by that king were disafforested by Edward. But
though the forest was thus brought back to its ancient
bounds, and though the limits thus established were
brought to their original extent and confirmed bv usage
for more than 300 years, an attempt was made by Charles
I. again to enlarge the forest, and a considerable extent of
country was added to it ; but the Parliament of 1641 again
brought it back to its former dimensions. About the close
of the last century, the lands considered as forest, over
which the Crown was possessed of timber and other valu-
able rights, extended in length about two miles and a half,
and in breadth about a mile and a half, and contained
1,847a. Or. 23p., about 1,121 acres of which were under
timber. The Forest of Salcey was made part of the honour
of Grafton, erected in the 33rd year of Henry VIII., and
in the 17th year of Charles II. ; this, together with the
Forest of Whittlewood, was settled on Queen Catherine
for life, reserving all the timber trees and saplings for the
use of the Crown, and at her death the Grafton family
succeeded to her privileges. Among the papers collected
by Sir Julius Caesar (one of the ministers of James I.) is a
survey of the timber and wood belonging to the Crown in
the county of Northampton, taken in the year 1608, from
which it appears that there were at that time growing
in this forest 15,274 timber trees of oak, then valued at
£11,951, besides 440 decaying trees, valued at £140 13s. 4d.
The number of loads is not mentioned, but other docu-
ments of the period state that the general price of oak
timber was then about 10s. per load, girth measure. The
15,274 oak trees, which were valued at 16s. each, must
have contained, one with another, not less than a load and
a half of timber, or about 22,911 loads girth measure,
which is equal to 34,366 loads square measure. In 1783
the deputy surveyor of woods and forests reported that
there were then in this forest only 2,918 oak trees fit for
124 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
the navy (including all trees down to 30 feet of timber),
containing by computation 3,745 loads of timber, square
measure; and only 194 scrubbed, dotard, or defective trees
of above 30 feet each, besides browse trees, of which there
were 8,2GG oak trees, containing by computation 7,338
loads square measure, and 8,914 browse ashes ; so that
the timber fit for the navy, according to this survey, was
little more than one-tenth part of the quantity fit for naval
use in 1608. This falling-off was not caused by felling
during the last century, but was the ruinous effect of
a mixture of opposite interests in the same property, and
of the system of mismanagement. Some of the trees called
browse trees, for instance, were found to be large and
sound trees, fit for the service of the navy. These were
lopped to feed the deer, and it is a significant fact that the
salaries of the lieutenant and keepers were defrayed chiefly
from the sale of browse wood. Again, the warden or deputy
warden had the privilege of cutting bushes and under-
wood in the plains, open ridings, and lawns; and a better
plan to prevent a succession of young trees could not be
devised, as these need the protection of the bushes to
prevent injuries from deer and cattle. The poundage of
five per cent, on all moneys coming to the hands of the
surveyor-general, and another poundage on the expen-
diture of those moneys, made it to the interest of that
officer to fell the timber and to promote and enhance the
expense and repairs and works in the forest. The whole
of the actual business of the forest used to be transacted
by deputies, and these deputies not acting upon oath, the
sales of the wood and timber being wholly under their
direction, without any adequate check or control, and the
deputies themselves being the buyers of the wood and
timber sold by themselves, it needs no further comment
to explain the difference in the above figures. These
deputies must have had profitable berths, for after they
had bought the timber of themselves, thev undertook the
execution of works and repairs, and were paid according to
estimates prepared by themselves. Nor did the keepers
ASHDOWN FOREST. 125
go without their pickings, for they took the stools or roots
of the tiees felled, which must have put a considerable
sum a year into their pockets, although such stools were the
undoubted property of the Crown. In short, the adminis-
tration of the forest seems to have been a merry-go-round
of unblushing knavery."
E.— Ashdoicn Forest.
An immense forest once occupied a great part of the
surface of the present county of Sussex. This forest was
called by the Britons ' Coit Andred,' and by the Saxons
1 Andredes-weald ; it was inhabited only by wild boars and
by deer. According to the Saxon Chronicle, this wood was
of prodigious dimensions ; it was ' in length, east and wrest,
one hundred and twenty miles or longer, and thirty miles
broad.' In the course of time a large portion of this im-
mense space has been gradually cleared and brought into
cultivation. Three forests of some extent, however, still
exist — St Leonard's. Ashdown, and Tilgate Forests. St
Leonard's contains about ten thousand acres •, and Ash-
down forest about eighteen thousand acres. Pine, nr,
beech, and birch are the principal trees.
" Ashdown Forest has the character of an open heath
partially sprinkled with underwood, and rising to a con-
siderable elevation — Crowborough Hill, the highest point,
beino- 80 i feet above the level of the sea. From the
a ...
summit of this hill is presented a splendid panoramic view
of the whole range of the South Downs from Beachy Head,
the eastern extremity, to the borders of Hampshire ; the
Isle of Wight appearing like a cloud resting on the sea
beyond. The nearest ridge of the Downs is about twenty
miles distant ; the intervening country, though enclosed
and cultivated is deeply wooded."
126 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Of the Ashdown Forest, and the forest of which it
formed a large integral part, The Spectator writes (15th
February, 1879) :—
u It is difficult to realise that vast forest, the memory
of which is handed down to us in the wealds of our
Southern Home Counties. Stretching from the edge of
Romney Marsh to the border of Hampshire, the Andreds-
wald, or Forest of Anderida, occupied nearly the whole
space between the North and South Downs, covering about
a third of Kent, nearly the whole of Sussex except the sea-
board, and a considerable slice of Surrey. So densely wooded
was this district, that the great Roman roads avoided it ;
the way from Chichester to London, for instance, passing
through Southampton. Devoted, so far as it was used at
all, to the rearing of large herds of swine, who fattened on
its acorns and beech-mast, it was frequented only by those
who attended them ; and it remained for centuries after
the adjoining parts had become subject to Roman civilisa-
tion, a terra incognita to both rulers and ruled. Through-
out Saxon times but very slight inroads were made upon
it, and it would appear that so late as the Conquest very
little of it had been brought under cultivation or appro-
priated to particular owners, since few places situate
wholly within the Weald are mentioned in the Doomsday
Survey.
" Compare this condition of the country with that now
existing, and the contrast is remarkable. So far from the
Weald of Kent being now noted for wild and waste, it is
exceptionally free from them. No large commons are to
be found, villages abound, and are of exceptional size, and
the whole face of the country is in individual ownership,
and in great part under high cultivation. Though Sus-
sex contains more wood, and is particularly favourable to
the growth of oak, yet it is, on the wThole, an enclosed
county, and does not, like Surrey, for example, abound in
heaths and open land. Three fragments of the ancient
forest, bearing traces of their descent even in their names,
have, however, survived to modern times — the Forests of
ASHDOWN FOREST. 127
St. Leonard's, Waterdown, and Ashdown. Of these, Ash-
down Forest is particularly well defined, owing to its
having been for some centuries surrounded by a* pale.
It is a district of triangular form, its base approaching the
branch line of railway from East Grinstead to Tunbridge
Wells, and its apex lying due south, some three or four
miles from Uckfield. About seven miles from Tunbridge
Wells, and four from the small town of East Grinstead, it
thus lies in the heart of the county, a district compara-
tively little frequented. Hence most Londoners would
probably be surprised to learn that within forty miles of
the metropolis there exists a second ancient Royal Forest,
comprising at the present moment a slightly larger area
of open waste land than the famous Forest of Epping.
To speak with accuracy, indeed, Ashdown is no longer a
forest, in the legal sense of the term. Originally owned
by the Crown, it was granted as a free chase to John of
Gaunt, in the fourteenth century, and remained henceforth
annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster, until the time of
Char]es II., when it was formally disforested, and found its
way into the hands of some of those speculators in waste
land who seem to have sought their fortune in overreach-
ing the inhabitants of rural districts, under colour of the
Royal permission and washes. Popularly, however, its
more dignified title has survived, and Ashdown Forest is
the only name by which the district is known at the pre-
sent time. From an early date the forest became the seat
of iron-works, and to this fact are no doubt mainly to be
attributed the disastrous inroads made from time to time
upon its sylvan beauties. In the time of the Tudors, com-
mission after commission was issued to inquire into the
waste and destruction of the forest, with always the same
result — trees had been felled to make ' coals' for the iron-
mills. Even the officers of the forest, the keepers them-
selves, were generally found to be guilty of this offence,
and it may well be imagined that while themselves com-
mitting so flagrant a breach of trust, they would not be
astute to detect other offenders. In the time of the Com-
128 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
monwealth, that most business-like Government carefully
surveyed the forest, and determined to make allotments
to the large body of persons who enjoyed rights of com-
mon over it, and thus buying out their interest, to reduce
the residue of the tract to the several and complete owner-
ship of the State. A commission was issued, which actu-
ally set out the allotments to be enjoyed by the several
parishes extending into the forest, and even went so far
as to determine in what proportions the several inhabi-
tants of each parish should enjoy their allotment.
u Whether any inclosures were actually made is doubt-
ful. The forest is scored by banks and ditches in all
directions, and it is possible that the allotments of the
Parliamentary commissioners may have been thus de-
fined, and even that individuals here and there may have
attempted a complete appropriation. However, the res-
toration intervened before any general inclosnre could
be consummated, and the elaborate preparations for cut-
ting up the forest came to naught. They do not appear
to have been popular with the inhabitants, for we find no
attempt on their part to hold inclosures, nor any petition
or memorial to the Crown to give effect to what had been
projected. But Charles II. wanted money, and there were
not lacking (as we have said) speculative persons who were
ready to pay considerable sums, and to take all the expense
and trouble of legitimate proceedings for an inclosure of
the hands of the Crown, if they could obtain a grant
of the royal interest in the forest, and an expression of
the royal wish that the forest should, as it was called, be
'improved.' Their procedure was marked by the utmost
simplicity. They inclosed large tracts, buying off one or
two of the principal land owners of the district by giving
them a share in the plunder ; and if remonstrance or
resistance were made, complained that the inhabitants
were frowardly conspiring together to thwart the wishes
of the Sovereign to benefit his country by making its
wastes productive. The same process took place else-
where, notably in the case of Malvern Chase. The Com-
ASHDOWN FOREST. 129
moners, however, were not easily over-ridden. They
resorted to the equally simple and strictly constitutional
step of levelling the enclosures as fast as they were made.
Squabbles and litigation ensued, and finally, in the case of
Ashdown Forest, matters were settled in 1 093 by a decree
of the Court of Exchequer, which gave the persons who
had then become owners of the soil undisputed enjoyment
of about 7,000 acres of the forest land, and declared the
commoners to be entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of
extensive rights over the remainder. By this arrange-
ment, the area of open forest was reduced from nearly
14,000 acres to 6,400.
"The tract of open land thus left does not lie in one
block in the centre of the ancient forest. On the con-
trary, the lands reserved for the commoners were set out as
far as possible at the outside edge, and in the neighbourhood
of the villages where the commoners resided. The con-
sequence is that open and enclosed lands are intermixed
over the whole area of the ancient forest, — and the line of
the ancient pale is still practically, in most parts, the
boundary of the district. This combination of enclosure
and waste is not without its advantages. The most ardent
lover of heath and moorland cannot object to the variety
caused by well- wooded enclosures breaking up the open
exnanse now and a^ain, and in Ashdown Forest there is
this special benefit, — that whereas at the time of the divi-
sion the forest had been nearly stripped of trees, the
couple of centuries which have since passed have served to
raise a handsome crop of fine beech and birch, where they
have been protected by enclosures ; while on the open
wastes very few trees have survived their iufancy, and over
wide tracts there is hardly a bush to be seen above the
level of the heather and the bracken.
" Indeed, were it not for the enclosures, the greater
part of Ashdown Forest, as it now exists, would present
few features of incongruity if transferred to the Yorkshire
moors. Long ridges of heather, visited by the sea-breezes
which have only brushed the tops of the South Downs,
K
130 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
stretch in every direction, affording wide views over a wild
and broken country. Moorland streams rising in the
bottoms, cut their way through the gravel and and soft
stone of the district, often running between steep banks,
in which the yellow sandstone, with its ruddier iron vein-
ing, forms a delightful background to fern and moss and
creeping plants. Here and there, it is true, the forest
redeems its pristine character, and protests against classifi-
cation with moorland pure and simple. Beech and oak
scrub occasionally dot the heather ; that most lovely of
young trees the birch, rises here and there in quaint group-
ings and fantastic wreathings and bendings of its slender
branches; while again and again those faithful denizens
of every English forest, the holly and the yew, throw in
their dark shading to other leafage, or break the surface
of the open heath. In one corner, indeed, there is a
genuine oak wood, not of great age, but yet not destitute of
those sturdy and rugged beauties which mark the species,
and just suggesting what the forest must have been before
its mineral wealth caused the destruction of its natural
vesture. Still the prevailing characteristic of the open
forest are heath-clad hill and wide-stretching moor, and
hence the presence of the masses of foliage wdnch have
sprung up on the large inclosures sanctioned in the seven-
teenth century is by no means an unmixed evil. The
smaller enclosures, which are dotted about the forest, in
some places very thickly, and many of which originated in
nothing but encroachments, or to use the more expressive
term, ' squattings,' often add to the landscape a charm of
their own, the garden well stocked with fruit-trees, and the
bright green meadow, with its thick hedge-row, pleasantly
varying the slope of the hill, or nestling in the hollow by
the side of the stream. And even the cottages, which, like
most buildings erected under such circumstances, are
crude and hap-hazar 1 enough in their construction, when
time has toned down the harshness of their outlines, and
the staring red of their tiles, are not out of harmony with
their surroundings.
ASHDOWX FOREST. 131
" Various attempts to plant the open forest have from
time to time been made by the owners of the soil, but
hitherto they have been stoutly resisted by the com-
moners, and very wisely ; for planting meant simply the
temporary abstraction of so much of their open common,
with great risk of its permanent appropriation. They
were not indeed unreasonable in their opposition, but
allowed clumps to be left where the)* were obviously
planted for ornament, and not for profit ; and the conse-
quence is, that many of the long ridges are broken at
their highest points by knolls of beech or pine, imparting
that indescribable sense of solitude which is associated
with single trees or groups of trees in a wild open country.
Recently the ubiquitous Scotch fir has here and there
gained a footing on the moors, and with a little encour-
agement would doubtless soon over-run them. Fortun-
ately, its movements are carefully watched, for experi-
ence in the New Forest has shown how disastrously it
disfigures woodland scenery when grown in large masses,
while the consequences entailed upon the herbage have
been found to be equally ruinous. But in a soil which
once produced an oak and beech forest, some planting,
carried out with discretion, might doubtless be introduced
without incongruity or the destruction of the natural
features of the forest ; and it is to be hopod that by aid of
facilities offered by recent legislation, and under the guid-
ance of that love of open spaces as such, which has arisen
of late years, as one of the results of our crowding in towns,
and the hurry of our lives, some mode of protecting and
enhancing the beauty of the district, with due regard to all
legal rights, may be discovered. In the meantime, if a
tired and smoke-dried citizen wishes for a few days'
ramble in a wild, hilly, and open country, accompanied by
copious draughts of the freshest possible breezes, he cannot
do better than pay a visit to Ashdown Forest."
132 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
F. — St Leonard's Forest.
" St Leonard's Forest presents but little of pictur-
esque variety of thicket and glade, of open lawns dotted
with spreading trees, and skirted with broken lines of
dark wood. The soil, consisting chiefly of hungry sands,
is unfavourable to the growth of timber; the trees, there-
fore, generally are not of large size. But there is great
variety in the surface of the forest, which is mostly un-
dulating, and towards the centre swells into ridges of
considerable elevation. The long lines of these, rising one
above the other, clothed as are their slopes with thick
woods, give an air of interest and grandeur to the features
of the country. In this central ridge several rivers take
their rise, some flowing northwards, and falling into the
Thames, and others, in the opposite direction, finding their
way through valleys in the Souths Downs into the English
Channel. Among the former the chief is the Med way
and others sung by Pope :
1 The chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave,
And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood,
And silent Darent, stain'd with British blood.'
" Among the latter are the Arun, the Adur, the Ouse,
and the Cuckmere, all forming harbours of more or less
importance at their outfall on the coast of Sussex. The
glens through which the springs which feed these rivers
pour their tributary waters are, man}- of them, exceedingly,
beautiful.*
G. — Tilgate Forest.
" At one time, iron ore in considerable quantities was
dug in Tilgate Forest; and, as it was smelted on the
* In the records of the Harleian Miscellany, the curious reader may discover one
which might impress his mind with some terrific ideas of the Datura] history of the
eouth of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is styled " The True
and Wonderful." The portion of the MSS. to which we allude is the "Legend of the
Serpent of St Leonard's Forest."
SPELMAN'S LIST OF FORESTS. 133
spot "with charcoal made from the neighbouring woods,
there is no wonder that the timber should have been
rapidly thinned. There is a tradition in the neighbour-
hood, that the massive iron railiug which encloses St.
Paul's Churchyard was forged from the ore smelted in the
forest.* Such things were ! Xow, half the timber remain-
ing in its woodlands would hardly suffice for the manufac-
ture of the rails of one of the iron roads which traverse
it."t
Section VII.— Sir Henry Spelman's List of
English Forests.
The first forest laws of which we have any record were
passed in the reign of Canute the Great in 1016, and were
extremely severe and savage. The power granted by these
laws enabled the kings to enclose any tract of forest they
pleased, or to plant new forests; and this power was exer-
cised with the utmost tyranny. Some details have been
given of the devastation committed by William the Con-
queror, when he formed the new forest in Hampshire.
Under the Norman kings the breadth of land covered
with forests greatly increased. In the reign of Henry II.
there was, according to Fitz-Stephen, a monk who lived at
that period, a large forest round London, ' in which were
woody groves ; in the covers whereof larked bucks and
does, wild boars and bulls ; ' and these woods remained for
centuries afterwards. Sir Henry Spelman, a celebrated
antiquary, who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
gives a list of English forests, which, though not perhaps
* According1 to Cunningham's Handbook of London, this iron railing:, of more than
2500 paisades, was cast at Lamberhurst, in Kent, at a cost of upwards of £11,20% Cs 6d.
t Up to the year 1720, Sussex was the principal seat of the iron manufacture in Eng-
land; the consumption of fuel was so great that more than one Act was passed for the
preservation of the timber ; but the wood still decreased, and by degrees the. furnaces
were disused, and the manufacture transferred to district; where coal was ahundant.
The last furnace, vmham, was blown out in 1527.
134
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
absolutely correct, will yet serve to give an idea of the
immense tract of land which these forests at one time
covered.
FOREST.
Applegarth
Arundel
Ashdown
Bere .
Birnwood
Blackinoor
Blethnay
Bowland (Pendle)
Bredon
Bucholt
Cantrelly
Cardeth
Char
Charnwood
Chut .
Coidrath
Copland
Dallington
Dartmore
Delamere
Dean
Derefuld
Downe
Exmere
Feckenham
The Forest
Formulwood
Gaioernack
Gautries
Gillingham
Hatfield
Harwood
Haye .
Holt .
Huestoun
Inglewood
Knaresboro'
Kingswood .
COUNTY.
York
Sussex
Hants
Bucks
Wiltsl
Radnor
Lancashire
Wilts
Hants
Caerraarthen
Hants
Leicester
Wilts
Pembroke
Cumberland
Sussex
Da von
Chester
Gloucester
Salop
Sussex
Devon
Cardigan
Somerset
Wilts
York
Dorset
Essex
Salop
Dorset
Cumberland
York
Gloucester
Knuckles
Leicester
St. Leonard
Lounsdael
Lowes
Lune .
Ly field
Mallustary
Mactry
Narbeith
Nerach
New Forest
Do.
Peak -
Pemshaur
Pickering
Radnor
Ruscob
Rockingham
Sapler
Sanernack
Sherwood
Selwood
Salcey
Way bridge
Walt ham
West Forest
West Ward
Whichwood
Whinfield .
Wheigthart
Whittlewood
Whitmey .
Wyersdale .
Windsor
Wolmerwood
Worth
Wutmer
COUNTY.
Radnor
Leicester
Sussex
Northumberland
York.
Rutland
Westmoreland
Salop
Pembroke
Somerset
Hants
York
Derby
Wilts
York
Radnor
Cardigan
Northampton
Wilts
Nottingham
Somerset & Wilts
Northampton
Huntingdon
Essex
Hants
Cumberland
Oxford
Westmoreland
Northampton
Lancashire
Berks
York
Sussex
Hants
PART II.
■£>. —
DEVASTATING AND DESTRUCTIVE TREATMENT OF
ENGLISH FORESTS, AND MEASURES TAKEN TO
ARREST THIS.
The forests and woodlands of the present day in England
are but scattered remains of much more extensive forests
and woodlands which existed formerly. It may be the
case that it is matter of rejoicing that where there was
once only densely-wooded forest land, there are now the
fruitful field and scenes of busy industry, and marts of
commerce, and delectable habitations. But the fact that
these lands were once, like the greater part of Europe,
throughout their whole extent what the Romans desig-
nated a silvo horrida — a rough and rugged wood, in which
dwelt the wild men of the wood — the savac/es of their day
— is a fact which demands our attention in considering
forests and forestry of England.
Of the existence of woods and woodlands in places in
which there are no woods now, we have evidence in names
of places indicative of the former wooded condition of these
places — in historical notices of woods and forests which
have in like manner disappeared — in existing remains of
former woods and forests buried deep in peat bogs and
marshes, and buried in dry lands which were once in that
condition — and in remains of others submerged in the sea.
We have, moreover, indications of some of these buried
trees having grown in the locality in which they were
found, at or before the time of the Roman invasion; and
by historical notices and forest legislation, we can trace
some of the changes which have been going on from that
time to the present.
CHAPTER I.
SITES OF WOODS PERPETUATED IX NAMES OF PLACES.
We find in many countries in the names of places a
reference to woods, and trees, and woodland scenery. We
meet with this in the European designation, Transyha, vol ;
we meet with it in names of places and reference to woods
preserved in the sacred books of the Hebrews indicative
that Palestine was cf old a wooded country : while the
absence of such allusion in their later books — the New
Testament Scriptures — seems to indicate that two thou-
sand years ago the woods had disappeared ; we meet
with the same thins; in the name of Madeira, the Portu-
guese word for wood, conferred in reference to the ric
wooded state of the island when colonised, and perpetuated,
notwithstanding the woods having been not long after that
devastated by fire ; and we meet with it in old geographi-
cal names and terminations of names, etyniologically indi-
cative of the places having been situated in woods or
groves, though it may be no woods or groves be existing
there now. Mr Marsh, in his volume entitled " The Eart h
as Modified by Human Action," in referring to this, cites
the following as illustrative of the fact : — tl In Southern
Europe, Breul, Broglio, Brolio, Brolo ; in Northern Europe,
Breuil, and the endings, -dean, -den, -don, -ham, -holt,
-herst, hurst, -lund, -shaw, -shot, -skog, -skov, -wald,
-weald, -wold, -wood." In England we have not a few of
such names, — Chillingham, Chislehurst, Sherwood, St
John's Wood, and many others.
Besides these we have places named from different kinds
of trees, which it may be supposed gave to the localities a
OLD NAMES OF WOODS. 137
special characteristic at the times at which these names
were given. Passing those cases in which this reference
to particular kinds of trees is manifest at first sight — the
Oaks, the Elms, the Beeches — we meet with others of older
date, in which older forms of the names given to different
kinds of trees occur. Thus it is with Bishop Auckland, or
Oakland; with Bucklands, Beechlands ; and Buckingham,
Beech Forest.
These names have occurred to me while writing
Currente calamo.
The names of places derived from trees and woods with
which they were associated have suffered much, as other
names of places have suffered, from friction. One may be
amused with the difference between the pronounciation
and the orthography of such places as Siscister (Ciren-
cester)'; Chumly (Cholmondoly) ; Leester (Leicester) : and
Woster (Worcester).
We find like effects of friction not only in the pronoir-
ciation of names of some places, but in the orthography.
Thus is it with Shrewsbury. The old British name of the
town when it was the capital of Powwsland and the
residence of the Welsh powers was Pengwern, and many
of the streets still bear names which seem to speak of that
time, such names as Mardol, Dogpole, Wylecop, and
Shoplatch. But the Saxons gave to it the name, of which
the modern name Shrewsbury may be considered a
corruption, Scrobbesbiirig, the Shrubby Hill, or hill
covered with shrubs ; in which a reference to the shrubby
character of the country is apparent, as it is also in the
name of the county, Shropshire. In the same county, not
far from Leighton, we have a village called Cressage — a
curious corruption of the older name, which was Christ's
Oak.
Like corruptions of older names are not uncommon, and
amongst them may be found not a few such cases of names
of places embodying a reference to woods once existent but
existing no more. In Cumberland there is a village called
138 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Dregg. In this name the etymologist may perceive a
uorruption of Dericht or Dregh, which in Scottish and in
Irish is a name given to the oak. The adjacent country
was, it is said, formerly thickly covered with oaks, and the
remains of ancient forests are at times discovered in cut-
ting drains.
A place of which frequent mention is made in ancient
British history is Quatford. It is in the centre of a forest
district, including: the ancient Forest of Morfe and the
Foiest of Wyre on the confines of Shropshire. It is said
that quat is the Saxon form of the British coed, a forest.
Berkshire was formerly completely covered with a forest,
called by .the Britons Berroc, and from this the county
takes its name. Lindhurst is the Lime or Linden Wood ;
and Lymington sounds as if it had had some connection
with the same kind of tree.
In such names of places embodying a reference to woods
and woodlands in various parts of England, where it may
be nothing to justify the name is now to be seen, we seem
to have indications of the country having been formerly
much more extensively wooded than it is now ; and indi-
cations of the places bearing these names having been
situated in woodlands.
A word of caution, however, in connection with the use
of names of places as evidences of the former existence of
woodlands in the locality may be called for. It will, I
presume, be admitted by students of such matters that
Oakham, in Rutland, is descriptive of the town, as the
town in the Oak wood. But we have a town in Devon-
shire called Oakhamton, which had no connection with
any Oak wood : it bears a name which can be traced to a
local position not less well defined. It is situatad on the
river Okement. A writer in the Cornhill Magazine for
November, 1882, on A Corner of Devon, tells that, in some
unpublished manumissions of serfs entered on the fly-
leaves of Bishop Leofric's Missal he found what is probably
the earliest form of the town's name, Ocmundtun, i.e., the
OLD NAMES OF WOODS. 139
tun or town on the Ocmund or Okement ; and he remarks,
" oddly enough, while the official form has been corrupted
into Oakhamton the word on the lips of the countrymen
has become Ockington, evidently a change due to the
commonness of clan-villages bearing analogous titles," such
as Cockington, near Torquay, formerly apparently a colony
of the English ; and East and West Allington, near King's
Bridge, apparently originally settlements of the Altings.
For these illustrations I am indebted to the same writer ;
but they occur in a different connection. In continuation
of the passage cited, he goes onto say, " Monk Oakhamton
(a different locality) has in like manner turned incon-
gruously into Monk Ockington."
CHAPTER II.
Historical Notices of Woods and Forests which are
now no more.
Not a few of the woods and woodlands, the names of
which have been perpetuated in the names still given to
localities, have disappeared within the historic period. In
reference to the list of forests in England, drawn up by
Sir Henry Spelman, and who lived in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, it has been stated that out of the forty counties
of England only fifteen, consisting chiefly of those situated
on the east coast, did not contain forests, while some coun-
ties, such as York, contained five or six. All of these
forests must have been woodlands; but a writer in 1853
tells of them : — " Many of the forests here enumerated
have now entirely disappeared; though some of them were
of great magnitude and extent. The forests of Cumberland
are all now ' naked, desolate scenes ;' in Lancashire it is
difficult to find a grove or glade, or anything at all ap-
proaching to the idea of a wood ; the great forests of
Yorkshire have gone to make room for manufacturing
towns and farms, and railroads and canals ; and it is only
in the middle and the south of England that any traces of
royal Forests remain." I quote the statement without ex-
pression of feeling either of rejoicing or of sentimental
wistful regret that it should be so : it is the fact alone
with which I have to do, and in illustration of what has
been implied in what has been stated, I may add that the
site of the city of London was previously, it is alleged, a
grove of chestnut trees of indigenous growth ; and William-
Stephanides, or Fitz-stephan, a monk of Canterbury, who
was born in London and lived in the reigns of King Stephen.
EXTINCT WOODS AND FORESTS. 141
Henry II., and Richard I., dying in the year 1191, and
who wrote a history of his native town, tells in a passage
to which I have already had occasion to refer, of a
large forest then existing round London, " in which were
woody groves; in the covers whereof lurked bucks and
does, wild boars and bulls." For hundreds of years this
forest continued to exist; but where is it now ?
Fitz-stephan has not only made mention of the forest,
but he has given us a glimpse of the recreations of
Londoners in this forest in his day, some seven centuries
ago. Writing of the sports pursued then on grounds and
marshes now densely peopled with inhabitants, he says : —
" Cytherea leads the dances of the maidens, who merrily
trip along the ground beneath the uprisen moon. Almost
in every holiday in winter, before dinner, foaming boars
and huge -tusked hogs, intended for bacon, fight for their
lives, or fat bulls or immense boars are baited with dogs.
<; ]\Iost of the citizens amuse themselves in sporting
with merlins, hawks, and other birds of a like kind, and
also with dogs that hunt in the woods. The citizens have
the right of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and all
the Chilterns, and Kent as far as the Ruid Craig."* Where
could tbey hunt in these places now ?
* It may be interesting to take a glance also at an account given by this writer of
the winter sports of the London youtiis of his day. "When," says he, "that great
marsh, which washes the walls of the city — walls marked at the principal points. I may
mention, by the great gates of Aldgate Bishopsgate, Cripplegate. Al lersgate and Lud-
gate— as the north side is frozen "over, the young men go out in crowds to divert
themselves upon the ice, some having increased their velocity by a run, placing their
feet apart, and throwing their bodies sideways, slide a great way ; others make a seat
of laru,re pieces of ice, like millstones, and a great number of them running before, and
holding each other by the hand, draw one of their companions, who is seated on the ice ;
if at any time they slip in running so swiftly, they all fall down headlong together.
Others are more expert in their sports upon the ice, for, fitting to and binding under
their feet the shin bones of some animal, and takiug in their hands p^es shod with iron,
which at times they strike against the ice, they are carried along with as great rapidity
as a bird flying, or a bolt discharged from a cross-bow. Sometimes two of the skaters
having placed themselves at a great distance apart, by mutual agreement come together
from opposite sides ; they meet, raise their poles, and strike each other ; either one or
both of them fall, not without some bodily hurt ; even after their fall they are carried
along to a great distance from each other by the velocity of the motion ; and whatever
part of their head comes in contact with the ice is laid bare to the skull. Very fre-
quently the leg or arm of the falling party, if he chance to light on either of them, is
"broken. But youth is an a/e eager for glory, and desirous of victory, and so young
men engage in counterfeit battles that they may conduct themselves more valian:ly in
real ones."
i i ' THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Mr R. M'William, in a paper which was designed to
show that the quantity of timber in Great Britain had
greatly diminished, while the dem m 1 for it had much in-
creased at the time he wrote, early in the present century,
remarks : —
" The repeated political changes in the constitution of
our country, before as well as .since the Conquest, have
tended in succession, though from different motives, to the
disforesting of the country. John, and his son Henry III.,
were both very active in this respect : yet Henry VIII.
gave the most fatal blow to the woods, when he seized the
church lands, and applied them to hi* own use. Elizabeth
reduced the forests very considerably, though for reasons
different from those of Henry.
"The wars in the time of Charles I., the havoc of Crom-
well, the persecution in the time of Charles II., and various
other causes in the time of William and Mary, tended very
much, not only to the destruction of the woods, but to the
neglect and discouragement of agriculture generally : and
when large tracts of land are once laid waste, the woods,
that formerly sheltered them destroyed, and the farm
houses and cottages gone to decay, it is no easy matter to
restore them, and bring the land again into cultivation.
Indeed without planting for shelter, no great advantage
would probably be derived from the culture of those
dreary, heath-covered wastes. This, however, is no reason
why they should not be sheltered and recultivated : more
particularly as timber is not only a protection against the
inclemency of the climate, but likewise the most effectual
bulwark against our enemies.
* A principal object of the first invaders of any country
in cutting down the wood is to destroy the retreats and
strongholds of the natives ; and it is not before a very
advanced state of civilization, tbat the destruction of the
forests is considered as the destruction of the instruments
of defence, or of the requisites for the national comforts,
and for improvements in the arts. Yet the latter appears
to have been the object of the Spaniards, when, in 1588,
EXTINCT WOODS AND FORESTS. 143
they were so desirous of destroying our Forest of Dean. It
is said that the commander of the Armada, the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, was expressly enjoined, if, when he landed,
for of effecting a landing they appear to have had no doubt,
he could not subdue our nation, and finally make good the
conquest, he should at least not leave one tree standing in
the Forest of Dean,
" When I b3gan, several years ago, to make minutes,
occasionally, on the present subject, I imagined, that the
fact of our forests having diminished had been generally
known, and universally admitted : but since that time a
very respectable body of men have expressed their dis-
belief of this ; and would persuade us, if they could, that
there is yet a sufficient supply of oak timber in the country
to meet the demand. We know, that exclusive interests
often mislead the judgment, create apprehensions of
visionary disadvantages, and induce a belief of the exist-
ence of facts, which are wholly imaginary. I do not say,
that this observation is applicable to the shipbuilders on
the river Thames ; or that the promulgation of the opinion,
that there are yet sufficient native oaks to meet the
demand, is merely a temporizing project for preventing the
removal of the dockyards from the Thames to the Ganges ;
yet such an opinion can be of no real advantage to the
nation ; for most assuredly, to look in the face whatever
danger menaces our property, is the first step to subdue
it. To inform the nation at large by proclaiming it's
difficulties, is the best mode of securing the cordial aud
indispensable cooperation of the people in the execution
of measures commensurate to the impending evil. I shall
therefore proceed to show, that the disforested state of the
country is not an imaginary, but a real complaint, founded
on facts. The following outline of facts, collected from
various authorities, I presume will be sufficient, without
fully entering into the lengthened detail, which might be
done if thought necessary."
He gives the names of some of the woods and forests in
i n TflE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
twenty-five counties, of which we find mention made as
having adorned the several counties at no distant period,
but of" which then very few still existed. There are named
in all twenty-seven. Amongst them are Enfield Forest,
St John's Wood, Highbury Wood, and the large and noble
forest on the north of London, mentioned by Fit n,
but of which, like the others, no trace appears ; Brecknock
Forest, with an area of 40,000 acres, which had shortly be-
fore been sold by auction, and was a forest no more ;
Wineal Forest, which had occupied the whole peninsula
between the Mersey and the Dee, but which also then was
gone ; Purbeck Forest, which covered the whole island of
Purbeck, as it is called, in Dorsetshire. Most of these are
described as ' gone,' or as 'mostly gone/ 'nearly gone,' 'all
gone/ ' very few trees, if any — about the middle not a
vestige — ' a large wood no more ; ' and he goes on
to say : —
" All these have been woods or forests of considerable
extent at no very remote period. If we go back as far as
Doomsday Book, no less than 1033 woods and forests are
there mentioned as existing in five counties alone ; those
of Derby, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and York. I have not
selected these counties on the supposition that they had
been better wooded than others, but wholly because this
part of the Book of Doomsday was more accessible to me
than that which relates to the other counties. It is, how-
ever, difficult to ascertain the extent of many of these
woods, on account of their being estimated in many coun-
ties by the number of hogs they could feed, and not by the
quantity of ground they covered, or the value of the timber
they contained ; and those woods which did not bear mast
and berries, not being in consequence taken notice of gen-
erally, I shall only mention a few of the most particular, in
the greater part of which there is not now a tree standing,
and in many not a shrub."
The counties then mentioned were not included in the
preceding list. Of forests in Derbyshire he gives the names
of 30, varying in size from 1 mile in length and 1 in breadth,
EXTINCT WOODS AND FORESTS. 145
to 4 miles by 2 miles, 3J by 2 J miles, 3 miles by 3 miles;
and states that these, with others of less note, make in all
147 woods and forests.
Of forests in Yorkshire he gives the names of 116,
varying in size from 1 mile long and J mile broad to 16
by 4, and 9 by 9, which, with a great many other woods,
make in all 366 ; and, he adds, rt One of the smaller woods
is Bolton Percy, from which a great part of its timber was
given by Lord Percy to the building of the cathedral church
at York,* whence it appears that the trees had been large.
In taking the woods from Doomsday Book we observe that
many of these woods are the whole length or breadth of
the manor from which they are named ; and the adjoining
manor gives its woods a different name, though many of
them are apparently only a continuation of the same forest :
consequently, if they were taken as they really were in
wood, without being divided by the artificial line of manor
right, there would appear a much smaller number, but
larger in size. This will hold good with the other counties
as well as Yorkshire."
Of woods in Kent he gives the names of 49 mentioned
in Doomsday Book with others of less note, in all 225
" bearing mast and berry, besides those not bearing mast,
many of them of great extent, though not taken particular
notice of on account of their yielding nothing for the
feeding of swine. One of these bearing no mast near
Canterbury contained one thousand acres. All these are
exclusive of the royal forests, to which, says he, I now
proceed.
" William I. appears to have had in possession 68 forests,
13 chases, and 781 parks, in different parts of England.
The number decreased much under his successors, as will
be apparent when speaking of forest laws, though Henry
VII 1. gave the fatal blow to the woods and forests of the
country in general, when he seized the church lands &c,
and applied them principally to his own use.
* Bawdwin'a Doomsday, page 163.
L
146 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
"Elizabeth reduced not only the woods and forests, but
the royal domain generally, rather than apply to her
parliament for supplies, particularly in the 42 I year of
her reign, for money to suppress thu rebellion in Ireland.
This Queen confirmed the Crown lands to many, who held
them by titles liable to be controverted. Although the
Crown had before given the land in fee, yet the trees were
not given : these remained the property of the crov.
Cromwell is said to have raised £10,035,663 by the sale of
church lands, and consequently woods ; £1,200,000 by the
sale of crown lands and principalities; and £G5G,000 by
the sale of forests and houses belonging to the king.
"In our own time the royal domains have been con-
siderably reduced by the sale of the f of Gillingham,
Rockingham, and Brecknock, the latter of which alone
contained 40.000 acres.
" All these tended not only to reduce the royal domain,
but the forests and woods of the country in general : yet
the meagre appearance of the few vestiges that remain is
more to be regretted, than the diminution in extent of
surface. According to two surveys of the royal forests in
1608-9, and 1783-90, by the former there were found in
the forest of Sherwood, 49,909 oak trees,+ by the latter
there appeared only 10,117. The other royal forests had
been still more reduced, as the diminution on the whole
is stated to have been in the proportion of six to one.
" Of the few royal forests that remain, I have
endeavoured to obtain information of the number of acres.
but have not been so successful as I could have wished."
He gives the names of eighteen, with the reputed area
of eight of these, and he goes on to say —
" According: to this account, the extent of the nominal
royal domains still appears very considerable : a large por-
tion of each, however, is not actually at the disposal of the
* See Fitzherbert's Abridgment in Trespass.
t Lowe's View of the Agriculture of Xottingham.
EXTINCT WOODS AND FORESTS. 147
crown, but subject to manorial and common rights, and no
inconsiderable portion has been private property for ages
past.*
" The whole of the once extensive royal domains, now
appropriated to the growth of timber for the navy, is stated
to be about 38,000 acres ; a diminutive portion indeed !
The average quantity of timber which the whole of the
royal forests have furnished for the seven years preceding
1815, according to the report of the Commissioners, was
4247 loads per year and in that year they supplied only
4110 loads."
Mr M' William, in introducing the subject, remarks: —
" On account of the vast increase of our manufactories,
the consumption of timber is also greatly increased ; so
that even could we suppose the country to be as com-
pletely forested now, as it was some hundred years ago,
this would be insufficient to meet the present demand,
without reducing the quantity very rapidly, or having
recourse to planting. Yet from the notion that timber
will grow only in particular situations, many are deterred
from planting ; which has also been checked by bringing
into cultivation lands that have for many years been
covered, sheltered, and fertilized by the growth of timber.
But the agriculture of the country has been little increased
in extent of surface by this proceeding : for extensive
tracts of land, formerly cultivated, have now, in consequence
of the loss of these very woods, become more exposed and
bleak, and have been rendered barren by this exposure.
Thus while the woodlands have been converted into corn-
fields, the cornfields have been converted into barren
ground ; as is evident from the marks of the plough yet to
be seen on many extensive plains, now covered with heath
and furze, not yielding a shilling a year per acre."
*. By a survey of the Forest of Sherwood in 1609, according to Mr Robert Lowe,
(View of the Agriculture of Nottingham), it was found to contain 95,117 acres, 3 roods,
36„poles ; yet this surface was occupied by no less than 46 towns or villages, several
of them of considerable magnitude.
148 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Details of historical allusions to some of the forests
which have disappeared are not awanting. Of these the
following are a few : —
A. — Notices of Forests formerly existing in the Northern
Count us of England.
The anonymous author of English Forpsts and Forest
Trees, tells : " The greater part of the north of England was,
at no very distant period, covered with numerous forests.
These seem to have been used chiefly for the purposes of
the chase, as we find little account of the timber contained
in them being applied to any public purpose. The names
of these forests still remain, and are in use still. In West-
moreland we have Milburn, Lime, Wliinfield, Martindale,
Thornthwaite, Stainmore, and Mallerstang. All these are
situated in a very mountainous district, and they are now
mere waste heaths. In Milburn Forest, in the north, rises
Crossfell, one of the highest mountains in England. On
the borders of Mallerstang stand what remain of the ruins
of Pendragon Castle, on the banks of the Eden. The
celebrated hero, Uter Pendragon, tried to turn the course
of the river Eden, so that it might flow in a circle around
his castle ; but the fierce, bold baron wras no engineer,
and seems to have been terribly ignorant of hydrostatics,
and of course he failed. This forest was famous in former
times for its great numbers of wild boars, which the name
Wild Boar Fell attests to this day. It is a curious fact,
that close by both Stainmore and Mallerstang there are
two little narrow strips of ground, the possession of which
is disputed between little Westmoreland and large York-
shire. Neither of them seems to be at all worth any
dispute.
" In Cumberland we have still the names of Nicol, Cope-
land, Skid daw, Inglewood. There is also on the eastern
border a large waste with the singular name of Spade-
Adam, which has evidently at one time been a forest ; and
EXTINCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. H9
a little south from it is a small district joining on to
Northumberland, called the King's forest of Geltsdale.
All these forests are now mere desolate scenes. The trees
have disappeared, the game has gone, and their history is
in a great measure lost. In the Forest of Skiddaw rises
the mountain which bears that name, famous as a land-
mark all over the north country. In Inglewood Forest the
English kings used to rind very good sport in hunting ;
and Nicol Forest, being close to the Cheviot Hills, was the
scene of many a border fight.
"' In Northumberland the border adjoining the Cheviot
Hills was covered with forest : and in the centre and
south were Rothbury, Lowes, and Hexham Forests. Con-
nected with, these there are few historical incidents.
The chief is the well-known adventure which Queen
Margaret of Anjou had with a robber iu the forest of
Hexham."
In connection with this, I may mention that near to the
village and College of St Bees is what was once the barony
and forest of Copeland, formerly tenanted by red deer, and,
as the old chronicler says, " as great harts and stags as in
any part of England. So thick was the forest, that we are
told that a squirrel might travel from tree to tree for six
miles without once touching around."*
" For more than twelve hundred year? St. Bees has been the site of a religious house,
and in the records occur incidental allusions to the forest. It was first established by
Christian missionaries from Ireland. The old writer whom I have quoted, te Is, in his
quaint style, '"There was a pious religious Lady-Abbess, aud some of her sisters with
her, driven in by stormy wether at Wnitehaven, and [the] ship cast awav i' th' harbour,
and so destitute ; and so she went to the lady of Egremont Castle for reliefe. i
lady, a godly woman, pitted her distress, and desired her lord to give her some place t »
dwell in, which he did at new St. Bees, and she and her sister^ - aid spinneJ, and
wrought carpets and other works, and lived very godly li - asgotl .em much iovc.
She desired Lady Egremont to desire her lord to build them a house, and they would
lead a religious life together, aud many wolde joine with them, if they bad but a house
and land to live upon. Wherewith the Lady Egremont was very well plea-ed, ane
spoke t ) her lord, he had land enough, and [should] give them some, to lye up treasure
in heaven. And the lord laughed at the ladye. and said he would give them as much
laud as snow fell upon the next morning and on midsummer day. An 1 on the morrow
looked out of the castle window .. two miles from Egremont, ad was I
with snow for three miles together. And thereupon budded this St. Bees Abbie, and
giu all these lands was suowen unto it, and the town and haven of Whitehaven, and
sometime after all the tithes thereabout, and up the mountains, aud Merdale f jrost
eastward."
150 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
It is the difference between the former and the present
condition of these forest lands which chiefly concerns us
here, but the historical and legendary lore connected with
almost all of the forests of England — and with these, in
common with others, forcibly constrains one to digression,
which may be tolerated and enjoyed — as chase might have
been given to a wild boar by some passing traveller, will-
ing to risk the consequences, be these what they might.
The anonymous writer just quoted goes on to say :
" It may readily be supposed that, considering the extent
of those woods on both sides of the border, and their plen-
tiful supply of game, the borderers became hunters, and
that the two nations very often came into contact with
each other, tending to incessant and interminable border
feuds. The hunter was a warrior, and he never rode out
'to hunt the deer' without a sufficient escort of armed
men. The barons kept up a large retinue, fit on any occa-
sion for offence or defence. In the forests themselves
roved numbers of minor 'Robin Hoods,' who were the
terror of the district, and levied ' black-mail.' - This race
was not extinct even so late as 1720, for black-mail was
actually paid in that year. This disposition to hunting
was often taken advantage of as an excuse for assembling
a body of armed men, and making a sudden incursion into
the neighbouring country. But their movements were
closely watched ; each party knew the other's tactics, and
the usual result was a determined fight, in which neither
lives nor limbs were spared on either side. The old bal-
lad of Chevy Chase is founded on an incident of this kind.
" Living such a life, it may well be supposed that the
The peaceful mission flourished till the Danish sea-rovers came and laid it waste,
and save that a bell in Croyland Abbey was called Beza— the name of this Abbey
— the name was well nigh forgotten. Five centuries rolled away, and on the spot
arose a Benedictine Priory ; and the monks had grants of land, and tithes, and every-
thing in the forests except " hart and hind and boar and hawk," and liberty to take
"xiv. salmons." But the monks fared little better than did the nuns; and they suf-
fered from the ravages of Scottish marauders. In 1315, during the invasion by Robert
the Bruce, a party under James Douglas pillaged the priory and the manors ; and we
may imagine the indignities, if nothing worse, which the fathers had to undergo, from a
passage in Ivanhoe, when Wamba says, " Pray for them with all my heart, but in the
town, not in the greensward, like the Abbot of St. Bees, whom they caused to say masi
with an old rotten oak tree for his stall."
EXTIXCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 151
borderers became a fierce lawless race. Not only bad tbey
feuds with their neighbours over the border, but they had
perpetual feuds among themselves, which even to within a
recent time they still fought out at the point of the sword.
The forests passed away, England and Scotland were united
under one crown ; but the wild passions of these lawless
men were transmitted from father to son with undimin-
ished fury. A few anecdotes we have culled from various
sources will illustrate this.
" In introducing his readers to some passages in the life
of Bernard Gilpin, his namesake, William Gilpin, gives some
notice of the borderers. ' Our Saxon ancestors,' he says,
'had a great aversion to the tedious forms of law. They
chose rather to determine their disputes in a more concise
manner, pleading generally with their swords. 'Let
every dispute be decided by the sword ' was a Saxon law.
A piece of ground was described and covered with mats ;
here the plaintiff and defendant tried their cause. If
either of them were driven from this boundary, he was
obliged to redeem his life by three marks. He whose blood
first stained the ground lost his suit. This custom still
prevailed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, where Saxon
barbarism held its latest possession. These wild Northum-
brians indeed went beyond the ferocity of their ancestors.
They were not content with a duel ; each contending party
used to muster what adherents he could, and commence a
petty war. So that a private grudge would often occasion
much bloodshed.' And these statements of the modern
biographer are fully borne out by the auther of the Survey
of Newcastle, in Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. : ' The people of
this countey have had ane very barbarous custom among
them. If any two be displeased, they expect no law, but
bang it out bravely one and his kindred against the other
and his. They will subject themselves to no justice, but
in an inhuman and barbarous manner fight and kill one
another. They run together in clans, as they term it, or
names. This fighting they call their deadly feides.'
152 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
"Pre-eminently barbarous among this lawless com-
munity were the wild townsmen of Rothbury, in the
Forest of Rothbury. Of their manners we have a sample
in the following anecdotes : —*
"' One Sunday, when Mr Gilpin was preaching in the
church of Rothbury, two parties of armed men met acci-
dentally in the aisle ; and beiug at feud, they instantly pre-
pared to decide their differences on the spot, and dese-
crate the house of God by making it the theatre of a
bloody contest. Mr Gilpin rushed from the pulpit, and
fearlessly interposed his own person between the infuri-
ated combatants, who were advancing upon each other
sword in hand, and by a burst of holy eloquence arrested
the conflict, and obtained a promise from the leaders on
both sides, that they woull not only respect his presence
and the church, but also would sit out the sermon. The
preacher then remounted the pulpit, and such was the
fervour of his impassioned address that, although he failed
to heal the feud entirely, he received an assurance — and
it was faithfully kept — that while he remained in Roth-
bury not a blow should be stricken nor an angry word be
exchanged.
" On a subsequent visit, through the neglect of a ser-
vant, his horses were stolen ; and when the robbery was
bruited about, the greatest indignation was expressed by
his wild and lawless congregation. The thief, who
neither knew nor cared, like a true borderer, to whom the
horses belongel, accidentally heard they were the pro-
perty of Mr Gilpin. Instantly he led them safely back,
restored them with an humble request to be forgiven,
which he accompanied by a declaration that he believed
the devil would have seized him on the spot had he know-
ingly dared to intermeddle with aught that belonged to so
good a man.
" Bishop Grindal has also shewn the state in which the
* Bernard Gilpin, nephew of Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, was in the habit of periodi-
ically visiting them for their spiritual welfare.
EXTINCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 153
people of this part of the country was in about the middle
of the sixteenth century. Upon his translation to the see
of York, in 1570, he issued some ' injunctions ;' among
which it was ordered that no pedlar should be admitted to
sell his wares in the church- parch in time of service;
that parish-clerks should be able to read ; that no lords of
misrule, or summer lords and ladies, or any disguised per-
sons, morrice-dancers, or others, should come irreverently
into the church, or play any unseemly parts with scoffs,
jests, wanton gestures, or ribald talk, in the time of divine
service.
" In 1430, Bishop Langley issued an order to prevent
hostile clans fighting out their feuds in the churchyards ;
but it had no effect. Another was issued afterwards which
was equally disregarded. Perhaps it was because the
bishops did not point out some other place for the fight-
ing ; for all they seemed to care about was, that there
should be no fighting in the churchyard. Not more than
a century and a half ago, a descendant of some of these
notorious freebooters, in the north of Northumberland,
instead of taking up the practice of breaking bones and
bodies, took up that of healing them. Bat ''the old man '
was strong in him, and many a raid directed against in-
offensive cattle and poultry did he make (so the rumour
went) when he was out on horseback on dark nights visit-
ing patients. One night this worthy man was at supper
with a lady ; and while enjoying her hospitality, three of
his followers, probably apprentices, were ' conveying' the
contents of the pigeon-house. Another curious anecdote,
shewing the brutality of the p3ople of the district, is
quoted in Mr Surtees' History of Durham.
" ' Mr Gylpyn (rector of Houghton le Spring) did preach
at one churchc in Redsdale, wher ther was nayther
mynister nor bell nor booke — and he sent the clarke to
gyve warnyng he would preach — and in the meane tyme
thare camme a man rydyng to the church style, havynge
a dead chyld layd afore hym over hys sydll cruche, and
cryed of Mr Gylpyn, not knowing him, ' Come, parson, and
154 Till: 1, RESTS OF ENGLAND.
uoo the cure/ and layd downe thecorseand went his waye,
and Mr Gylpyn did berye the childe.'
" The History of Halifax in Yorkshire^ published in 1712,
sets forth ' a true account of their ancient, odd, customary
gibbet-law; and their particular form of trying a;.
cuting of criminals, the like not us'd in any other place in
Great Britain.' This law prevailed only within the Forest
of Hard wick, which was subject to the lord of the manor
of Wakefield, a part of the Duchy of Lancaster. If a felon
were taken within the liberty of the forest with cloth, or
other commodity, of the value of thirteenpencc-halfpenny,
he was, after three market-days from his apprehension and
condemnation, to be carried to the gibbet, and there have
his head cut off from his body. When first taken, he was
brought to the lord's bailiff in Halifax, who kept the town,
had also the keeping of the axe, and was the executioner
at the gibbet. This officer summoned a jury of frith-
burghers to try him on the evidence of witnesses not upon
oath ; if acquitted, he was set at liberty upon payment of
his fees ; if convicted, he was set in the stocks on each of
the three subsequent market-days in Halifax, with the
stolen goods on his back, if they were portable ; if not,
they were set before his face. This was for a terror to
others, and to engage any "who had aught against him to
bring accusations, although after the three market-days he
was sure to be executed for the offence already pro
upon him. But the convict had the satisfaction of know-
ing, that after he was put to death it was the duty of the
coroner to summon a jury, 'and sometimes the same jury
that condemned him,' to inquire into the cause of his
death, and that a return thereof would be made into the
crown-office ; ' which gracious and sage proceedings of the
coroner in that matter ought, one would think, t > abate,
in all considering minds, that edge of acrimony which hath
provoked malicious and prejudiced persons to debase this
laudable and necessary custom.'
"In April 165! >, Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony
EXTINCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 155
Mitchell were found guilty of stealing nine yards of cloth
and two colts, and on the 30th of the month received sen-
tence "'to suffer death, by having their heads severed and
cut off from their bodies at Halifax gibbet ;" and they
suffered accordingly. The je were the last parsons executed
under Halifax gibbet-law.
''The execution was in this manner : the prisoner being
brought to the scaffold by the bailiff, the axe was drawn
up by a pulley, and fastened with a pin to the side of the
scaffold. ' The bailiff, the jurors, and the minister chos i
by the prisoner, being always upon the scaffold with the
prisoner. After the minister had finished his ministerial
office and Christian duty, if it was a horse, an ox. or cow,
&c., that was taken with the prisoner, it was thither
brought along with him to the place of execution, and
fastened by a cord to the pin that stayed the block ; so
that when the time of the execution came (which was
known by the jurors holding up one of their hands), the
bailiff or his servant whipping the beast, the pin was
plucked out, and execution done ; but if there were no
beast in the case, then the bailiff or his servant cut the
rope.
" But if the felon, after his apprehension, or in his going
to execution, happened to make his escape out of the
Forest of Hard wick, which liberty, on the east end of the
town, doth not extend above the breadth of a small river;
on the north, about six hundred paces ; on the south, about
a mile ; but on the west, about ten miles ; if such an escape
were made, then the bailiff of Halifax had no power to
apprehend him out of his liberty ; but if ever the felon
came a^ain into the libertv of Hard wick, and were taken,
he was certainly executed.'
(: One Lacy, who made his e.-eape, and lived seven years
out of the Liberty, after that time coming boldly within
the liberty of Hardwick. was retaken, and executed upon
his former verdict of condemnation.
"The records of executions by the Halifax gibbet before
the time of Elizabeth are lost ; but during her reign
156 THE FORESTS OF EXOLAND.
twenty-five persons suffered under it ; and from 1G23 to
1G50 there were twelve executions.
" The grant of this criminal jurisdiction is said to have
b en given to that part of the p urt of the parish of Halifax
called the Forest of Hardwick, for the purpose of protect-
ing the goods which were obliged to be exposed on tenters
during the night — Halifax having then been a great
manufacturing district for shalloons; &c. (See Watson's
History of Halifax?)
" A singular legendary story is connected with the
Forest of Whitby, in Yorkshire. On Ascension-day (the
16th of October), 1140, William de Bruce, the lord of
Uglebarnby, Ralph de Percy, the lord of Snayton, and a
gentleman freeholder called Allotson, met to hunt the wild
boar in a wood called Eskdale-side, a portion of the forest
belonging to the abbot of the monastery of Whitby.
" The hunters soon found a huge animal of the kind
they had been in search of, and the hounds ran him very
hard near the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale-side, where
there was a monk of Whitb}7, who was a hermit. The
boar being closely pursued, rushed in at the chapel-door,
and there lay down and expired immediately. The hermit,
hoping to save the holy place from desecration, closed the
door before the hounds could enter, and then returned to
his meditations and prayers, the hounds standing at bay
without. When the hunters arrived opposite to the chapel,
they called loudly and threateningly to the monk, who
opened the door. At the sight of the dead boar, they, in
a fury because the dogs had been put out of their game,
rushed upon the poor monk with their boar-spears, and
grievously wounded him. When their passion had cooled,
and they became aware of the extremity of the danger of
the hermit, they hastened and took sanctuary at Scar-
borough.
"At that time, however, the abbot of Whitby monastery
was in great favour with the king, and had sufficient in-
terest with him to get them removed from sanctuary,
EXTINCT FORESTS OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 157
whereby they came under the cognisance of the law. The
punishment which was their due was death.
" But the hermit, being a holy man, and being at the
point of death, sent for the abbot and desired him to have
the guilty men brought before him. They came ; and he
thus addressed them :
" ' I am sure to die of these wounds — '
"The abbot, interrupting him, said, 'They shall die
for it.'
" ' Not so/ replied the hermit, ' for I will freely forgive
them my death if they will promise to perform this
penance.'
The men eagerly bid the dying man enjoin what he
would have them do.
" ' You and yours,' replied he, ' shall hold your land of
the abbot of Whitby and his successors in this manner :
that upon Ascension-day even, you, or some of you, shall
come to the wood of Strayheads, which is in Eskdale-side,
and the same (Ascension-day) at sun-rising, and there shall
the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that
you may know how to find him, and deliver unto you,
William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven street-stowers, and
eleven yadders, to be cut with a knife of a penny-piece ;
and you, Ralph de Percy, shall take one-and-twenty of
each sort, to be cut in the same manner ; and you, Allot-
son, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid, and
to be taken on your backs and carried to the town of
Whitby, and to be there before nine o'clock of the same
day before mentioned; and at the hour of nine o'clock, if
it be full sea, to cease their service, as long as till it be low
water; and at nine o'clock of the same day, each of you
shall set }7our stakes at the brim of the water, each stake
a yard from another, and so yadder them with your yad-
ders ; and to stake them on each side with street-stowers,
that they stand three tides without removing by the force
of the water. Each of you shall make at that hour in
every year, except it be full sea at that hour, which when
it shall happen to come to pass, the service shall cease.
158 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
You shall do this in remembrance that by your means I
have been slain. And that you may the better call to God
for mercy, repent yourselves, and do good works. The
officer of Eskdale-side shall blow — ' Out on you ! out on
you ! out on you !' for this heinous crime of yours. If you
or your successors refuse this service, so long as it shall not
be a full sea at the hour aforesaid, you or yours shall for
feit all your land to the abbot or his successors. This I do
intreat, that you may have your lives and goods for this
service ; and you to promise, by your parts in heaven, that
it shall be done by you and your successors, as it is aforesaid.'
" ' I grant all that you have said,' exclaimed the abbot,
' and will confirm it by the faith of an honest man.'
'• Then the dying hermit said — ' My soul longeth for the
Lord ; and I as freely forgive these gentlemen my death
as Christ forgave the thief upon the cross. Into thy hands,'
continued he, '0 Lord, I recommend my spirit; for thou
hast redeemed me out of the bands of death, 0 Lord of truth.'
" ' Amen !' responded the abbot and the repentant
sinners, as the good hermit fell asleep.
" Regarding the Forest of Knaresborough, which may be
said to exist now only in name, or in enclosed patches,
a curious circumstance occurred in the year 1850.
While some labourers were at work in a field that had
once formed part of the forest, the ground suddenly gave
way, and exposed to view a cave, which contained a great
number of bones, which on investigation were found to be
both human and animal. The skeletons of four or five
human beings could be distinguished ; the complete
skeleton of a dog was found, and the other animal bones
consisted of those of deer and other wild beasts of the
forest. It was quite clear that this had been the abode or
the refuge of some family in very lawless times, when the
forest offered an asylum, and that most probably at night
some landslip had happened to block up the cave and
leave the unfortunates to perish. What tales these old
forests could tell ! "
EXTINCT FORESTS OF LANCASHIRE. 159
B. — Xotices of Forests formerly existing in Lancashire.
Mention has been made of the Earl of Lancaster, in the
times of Edward II. and Edward III., having had a forest
in the counties of York and Lancaster, in which he is sai 1
to have exercised the Forest Laws as fully as any sovereign.
In reference to forests in Lancashire, the author of the
work, English Forests and Forest Trees, published anonv-
mously, states : —
" The forests of Lancashire belong to history. Few traces
of any that previously existed can be found now. The nume-
rous mosses, such as Chat Moss, &c, with which it abounds,
indicate the existence of extensive forests at a very early
period. Those of which we have accurate accounts were
chiefly situated iD the northern and eastern parts of the
county ; that is where it is most mountainous and borders
upon Yorkshire. The two principal forests were those uf
Blackburnshire and Bowland, both belonging to the honor
of Clitheroe. They were, however, divided into the forests
of Pendle, Trawden, Accrington, and Rossendale : and after
the marriage of Thomas of Lancaster with Alice de Lacey,
they came into the possession of the Duchy of Lancaster,
and the forest then wTent by the name of the Forest of
Lancaster. Another forest, that of Pickering in Yorkshire,
also belonged to the same duchy ; and so strictly and im-
partially were the forest laws carried out in both, that the
records of these two forests became the highest authority
on that complicated scheme of jurisprudence, the law of
the forest. In 1311, the entire annual profits of these
four forests was estimated at £4 5s bl. The Commis-
sioners of the Commonwealth valued them as worth £559
Os 5d per annum, as 'part of the possessions of Charles
Steuart, the late king.' In 1651, they were all sold to
Adam Baynes for the sum of £6853 16s Id. Since that
time their character as forests has entirely disappeared ;
the steam-engine and the power-loom having cleared all
before them,
160 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
" The wealthy magnificent abbey of Whalley once stood
in this forest. It was founded about the twelfth century
by some Cistercian monks from Stanlaw in Cheshire, and
its erection cost £3000. This amount will give some idea
of its magnificence ; for though such a sum would not in
our day go far towards the erection even of a church, yet
when the wages of labour were only twopence per day,
when the adjoining forest supplied nearly all the timber,
and plenty of fine sandstone was to be had in the neigh-
bourhood, we can imagine the scale of splendour on which
the edifice could be reared. These old monks were almost
unerring judges of the places best fitted for residence,
where all the physical comforts of life could be had. The
situation was warm, and at the same time picturesque, the
soil was fertile, the neighbouring forests supplied deer and
all kinds of game in great plenty, and the streams were
well stocked with delicious fish. The monastery was sup-
pressed by Henry YIIL, and it is now in ruins ; but many
of the parts remain entire, and give a slight idea of the
fallen splendour whose memory they preserve.
" The Forest of Pendle has acquired a considerable
degree of notoriety from some old traditions and stories
connected with the witches who at one time were sup-
posed, by the people in the neighbourhood, to inhabit it.
These stories have acquired a kind of historical interest
from their having been made the basis of the trial for
witchcraft of eighteen poor women at Lancaster in 1033.
" At that period the people of England were infected by
a witch-mania, which caused the cruel suffering of many
innocent people. For a woman to be old and ugly, to live
alone, to keep a cat, and to have some peculiarity in her
manner, were sufficient to cause ignorant and senseless
people to set her down as a witch. If any calamity hap-
pened in the neighbourhood, the people immediately
attributed it to the so-called witch. The poor woman was
seized, and usually met her death either at the hands of a
fanatical mob or through the verdict of as fanatical a jury.
EXTINCT FORESTS OF LANCASHIRE. 161
The originators of the most notorious witch-trials in the
Forest of Pendle were a man named Robinson, a wood-
cutter, and his son, both of whom seem to have been
scoundrels of the very deepest dye. Robinson's story was,
that he was on his way to Burnley to pay some money
early one morning ; it was dark, and the road was very
bad, and the traveller was very tired and weary. A ter-
rible storm came on, thunder, lightning, and rain ; and
Robinson, on looking up at a crag that overlooked the
road he was travelling, saw, or thought he saw, by the
glare of the lightning, the most terrible witch in Pendle.
He trembled all over, and presently felt something rub-
bing his legs. This he found to be a tremendous black
cat with eyes darting flames. This cat spoke to him in
good English, and said, f You cursed my mistress two days
ago ; she will meet you again at Malkin tower ;' the mis-
tress doubtless being the terrible witch who sat on the
crag looking on. The witch and the cat then set off for
the forest.
" The story told by the son was much longer, more full
of details and romance, and with a great deal more of
the horrible. On the night before the father went on his
journey young Robinson went into the forest to gather
some berries. He had not been engaged in this pursuit
long, when two beautiful greyhounds came up with collars
of gold. He thought this a good opportunity to have
a hunt ; and a hare being started, he tried to urge the
hounds to follow, but in vain. The dogs would not stir.
He then struck them to urge them on ; whereupon one
was suddenly transformed into Moll Dickenson, a reputed
witch in the neighbourhood, and the other into a little
boy. Young Robinson tried to run, but the touch of the
witch fixed him to the earth. She offered him some
money to hold his tongue; but he refused it with the
strongest feelings of superstitious horror. Immediately on
his refusal, Moll took a string and flung it over the boy,
who immediately became a white horse, and Robinson
soon felt himself seated on the horse in front of the witch,
M
162 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
They soon arrived at a house in the forest, where it
was currently reported 'the witches' Sabbath' was kept.
About fifty hags were here, all making ready for a car-
ousal ; and a young comely damsel brought to Robinson
a delicious-looking steak on a golden dish. The first taste,
however, was enough, the meat was so disgusting. Robin-
son next found himself in a barn, where six witches were
pulling vigorously at ropes attached to the roof, and at
every pull down came the choicest and richest articles of
food. A vast cauldron then rose, and such rites as are
described in Macbeth were performed around it ; and after
some other horrible incantations, .}oung Robinson made
a desperate attempt to escape. He got out of the barn
and fled, pursued, like Tarn o' Shanter, by the whole
troop ; but they did not catch him, and he reached home
in the most pitiable and forlorn condition. He raved for
a whole week about the witches, &c, and. what he had
seen, and his father forsook his usual employment and
would scarcely speak.
" In our days the matter would have ended tare. The
country people might perhaps think the story true, and
people who believe in mesmerism and clairvoyance might
think it a subject of anxious enquiry ; but with the general
public the two stories would be set down either as fabrica-
tions or the creations of a diseased imagination. At all
events, they would never reach a court of law, or lead to
the loss of life. But in those times it was different ; on
the bare evidence of these Robinsons eighteen persons
were tried at Lancaster, seventeen were found guilty, and
six were actually hanged. One of the poor women was so
terrified at her position, that she actually confessed her-
self a witch, and told most circumstantially all about her
relations with the devil. It was afterwards found that
the story of the Robinsons was a pure fabrication ; but,
to shew the justice of those times, nothing was done to
them, and any one who threatened Robinson or his son
with exposure and punishment was threatened in turn
with being denounced as a warlock or a witch.
EXTINCT FORESTS OF LANCASHIRE. 163
" ' The Lancashire Witches ' is a standing toast at every
public dinner in Lancashire ; but it is now applied to a
race of the finest and handsomest women in England.
11 We turn gladly to some more pleasing and civilised
scenes connected with these forests.
" In the centre of the forest of Pendle, on a high eleva-
tion, is the source of the river Irwell. For centuries it
must have been surrounded by woods ; and many a time
the dun-deer may have stopped to drink of its waters,
or the forest-keepers wandered by its banks, in blissful
ignorance of what the future would disclose of the mighty
importance and value of that stream. But now the scene
is changed ; the country still to some extent preserves
a wild and woodland appearance, but you can stand at
the source of the river and watch its current until it has
brawled along a few hundred yards, when the infant river
is compelled to work and drive the first mill on its shores.
From thence, in its course of about 25 miles, its powers
are unceasingly taxed as it flows past the town of Bacup,
— the first on its course, — through Rossendale, and on by
Bury to Manchester ; and from thence, dirty, weary, and
polluted, it flows into the Mersey, and finds oblivion in
the Irish Sea.
4< The beautiful valley of Rossendale, though its forests
and deer are crone, and the hunter's and the baying dog
are no more heard, yet is still lovely and picturesque. A
single line of railroad connects it with the trunk-line of the
East Lancashire. Numerous cotton-mills are seen, much
more cheerful-looking, and less smoky, than they are in
towns; pleasant-looking, and cleanly-kept rows of work-
men's cottages, here and there larger buildings, evidently
belonging to the aristocracy of the dale, and several churches
and schools appear on the hill-sides. But perhaps the most
interesting and romantic object of all is at the entrance to
the dale, being merely a round tower erected on a high
hill Here, it is said, a poor man from Scotland and his
sons, halted one day, about the end of the last century, on
1G4 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
their weary wanderings for employment, tired and dejected.
The cotton -manufacture was then beginning to rise in im-
portance ; the man and his sons obtained employment,
and it was not long ere they could again look down that
dale and see their own factories, their own workmen's
houses, and churches and schools built by them for their
workpeople and their children. On the spot where they
halted this tower was built, and it stands prominently out
in the landscape as a beacon-tower of hope to the fainting
and the weary, an encouragement to the persevering, and
a fresh stimulus to the brave."
C. — Notices of Former Forests in Cheshire.
The old Roman road from Northwhich to Chester led
through a dense forest, and the anonymous author which I
have quoted tells : —
91 The whole of this country seems to have been at one
time a forest. We read of the ancient forest of Maccles-
field, that occupied a large portion of the eastern side of
the county, but which has now, in a great measure, given
place to villages and factories. Westward from it was the
Forest of Delemere, and still further west was the Forest
of Wirrall, which most probably covered the whole of the
peninsula of that name between the estuaries of the Mer-
sey and the Dee. The last, with the exception of a few
places on its borders near the sea, was, up to the time of
Edward III., 'a desolate forest and not inhabited.' * It
was disafforested by the king.
"Of the Forest of Macclesfield we have little, if any
thing, to say. As a forest, it lias long ceased to exist.
The Forest of Delamere is, however, invested with more
interest, and with it are connected some very curious pas-
sages in history. The district in which it is situated was
originally inhabited by the British tribe, the Cornavii,
* Camden.
EXTINCT FORESTS OF CHESHIRE. 166
who seem to have been somewhat less fierce and more
tractable than the rest of the painted savages who were
once masters of our island. It does not appear that they
were dispossessed of their territories when the Romans
came, but rather that they entered the Roman service, for
we find traces of the camps of the Cornavii cohorts during
the period of Roman occupation. To the Romans this
district must have been very valuable. Their principal
outposts for keeping in check the mountaineers of Wales
was at Chester, a few miles to the west of the forest ; and
their most abundant supply of salt was obtained from
North wich. A few miles to the east the old Watliuir street
ran from Chester to Northwich through the forest, and
O *
joined the great main road that passed through Warring-
ton. The present turnpike-road takes, with a few varia-
tions, precisely the same course. The forest must also
have been useful to the Romans in providing timber
for the coostruction of their galleys, as they were obliged
to maintain a fortified seaport and a number of vessels on
the shores of Wirrall, at the mouth of the Dee, in order to
keep open their communications by sea with Chester. When
the Saxons came, this part of the country formed a portion of
the kingdom of Mercia. Delamere forest seems under them
to have been little regarded, for we have no accounts of
its being famous for the pleasures of the chase or of its
containing a large population. About the year 900, how-
ever, Ethelneda built a town called Eddisbury, in the very
heart or ' chamber ' of the forest, which soon became pop-
ulous, and famous for the happy life led by its inhabitants.
Though all vestige of this once happy town has now dis-
appeared, yet its name remains, and its site in the cham-
ber of the forest can still be pointed out. And certainly
a finer site the Lady Ethelfleda could not have chosen.
It was placed on a gentle rising ground in the centre of
the forest, overlooking finely wooded vales and eminences
on every side. A little brook rippled through a small val-
ley, and the old Roman road wound its way round the
eminence on which the town was built. This antique
166 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Saxon lady seems to have had a strange passion for build-
ing, as we are told she not only built this town, but that
she also built fortresses at Bramsbury, Bridgenorth, Tam-
worth, and Stafford, and most probably would have built
many more had she not died at Tamworth in 922.
" The few scraps of information that can be picked up
about this old Saxon town, merely seem to excite a curio-
sity which there are no possible means of gratifying, and
to show how little in reality we know of the history of
our own country. The building, inhabiting, and decaying
of this town of Eddisbury, in the heart of an o!4 English
forest, is most certainly not a fable. Ethelfleda was not a
mythical personage ; she helped to rule a kingdom, fought
and won battles, died a natural death, and does not the
old Saxon chronicle say that i her body lies at Gloucester,
within the east porch of St Peter's Church?' It is not
every historical personage of whose existence such clear
proofs can be given. What a treasure it would be if we
could find some old history of this town, or how greatly
would our knowledge be extended if we could call back to
life ' the oldest inhabitant/ and question him about this
forgotten town ! Interesting would it be to know how
they lived, if they tilled the ground or hunted in the
forest, or sent their swine to fatten on the acorns ; if they
spun wool or made butter and cheese, and ever took them
to market at Chester, or ever went to buy salt at North-
wich? But these are particulars we shall never know.
The time even when the town disappeared is not known,
for for many centuries the forest was allowed to go to
waste until it became little better than a barren heath,
and the neighbourhood was as wild and uncultivated as
the back woods of America. But the disappearance of
Eddisbury is not a solitary case. When we get farther
into Cheshire, we find traces of another town perhaps
even less known to history. By an act dated June 1812
however, the forest was ordered to be planted ; aud it now
contains a large quantity of young timber, which, in course
of time, will be of great value.
EXriNCT FORESTS OF CHESHIRE. 167
" The ancient name of this forest was Moni and Mon-
drum; and by these names many writers not so very
antiquated are accustomed to designate it. Fifty town-
ships are said to have been at one time included in it.
The latest account we have of royal hunting in the forest
is that of King James I., who, during one of his 'pro-
gresses,' enjoyed the pleasures of tbe chase here, and was
quite delighted with the sport. The Cheshire hounds
meet in the forest, as foxes are tolerably numerous."
From these notices of extinct forests in the north of
England, some idea may be formed of what changes have
passed over the face of the country almost everywhere.
They are adduced as supplying illustrations of the kind of
historical notices which exist of woods and forests which
are now no more.
CHAPTER III.
REMAINS OF ANCIENT FORESTS BURIED IN THE GROUND
AND SUBMERGED IN THE SEA.
In a preceding chapter it has been stated, that in the
neighbourhood of Dregg — a well-to-do village in Cumber-
land, the name of which is apparently a corruption of
Dericht or Drigh—& name given in Irish and in Scotch to
the oak — the remains of ancient forests have at times been
discovered in cutting drains. This is by no means a rare
occurrence ; and by articles of man's making found in
some cases overlying or underlying the buried wood, from
the age to which these articles belong, a plausible conjec-
ture may be formed of the age in which the wood was
submerged or buried ; and from the same and other indi-
cations something may be learned of the former condition
of the locality.
We thus learn that the forests whose remains are so
preserved must have perished long before those, the sites
of which have been spoken of in the preceding chapter.
Section I. — Facts and Theories.
In Evelyn's " Silva " mention is made of an oak tree
120 feet in length, 12 feet in diameter at the largest end,
10 in the middle, and 6 at the smallest end, having been
found in Hatfield level by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden.
" Hatfield Chase, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was
one of the largest in England, containing above 180,000
acres* One half was a complete morass ; but it was re-
BURIED FORESTS. 169
duced to arable and pasture land in the reign of Charles I.
by Sir Cornelius Verm uy den, a Dutchman, to whom it-
was sold. A vast number of prostrate trees were found at
a considerable depth below the surface. The roots re-
mained unmoved, but many of the trunks were lying on
the ground heaped one upon the other, while a large
number stood erect, broken or mouldered off about
midway. This strange uncovering of old trees developed
their peculiar characteristics. Oaks, some of which were
upwards of ninety feet long, were black as ebony, uninjured
and closely grained. Ash trees, on the contrary, were so
soft that they were cut to pieces by the workmen's spades ;
and, when flung up into the open air, turned to dust. But
willows, which are softer than ash- wood, by some strange
alchemy, preserved their substance. Patriarchal firs had
apparently vegetated, even after their overthrow, and
their scions became large branches, equal to those of the
parent trunk. The alders were black and unchanged.
" The opening of this wide morass gave rise to other
curious revelations. Many of the old trees had been evi-
dently burned, some quite through, others on one side ;
several had been chopped and squared; some were even
found to have been riven with huge wooden wedges ;
marks by which to substantiate the fact, that the vast
swamp of Hatfield Chase had been once inhabited.
" Near the root of an ancient tree, eight coins, pertaining
to different Roman emperors, were discovered ; and in
some parts considerable ridges and deep furrows indicated
that the morass had been partially cultivated. Some who
had studied the phenomena disclosed by the drainage of
this tract conjectured that the forest had been felled, and
that the trees, being left unmoved, contributed to the
accumulation of the waters. This was very likely the
case; because whenever the Britons were discomfited,
they tied for refuge to the fastnesses of woods and miry
forests; from whence they sallied forth, as opportunity
permitted, and fell upon their invaders. Hence it was
determined that woods and forests should be destroyed,
170 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
and the order was obeyed. Many were set on fire, others
cut down ; and forests thus felled, by impeding the drain-
ing of water, often turned such broad streams as flowed
through them into extensive swamps/
In peat bogs wood has been found at Toul, in Yorkshire,
so well preserved that it was deemed fit for employment
in building. Wood has also been found so preserved in
Somersetshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, at
Bromleyman, Birmingham, and in Scotland, and in the
Isle of Man.
About a mile to the north or north-west of Beverley,
the road to Hornsea crosses one of the great broad and deep
drains of Holderness, which falls into the sea at Barmstowe.
It crosses low-lying hollow land, which was formerly an
insalubrious swamp, like that which when drained was
made Hatfield Chase, and this, like that, was found to be
the covering of an ancient forest. Of the age of the re-
mains of this forest, found in digging the drains, I have no
indication, but of the former condition of this swamp it
may be interesting to know, that so deep was the water that
boats went from Beverley to Frothingham, and some found
more profit in navigating to and fro with smuggled mer-
chandise, concealed under loads of hay and barley, than in
cultivating their farms. For years a large swannery
existed among the islands, and the king's swanner used
to come down and hold his periodical court.
The number of submerged trees were enormous ; pines
sixty feet in length, intermingled with yew, alder, and other
kinds, some standing as they grew, but the most leaning in
all directions, or lying flat. Six hundred trees were taken
from one field, and the labourers made good wages in
digging them out at two pence a piece. Some of the wood
was so sound that a speculator cut it up into walking-
sticks.
Generally the upper layer consists of about two feet of
peat, and beneath this the trees were found closely packed
BURIED FORESTS. 171
to a depth of twenty feet ; and below these traces were
met with in places of a former surface, the bottom of the
hollow formed by the slope from the coast on one side, and
from the wolds on the other, to which Holderness owes
its name.
The completion of the drainage works, which occurred
in 1835, produced a surprising change in the landscape.
Green fields succeeded to stagnant water, and the*islets
are now only discoverable by the holm, which terminates
the name of some of the farms. But natural changes are
ever repeating themselves, and what is occurring to day
may suggest some idea of what occurred long, long
ago, submerging and covering with lacustran deposits
these woodlands of a former day.
Mr Walter White, in his work entitled A Month in York-
shire, from which some of these statements have been given,
tells :—
'•' At the bank which extends to Kilnsea, at times, after a
lashing storm has swept off a few acres of the mud, the
soil beneath is found to be a mixture of peat and gravel,
in which animal and vegetable remains, and curious anti-
quities are embedded. Now and then the relics are washed
out, and show by their character that they once belonged
to the Burstall Priory, a religious house despoiled by the
sea before the B,eformation. Burstall Garth, one of the
pastures traversed by the bank, preserves its name — the
building itself has utterly disappeared.
" Adjoining Witheringsea is all that remains of what once
was Owthorne, a village which has shared the doom of
Kilnsea. The churches at the two places were known as
1 Sister Churches ; ' that at Witheringsea yet stands in
ruins; but Owthorne church was swept into the sea within
the memory of persons now living. The story runs, that
twTo sisters living there, each on her manor, in the good
old times, began to build a church for the glory of God and
the good of their own souls, and the work went on pros-
perously until a quarrel arose between them, on the ques-
172 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
tion of spire or tower. Neither would yield. At length a
holy monk suggested that each should build a church on her
own manor; the suggestion was approved, and for long years
the Sister Churches resounded with the voice of prayer
and praise, and offered a fair day-mark to the mariner.
" But as of old, the devouring sea rushed higher and
higher upon the land, and the cliff, sapped and under-
mined, fell, and with it the church of Owthorne. In 1786
the edge of the buried places first began to fail ; the church
itself was not touched till thirty years later. It was said
to be a mournful sight to see the riven church-yard, and
skeletons and broken coffins sticking out from the new
cliff, and bones, skulls, and fragments of long buried wood
strewn on the beach. One of the coffins, washed out from
a vault under the east end of the church, contained an
embalmed corpse, the back of the scalp bearing the grey
hairs of one who had been the village pastor. The eyes of
the villagers were shocked by these ghastly relics of mor-
tality tossed rudely forth to the light of day ; and aged
folk who tottered down to see the havoc worked,- wept as by
some remembered token they recognised a relative or friend
of bygone years whom they had followed to the grave — the
resting-place of the dead, as they trusted, till the end of
time. In some places bodies, still clad in naval attire,
with bright coloured silk kerchiefs round the neck, were
unearthed, as if the sea were eager to reclaim the ship-
wrecked sailors whom it had in former days flung dead
upon the shore."
As now, so in a former day, the sea may have made
inroads upon the land — upon sand dunes, it may be,
lining the coast — such sand dunes as may now be seen in
course of formation at Witheringsea, and for leagues
beyond ; and having brought below its own level the
embankment standiug as a wall of defence between it and
the plain or hollow beyond, it may have swept in with a
rush, and submerged woodland and meadow, and all that
lay between.
BURIED FORESTS. 173
I am not unaware that the burying of the forest may be
otherwise accounted for; but I consider this suggestion
deserving of consideration, being in accordance with what
is even now going on,
Mr. White, in the volume cited, supplies statements of
other facts which it is interesting to study in view of what
has been advanced : — " Remarkable appearances/' says he,
"are presented by the cliffs to the south of the northern end
of the Barnstowe drain. Here the clay is cracked in such a
way as to resemble nothing so much as a pile of huge brown
loaves ; now it falls away into a hollow, patched with rough
grass ; now it juts again, so full of perpendicular cracks
that you liken it to a mass of starch ; now it is grooved by
a deep gully ; now a buttress terminates in a crumbling
pyramid, mottled with yellow; now it is a rude stair,
six great steps only to the summit ; now a point of
which you would say the extremity has been shaped by
turf cutters ; now a wall of pebbles, hundreds ot thousands
of all sizes, the largest equal in bigness to a child's head ;
now a shattered ruin fallen in a confused heap. Such are
some of the appearances left by the waves in their never-
ending aggressions."
From the Spurn on to Whitby, if not also further, like
appearances are presented by the cliffs. At places the
waves are undermining them, this is followed by a land-
slip ; the debris is washed away by currents and deposited
where such currents exhaust themselves, — it may be
encountering others going in a different direction. Some
idea of the enormous quantity of mud which thus enters the
Humber may be formed from the fact that fifty thousand
tons of mud have been dredged in one year from the docks
and basins at Hull ; and in that river may be seen the
effect of spring tides, which ri^e twenty-two feet and rush
in with a stream at the rate of five miles an hour, clearino-
the mud and shifting it from one place to another. Above
Hull the channel is shifting constantly and with great
rapidity, so that a u pilot may find the channel by which
174 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
he descended shifted to another part of the river on his
return a few days afterwards. There also, islands appear
and disappear in a manner truly surprising; and in the
alternate loss and gain of the shores may be witnessed
the most capricious of phenomena. One example may
suffice : A field of fourteen acres, above Beverley, was
reduced to less than four acres in twenty years, although
the farmer during that time had constructed seven new
banks for the defence of his land."
So is it also along the coast. Here the sea is gaining
on the land ; there the land is being extended. Natural
embankments have created inland lakes; but the embank-
ment has been washed away, and the lake has been
merged in the sea. Walking along the coast towards
Bridlington, at times you see on the beach numerous
rounded lumps lying about of many sizes, which at a
distance resemble sleeping turtles, but on a nearer view
prove to be nothing but masses of hardened clay, water-
worn and full of pebbles. These are portions of the
bottoms of lakes overrun by the sea; stubborn vestiges
which yield but slowly.
So long may some lake or loch or fen have existed that
trees have grown upon its banks, — this having been
submerged when the sea reclaimed it, it did so with all its
buried treasures, and this is how it comes to pass that we
find buried trees in the fens, and submerged trees in the sea.
And the forest land extended beyond even the present
limits of the land. In the volume of the Philosophical Trans-
actions for 1799, I find an account of an examination of a
submerged forest on the coast of Lincolnshire, by Joseph
Correa Sena, LL.D., F.R.S., &c, in company with Sir
Joseph Banks. The original catastrophe which buried
this forest was supposed to be one of a very ancient date,
but the inroad of the sea which uncovered the buried
trees it was computed, must have been comparatively
recent. The different sorts of wood were easily distin-
guishable, and wood was sometimes found by the people
of the coast.
SUBMERGED FORESTS, 175
Like remains of buried and submerged forests have
been seen on the low coasts of Lancashire and Che shire.
The author of English horests and Forest Trees writes: —
" In approaching Liverpool from the sea, few prospects
can be less attractive to the tourist in search of the
picturesque than that presented by the shores he is
approaching. The high, bold scenery of North Wales on
the south, and of Cumberland on the north, which in clear
weather may be seen far away on the ' horizon's verge/
seems to come to an abrupt termination, and be succeeded
by a flat expanse of yellow sand, unbroken by tree or town,
and only dotted here and there by a lighthouse or a
beacon. Liverpool is hidden by the bend of the Mersey, and
the great broad estuary of the Dee seems a deserted lake,
its solitude only broken by a few white sails, or the lazy
smoke of some passing steamer, while the intervening
coast resembles a section of the great desert of Sahara,
rather than a shore near ' a monstrous pitchy city and
sea-haven of the world.' Flat, dull, and uninteresting as
this shore may be, yet under this repulsive exterior it
hides a vast amount of curious information, and affords
abundant material for speculation and theory. We are
told by geologists, that as part of the great means by
which nature is constantly preserving the balance of
creation, the sea in many places is washing away the land
making encroachments on the shore, and adding to the
1 treasures of the deep ' many a farm and many a village
on which human industry was lavished, and where human
beings once had their abode. So is it here between the
Mersey and the Dee. The Irish sea, aided doubtless by
some more distant force, is too powerful for the resistance
of the Cheshire shore. The very first object the traveller
meets after leaving New Brighton is positive evidence of
the fact. A mass of red sandstune has obtruded itself
into light, as if to defy the waves, and is known locally as
the red noses. But sad is the havoc they have undergone
from the sea. Grooves and furrows and caves have been
cut in them as smoothly as by edge-tools. The cleanness
176 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
of their fronts shows how well they are washed by every
tide ; and a comparison of the initials and their dates,
with which enlightened Englishmen delight to adorn all
places of public resort, might almost enable one to measure
the yearly extent of old Ocean's victory. Farther on there
are fields, which old people will tell you once grew good
crops, now, alas ! sanded up, and producing little but the
heath and the wild rose. In walking along the shore,
you soon reach even more conclusive evidence of the
encroachments of the sea in a strong stone-wall on the
beach fenced by bundles of fagots. The land here, to
a considerable extent, is under the level of the sea;
and but for this same wall or ' Dutch Dyke,' it would
be constantly overflowed. The yearly charge of main-
taining this bulwark against the sea is considerable, and
is defrayed by the Corporation of Liverpool. The ground
thus under the level of the sea is known as the Leasowe
(low flat plain) ; on its margin, near the sea, is Leasowe
Castle, the seat of Sir Edward Cust ; and within a short
distance of the castle stands the new lighthouse, which
forms one of the chain of lighthouses along the coast from
Liverpool to Holyhead. The old lighthouse stood at a
point which is now 450 yards below high-water mark.
Around the lighthouse the remains of a submarine forest
are to be seen at low-water. The Rev. Dr Hume of
Liverpool, an accurate scientific observer, states : — On
this part of the coast, in March 1849, I reckoned at low
tide no fewer than five sea-margins, the present and four
others, all of which are indicated here ; but from the two
lowest strata the marks of cultivation and of vegetation
had disappeared. In the third I reckoned 538 stumps of
trees, all growing in situ, and they had evidently been
planted by the hand of man ; for they were in lines, the
distance of five yards being between each. The larger
stumps were towards the Dee, the smaller in the direction
of the lighthouse and the Mersey. One stump of ' bog-
fir,' 43 yards below high -water mark, had the bark on, as
had several others ; and in it there was the mark of an
BURIED FORESTS. 177
iron staple about half an inch in diameter, the iron gone,
but the rust still there. Many other stumps had been
removed, which the country people dried to heat their
ovens ; and in some places the trees are so decayed that
the wood may be cut through with a spade like a piece of
cheese.' "
Like phenomena of submerged forests are not unknown
elsewhere. Such have been seen on the coast of Cornwall.
There is a submarine forest in Orkney, and there are two
on the coast of Fife, one on the shore of the Tay, the others
on the shore of the Firth of Forth ; they are covered with
the tide at high water to the depth of about ten feet, and
consist of roots of trees embedded in peat moss, resting
upon a bed of clay. Dr Fleming, once minister of the
parish in which one of these is situated, afterwards pro-
fessor in King's College, Aberdeen, and subsequently pro-
fessor of Natural History in the Free Church College,
Edinburgh, after a careful examination of these forests
and of the various explanations given by geologists of
similar forests on the coasts of Lincolnshire and Cornwall,
proposed the following theory as adequate to account for all
that is known of them : —
" If we suppose a lake situate near the sea-shore, and
having its outlet elevated a few feet above the rise of the
tide, we have the first condition requisite for the produc-
tion of a submarine forest ; if we now suppose that by
means of mud carried in by the rivulets, and the growth
of acquatic plants, this lake has become a marsh, and a
stratum of vegetable matter formed on the surface of
sufficient density to support trees, we arrive at the second
condition which is requisite. Suppose a marsh in this
condition to have the level of its outlet lowered, or rather
to have its sea-ward barrier removed, what consequences
would follow ? The extremities of the strata, now exposed
to the sea, would at every ebb-tide be left dry to a depth
equal to the fall of the tide. Much water, formerly pre-
vented from escaping by the altitude of the outlet, would
173 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
now ooze out from the moist beds ; and the subsiding
force would act more powerfully in the absence of the
water which filled every pore. All the strata above low-
water mark would thus collapse ; and the surface of the
marsh, instead of remaining at its original height, would
sink below the level of the sea. In consequence of this
drainage, produced by the ebbing of the tide on those
marshes, the original barriers of which have been des-
troyed, there is no difficulty in accounting for the depres-
sion of the surface of a marsh many feet lower than its
original level ; nor in explaining that Neptune now
triumphs where Silvanus reigned, and that the sprightly
Nereids now occupy the dwelling of their sister Naiads."
The buried woods and trees in many cases may require
some other and different suppositions to account for their
existence where they have been found ; but more interest-
ing to us in our present study are the indications which
may be obtained of the period at which the woods were
submerged or buried.
Section II. — Indications of the Age in which
Buried Woods and trees must have Fallen.
We lack indications of the time at which the trees
buried in the bog land of Holderness, and the submerged
trees on the coast of Lincolnshire, were destroyed. But we
have indications of a village having existed in the vicinity
of the submarine forest on the Cheshire coast, and from
articles of ornament and of domestic use which from time
to time have been found along the coast, something may
be learned in regard to the age in which the village
© © ©
existed ; and thus we may learn something of the age of
the forest.
It may be premised that all our coal beds are the meta-
morphosed remains of pre-Adamic woods and forests.
Petrified trees of a later growth are not uncommon. Such
AGES OF BURIED FORESTS. 179
remains of ancient forests are not unknown in other lands.
In making the New Orleans and Denur railroad, from 20
to 35 miles from Davern, between Running Creek and
Cherry Creek, the workmen came upon a buried forest,
the trees of which had all of them become petrified. They
were of all sizes. They were found at different depths
ranging from 10 to 20 feet, the greatest depth to which
they had occasion to excavate. They were met with in
some half-dozen localities, and occasioned no little trouble
to the workmen. The trees were perfect, and could be
taken out almost unbroken if suitable appliances were
employed.
Of buried trees in a fossil state we have numerous
specimens in what is known as the Purbeck Forests,, in
the Isle of Portland. Of these forests, remarks a writer
in the Cornhill Magazine (vol. xlvi., p. 727), we get the
best remains in the so-called dirt-beds. These curious
layers consist of the actual surface of the ground in which
the trees grew, with the stumps and roots still standing
in their natural positions on that very ancient soil. Of
course, the wood itself is turned into stone; but the form
and character of the tissues and leaves is still accurately
preserved for us. Some ot the trees were cycads, a small
palm-like tropical species like the zamias of our own conser-
vatories ; others were pieces of extinct sorts, all requiring
a warmer climate than that of Britain at the present day.
They have fortunately been preserved for us in situ, as
they grew, by the fact that when the forests were gently
and gradually submerged beneath the waters of the lake,
the trees fell into the marshy bottom, and both trunks and
stumps, with the soil on which they had grown, were then
slowly covered up with a thin layer of lacustrine mud.
As a consequence of these frequent changes, which are
much like those still occurring in tropical bogs and
lagoons, the Purbeck formations consist of numerous
alternating shallow layers, with the stumps of the terres-
trial dirt-beds penetrating (or rather surrounded by)
the fresh-water mud and slates. On the Isle of Portland,
180 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
taking them in historical or ascending order, they run as
follows: — First and lowest comes the skull-cap, so called
by the quarrymen (whose nomenclature is strictly practical)
because it fits tightly just above the Portland building
stone. It is a cream-coloured fresh-water limestone, and
its thickness is about two feet. Next comes the lower
dirt-bed with a few cycads, but no pines. Above this lies
the top-cap, a hard and troublesome bed to clear away,
consisting of fresh- water rock with a flinty texture. Then
we arrive at the great or upper dirt-bed, a mass of old
soil about a foot thick, full of cycads and pine stumps,
with their roots still firmly fixed in the ground where
they grew. Above this again we get the soft burr, or lake
sediment, which envelopes and preserves our fossil trunks ;
followed by the aish, a slatey lake deposit, the clay
parting, the bacon tier, the dirt seam, and last of all the
slate, a hard layer some ten or fifteen feet thick, and
shivered into small flat pieces about an inch through.
These are not the remains of woods which have existed
within the memory of man ; but the narrative supplies an
illustration of what may have taken place in later days.
Like salecified trees have been found elsewhere in
Britain ; but some, if not all of them, appear to have been
the products of pre-Adamic times. With the remains of
woods now under our consideration, it is otherwise.
In Denmark, single trees, if not forest clumps, have
been found preserved in such situations, as enable the
archaeologist to determine by their superposition the suc-
cession in which different kinds of trees have grown in
the locality, on from the time when the inhabitants made
the kocking-middens of shells of molluscs upon which they
lived, and used only weapons and implements and orna-
ments of stone, to times more recent— the time of the
Roman invasion — and also from that time to the present.
And this method of study, which is simple in the extreme,
is applicable to such cases as wre have had under consider-
ation in the preceding section.
AGES OF BURIED FORESTS. 181
In a small pamphlet, entitled The Antiquities Found at
Hoy Lake viCheshire, described by A. Hume, LL.D., F.R.S.A.,
published in 1847, are given with accurate illustrative draw-
ings descriptions of several of the articles found there, con-
sisting of a needle and needlecase, both formed of rudely
squeezed together sheet metal ; a fish hook, formed in the
same way as the needle, by rolling a thin sheet of metal
into the requisite shape ; a buckle, or brooch ; a buckle
with part of a strap attached ; a delicate hook, speckled
like a peacock's tail ; a key made of thin twisted metal, like
the needle, with sheath and fish hook ; another buckle.
and a small hammer, like the clapper of a small bell '
and an ornament which resembles the boss of a book
But besides these which have been represented by
drawings, there are many more ; there were more than a
hundred buckles, and wellnigh as many more other
articles formed of lead, silver, copper, iron, aud brass.
They are chiefly articles for domestic use ; and " it is
remarkable," says Dr. Hume, "that there is not among
them a single weapon of any kind, nor anything that
seems to indicate a violation of the habits and scenes of
peaceful life."
It is conjectured that what occasioned the destruction of
the village may have occasioned the destruction of the
forest, and if the conjecture be accepted, the questions
How and When may the catastrophe which brought
destruction to the forest and to the village have occurred ?
may find au answer. With regard to circumstances
attending the catastrophe, it is conjectured that timely
warning must have been afforded to the inhabitants
of the village: a grave-yard is said to have been dis-
covered at low-water at spring-tide by an engineer,
while surveying the coast for a very different purpose;
an old skull and some other human bones have also been
found; but as no human remains that indicate a
sudden or violent death have been found, it is alleged
that :'it is highly probable that the village had been
deserted previous to its final submersion. This idea is
182 HIE FORESTS 01 ENGLAND.
further confirmed by the fact that on the Lancashire shore
there exists a deserted village anciently known as Formby.
' The graveyard is still preserved, about three feet beL
the ordinary level, and many feet under the large mounds
of sand which surround it. In 1783 the Last householder
lived on the borders of the graveyard, and in his youth
his house was in the centre of the town. The mod
Formby is now a mile and a half distant, with a new
church and churchyard; but the deserted Lanes, wh n
one plunges in the sand at everj step, still retain town
names of places to which they once Led, as King Street,
Church Street, Duke Street.' *
"The inhabitants of modern Formby had thus had
ample warning to ' take up their beds and walk ;' and, in
all probability, old ocean was equally kind-hearted on the
Cheshire shore.
"Some of the local observers and inquirers, how.,
believe that the destiuction of the forest was suddenly
accomplished, and that on some stormy day in autumn
this season being fixed on because many of. the buried
trees were bearing fruit when they must have been
destroyed), the sea made a sudden dash across the land,
overwhelmed the entire district, bearing down everything
in its way, and that the waters cleared for themselves an
outlet into the Mersey by a channel long known as
Wallasey-pool, but now occupied by one of the most
magnificent docks in the civilised world."
I see no reason to conclude that both suppositions may
not be correct. The progress of the destruction
of the barrier opposed to the ingress of the sea
may lor a time have been slow, and yet the inroad of the
sea at last sweeping; but even of this being the ter-
mination of what mav have been o-oinor 0n, there is no
evidence.
But we have still the question, When did the catas-
* Letter from Dr Hume.
AGES OF BURIED FORESTS. 183
trophe occur? to deal with. The author just cited — the
anonymous author of Forests and Forest Trees — tells: —
" It is well established that for two thousand years past
this part of the coast has been inhabited, and that until
within no very recent period the whole hundred of Wirrall,
the name by which this part of Cheshire is known, was
covered with forests. When the Romans possessed the
island, one of their chief stations was Deva Castrum, the
camp on the Dee, the present city of Chester. It was
important as being near the Welsh mountains, whither
large numbers of the ancient inhabitants had fled for
refuge, and from whence they made many sallies against
their invaders ; and important also because is was the
chief port from whence the Romans had access to the
Irish Sea. But situated as it was, a lung way from the
sea, it was necessary to guard its entrance, and accord-
ing, y another station was created on a small island —
Hibre Island — near the mouth of the Dee, and close by
the shore on which this village and now buried forest stood.
Some remains have occasionally been found on this island
that render this fact beyond doubt, but the island is now
greatly reduced in size by the encroachments of the sea.
It is therefore quite reasonable to suppose that a village
or even a town, may have sprung up on this shore in
Roman times, and that the timber of the forests may have
beer cleared both to build Roman galleys and to give
space for the raising of corn. The Dee certainly did not
diminish in importance when the Heptarchy was estab-
lished. Chester became the capital of Mercia ; and one of
its kings is related to have sailed on the Dee rowed by
kings whom he bad subdued in war, among whom was a
kino; of Cumberland and a king of Man. There must
have therefore been pleuty of ships around the mouth of
the Dee, and it is highly probable that the village calle 1
into existence by the Roman station still continued anl
increased in the days of the Saxons. In the reign of
Henry II. an abbey wTas erected at the town of Birken-
head, on the west shore of the Mersey, and not far distant
184 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
from the locality we are considering. Among other privi-
leges enjoyed by the monks was that of a ferry across the
river to Liverpool, such as that town then was ; and
strange enough, this old 'Monk's ferry ' still remains with
its old name, but attached now not to a holy brotherhood
of monks, but to a brotherhood of capitalists, carrying on
business (in both senses of the word carrying) under the
name of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway Company.
' The blessings of knowledge and the benefits of religion '
were therefore, we see, coming nearer and nearer our
submarine forest at Leasowc. In the reign of Edward III.
the peninsula was disafforested, and new villages doubtless
sprung up. Coming down to a later period, we learn that
it was from a port named Hoylake, close by the spot on
which this buried forest stood, that William Penn sailed
to America to found or colonise the district now known as
Pennsylvania ; and it was from the same port that William
III. embarked for Ireland to fight the battle of the Boyne."
But history is silent in regard to the destruction of
the village and the forests ; and competent inquirers, it
is alleged, have considered that their antiquity goes back-
to the time of the Romans.
I see nothing incredible in this, and there are not
awanting indications of some of the buried remains of
forests found in other parts of England having been pre-
served since that time.
About the time of the Roman invasion England was
extensively covered with trees. It is still a richly wooded
land, but nowhere do we meet with extensive areas of
woodland such as we have reason to believe existed then.
Considerable havoc was made by the Romans to enable
them to advance and secure their conquests, and besides
the historical notices which we have of the fact, we have
preserved beneath the surface of the soil, in connection with
remains of trees, Roman coins which seem to have been
deposited there along with these remains. In the notice
given of Hatfield Chase (at p. 169), it is mentioned that
AGES OF BURIED FORESTS. 185
it is the site of a niorass which covered deep the remains
of what was a rich woodland in times long gone bv.
When the morass was beinq- drained, near the root of an
ancient tree, eight coins pertaining to different Roman
emperors, were discovered.
On a moor in Lancashire there were found eight small
boats or canoes, such as the natives used about the time
of the Romans ; and in another moor a brass kettle, with
a small millstone, and several beads of wrought amber ;
all interesting to as us evidence to the fact that the
aborigines of these lands made use of timber trees.
Between Birmingham and Bromley were found several
parcels of wood cut into poles, beams, &c, with the head of
an axe resembling the Roman battle-axe, and a coin of the
Emperor Vespasian ; and it is stated that under these the
solid ground was in ridges, apparently produced by its
having been ploughed.
In digging a foundation for the low level sewage in
West Ham marsh, there were found on a bed of peat from
twelve to fourteen feet thick, resting on a layer of clay,
and this again on gravel, stems of oak, yew, and willow,
from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter ; and wherever
the marshes along the run have been trenched, ancient
timber has been found embedded. Bronze celts also have
been found, and in Plaistow marsh two lumps of metal
from the maker's ladle. " And lead coffins containing
skeletons have been dug up in West Ham marsh.
Citing cases of wood preserved and peat bogs in
Ireland from remote times, and the cases mentioned of
Roman remains having been found along with wood in
peat bogs in England, Mr M'William cites also numerous
cases of wood being found in Scotland with like indications
of having been preserved from the time of the Romans.
All of which facts, viewed in connection with what has
been ascertained of the antiseptic properties of peat, makes
it more than probably that some of these relics of ancient
woods have been preserved from the time of the Romans,
or the commencement of the Christian era, and that author
186 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
goes on to say in his Essay on the Origin and
Operation of the Dry Rot, with a View to its Prevention
or Cure, published in 1818, — " We have good reason
to believe that great part of them have lain above
1700 years in the earth, and in reference to this
statement it may not be improper to give my reasons
for thinking so. These are grounded on the page of
history. If we recall to mind the history of the Britons,
from the reign of Domitian to the accesssion of Caracalla,
and consider the local situation of the morasses and bogs,
we shall find good reason for ascribing the destruction of
many of the forests in question to the Romans. It is well
known that from the time of Julius Caesar to the decline
of the Roman power, the Britons, being unable to contend
with the arms and discipline of the Roman legions in
pitched battles in the open country, were forced to take
shelter in the woods and marshes, from which they annoyed
the Romans with their incursions. The Roman generals,
therefore, from the time of Agricola. if not before, employed
not only their own soldiers, but also many of the pro-
vincial Britons, in depriving their opponents of their
places of refuge, by cutting down the woods, and draining
marshes. These are the servile labours pointed out by
Galgacus, in that energetic speech made at the head of
his army, before the battle with Agricola, and of which
he warns the Caledonians as awaiting the vanquished. He
says : ' Our limbs and our bodies are worn out in cutting
wood, and draining marshes ; and what have we in return
but stripes and insults '. ' * Having finished his harangue,
he led 30,000 on the Grampian hills to that desperate,
bloody, and well-fought, though unsuccessful conflict,
which left 10,000 of his brave men slumbering on their
gory beds ; and Tacitus says, had not the bogs protected
the Caledonians, that battle would have ended the war.
This was in the 84th year of our era. In like manner,
Severus employed his men, not only in erecting the wall
' Tacitus, Life of Agricola, chap. 31.
AGES OF BURIED FORESTS. 187
which bears his name, but likewise in cutting wood,
draining marshes, and constructing bridges ; and although
Severus was never met by the British army in the open
field, yet lie lost 50,000 men in the expedition. Besides
this,* there are many roads found on the clayey ground
at the bottoms of the marshes, which are of the exact
description of the Roman military roads ; and some
exhibit tesselated pavements, which are confessedly the
work of the Romans. Such have been found in the
morasses of Kincardine, on the estates of Mr Drummond.*
The great north road of the Romans ran through Lindun
(Lincoln) to Segelochum (Littleborough-upon-Trent) and
thence to Danum (Doncaster), where they kept a permanent
garrison of horse. A large portion of the country had
been covered with forests, many of which still remained
in some parts ; and in other parts, on the high ground,
young trees grew up from the roots of those cut by the
invaders ; while those in the lower ground were soon
immersed in boggy swamps. In the fourteenth century we
are told the Caledonians committed considerable depre-
dations on the English borders ; to revenge which John
of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, marched a large army into
Scotland, and it is said set 24,000 axes to work at once,
to destroy the Scottish woods. The Roman historians
themselves inform us that, when their armies pursued
the wild Britons, these people always sheltered themselves
in the miry woods and low watery forests. Caesar expressly
says this ; and observes, that Cassibelan and his Britons,
after their defeat, passed the Thames, and fled to such
low marshes and woods, that there was no pursuing them.
" But to return to the garrison of horse at Doncaster.
This was to awe the Britons, who swarmed in the great
forest, the borders of which extended very near to Don-
caster and the Trent, and came within a little distance of
the garrison. The Britons sallied out, and committed
such depredations, that the Romans at last became
* Edinburgh Rep. of Arts, part I., page 269.
188 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
exasperated, marched a powerful army against them, and
encamped on the great moor, not far from Finningley,
where part of their fortifications may yet be seen. A
battle was fought very near Osterfield, probably under the
command of Ostorius ; and, as might be expected, the
poor Britons were routed with great slaughter. Those
who escaped fled again into the woods. The conquerors
followed up their victory, and carried death and destruc-
tion into the great forest. Taking the advantage of a strong
westerly wind, they set fire to the pine or fir trees, of
which this forest principally consisted, and thus destroyed
the greater part of them. Their own soldiers and the
captive Britons cut down the remainder. It is well
known that the timber found there under ground lies
from west to east, or rather inclining a little toward the
south and north of these points, the very way in which
we are told the wind blew.
" Several of the Roman historians inform us that when
Suetonius Paulinus conquered Angelsea, he ordered all
the woods to be cut down there, in the same manner in
which the Roman generals had done in England. Edward
I., about the year 1281, being unable to get at the
Welsh, because of their hiding-places of refuge in the
woods, ordered that the trees should all be destroyed by
fire and axe;* and it is probable that those found in
Pembrokeshire and the adjoining counties are the
effects of this order. Giraldus Cambrensis, who accom-
panied Henry II. to the first conquest of Ireland, in 1171
or 1172, and was secretary to King John in 1185, states
that the country was very woody, and that Henry ordered
all the woods on the low lands to be cut down to deprive
the thieves and rogues of their places of refuge and
starting holes, with which these woods swarmed."
* Holiashed.
CHAPTER IV,
CONSERVATION, REPLENISHING. AND EXTENSION
OF FORESTS.
In succeeding chapters will be supplied information in
regard to the forest legislation in England, — in regard
to this, from very early times till the Reformation ; and
in regard to this, from the time of the Reformation till
end of the eighteenth century. In the former period
attention was given almost exclusively to the preserva-
iton of game ; in the latter attention is given also to the
conservation of the trees of the forest for a supply of
fuel, of wood, and of timber.
By this legislation the progressive destruction of woods
and of trees in the forest may have been retarded some-
what, but it was not arrested ; and continuously throughout
the whole historic period embraced by the legislature in
question the destruction went on. But while this waste
and destruction of forests has been going on, efforts have
from time to time been made to arrest it ; and towards
the close of last century, but still more from the commence-
ment of the nineteenth century, on to the present time, the
replenishing of the forests with tiees and the extension of
woodlands by planting has been advocated with increased
energy.
In the sixteenth century we find a note of warning
against the evil consquences likely to follow the wasteful
destruction of forests, in "An Historical Description of
the Island of Britain, by Mr Hamsen," given in Holin-
shed's Chronicles — of which a reprint appeared in 1807.
In a curious chapter on Woods and Marshes, the author
complains of the rapid decrease of the forests, and adds :
190 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
" Howbeit thus much I dare affirme, that if woods
go so fast to decaie in the next hundred yeere of Grace,
as they haue doone and are like to do oin this, . . .
it 13 to be feared that the fennie bote, broom e, turfe,
gall, heath, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling, dies, has-
sacks, flags, straw, sedge, reed, rush, and also seacole,
will be good merchandize euen in the citie of Lon-
don, whereunto some of them euen now haue gotten
readie passage, and taken vp their innes in the greatest
merchants' parlours. ... I would wish that 1
might Hue no longer than to see foure things in this
land reformed, that is: the want of discipline in the
church : the couetous dealings of most of our merchants
in the preferment of the commodities of other countries,
and hindrance of their owne : the holding of faires and
markets vpon the sundaie to be abolished and referred to
the wednesdaies : and that euery man, in whatsoeuer part
of the champaine soile enioieth fortie acres of land, and
vpwards, after that rate, either by free deed, copie hold, or
fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sowe the same
with oke mast, hasell, beech, and sufficient prouision be
made that it may be cherished and kept. But I feare
me that I should Hue too long, and so long, that I should
either be wearie of the world, or the world of me/'
Again, in the time of Charles II., the importance of
conserving and replenishing the woodlands in the forests
as a means of saving timber for the navy was perceived,
and measures were adopted accordingly. And in 1664
was published the first edition of Evelyn's Silva, a work
which contributed much to the extension of arboriculture
in England.
Hitherto it was chiefly the demand for wood for naval
purposes which excited the anxiety of statesmen; but
several authors in the sixteenth century expressed fears of
serious evils following the wasteful destruction of woods
for domestic fuel, and meanwhile there was gradually
manifesting itself a new source of danger. In the Forest of
CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 191
Dean and elsewhere, mines of iron ore were being exploited
with more and more energy. For the smelting of the ore
fuel was at hand, and trees were recklessly felled for the
work. Coal had been found, but coal fires were not found
appropriate to the purpose, aud the consequent destruc-
tion of the woods, threatened to bring the country into a
condition not unlike what is now the case in many dis-
tricts of the Ural mountains in Russia — what were richly
wooded lands being devastated. The immediate effect of
this was to quicken efforts to adapt coal fres to the smelt-
ing of ore, and the ulterior effect was to relieve the forests,
in some measure, of the demand thus made upon them.
Walter White, in his volume entitled All Round the
Wrecken, writes : —
" About the time that the Spanish Armada was defeated,
a great outcry and lamentation arose because of the waste
and decav of woods and forests, and that havinsr no timber
wherewith to build ships, the utter ruin of England must
speedily ensue. Many a man grieved in his old age over
the disappearance of woods where he had taken birds' nests
when a boy ; and the proprietors of salt pans in Worces-
tershire, and iron-smelters everywhere, whose ' voracious
works ' devoured enormous quantities of wood and char-
coal, were afterwards accused as enemies of their countrv.
But the demand for fuel increased, and to avert the evil
consequences, ingenious patriots made experiment after
experiment to discover a way of smelting iron with pit-
coal or sea-coal, as it was then called, and what thev pro-
posed may be read in the archives of the Patent Office.
Simon Sturtevant, writing his specification in 1612,
renews the lamentation over the destruction of timber
by the four hundred furnaces, M lines, then at work in
Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, to say nothing of the number
in other parts of the kingdom ; and describes his method
for using pit-coal, and thereby saving the woods, and
J-320,000 a-year. He failed, but other schemers were
ready to take his place, and among those who followed we
find Dud Dudley taking out a patent for the same object,
192 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
and persevering in experiments. Speaking of himself in
his statement he says : — ' Having former knowledge and
delight in Iron-works of my father's when I was but a
youth, afterward at twenty years old, was I fetched from
Oxford, then of Baliol Colledge, anno 1G19, to look and
manage 3 Iron Works of my father.' But wood and char-
coal failing, he experimented with pit-coal, and reports
then : — ' I found such success at first tryal as animated me,
for at my tryal or blast I made iron to profit with pit-coal,
and found, Facere est addere Inventioni! "
He laments the waste of small coal, which was then left
in the mine as worthless, and computes the consequent
loss of fuel as fit for the furnace at four thousand tons
a-year, within ten miles of Dudley Castle. " If all the
coles and ironstones," he argues, " so abounding, were
made right use of, we need not want iron as we do ; for
verv many measures of ironstone are placed together under
the great ten yards thickness of coal, and upon another
thickness of coal two yards thick, as if God had decreed
the time when and how these Smith's should be supplyed,
and thus stand also with iron."
We may smile when we rind this much persecuted
inventor declaring that to make one ton of iron in twenty-
four hours would be sufficient ! " We need not a greater
quantity," he says. "With that quantity there would be
no lack of work for the smithy, and nailers in the neigh-
bourhood of Dudley, where trade was so bad that many
of them were ready to starve or steal." What would a
ton a -day do now ?
In connection with this reference to the importance
attached to the general use of coal instead of wood for fuel,
it may be interesting to some to learn that on the same
authority, some five-and-twenty or thirty years since, when
in the neighbourhood of the pottery village of Swedlecut
or Swadlecote, the diggers began the " getting " of one of the
uppermost clay-beds the usual overlying seam of coal was
found to be amissing, to the surprise of all in the locality,
CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 193
until traces were found of its having been dug away at
some remote time, no one could even conjecture when,
and it was surmised that probably it was for fuel.
In the passage from Harrison cited above (p. 68j, the
Hon. P. G. Marsh, in his volume entitled, TJie Earth as
Modified by Human Action, remarks : —
"It is evident from Holinshed, reprint of 1807, i. pp.
357, 358, and from another statement, p. 397 of the same
volume, that, though sea-coal was largely exported to
the Continent, it had not yet come into general use in
England. It is a question of much interest, when mineral
coal was first employed in England for fuel. I can find no
evidence that it was used as a combustible until more than
a century after the Xorman conquest. It has been said
that it was known to the Anglo-Saxon joopulation, but I
am acquainted with no passage in the literature of that
people which proves this. The dictionaries explain the
Anglo-Saxon word grcefa by sea-coal. I have met with
this word in no Anglo Saxon work, except in the Chronicle,
A.D. 852, from a manuscript certainly not older than the
twelfth century, and in two citations from Anglo-Saxon
charters, one published by Kemble in Codex Diplomatic".?,
the other by Thorpe in Diplomatarium Anglicum, in all
which passages it more probably means peat than mineral
coal. According to Way, Promptorium Parnulorum, p.
506, note, the Catholicon Anglicanum, has "'A turfe graft e,
turbarium! Grafte is here evidently the same word as
the A.-S. gi'cefa, and the Danish Torvegr»r] a turf-pit,
confirms this opinion. Coal is not mentioned in King
Alfred's Bede, in Xeckam, in Glanville, or in P,obert of
Gloucester, though the two latter writers speak of the
allied mineral jet, and are very full in their enumeration
of the mineral productions of the island.
"In a Latin poem ascribed to Giraldus Carnbrensis,
who died after the year 1220, but found also in the manu-
scripts of Walter Mapes (see Camden Society edition, pp.
131, 350, and introduced into Higden's Polychronicon .
London, 18G5, pp. 398, 399), carlo sub terra cortic?, which
o
194 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
can mean nothing but pit-coal, is enumerated among the
natural commodities of England. Some of the trans-
lations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
rende carbo by cool or col, some by gold, and some
omit this line, as well as others unintelligible to the
translators. Hence, although Giraldus was acquainted
with coal, it certainly was not generally known to English
writers until at least a century after the time of that
author.
" The earliest mediaeval notice of mineral coal I have
met with is in a passage cited by Ducange from a docu-
ment of the year 1198, and it is an etymological observa-
tion of some interest., that carbones ferrei, as sea-coal is
called in the document, are said by Ducange to have been
known in France by the popular name of hulla, sl word
evidently identical with the modern French houille, and
the Cornish Huel, which in the form icheal is an element
in the name of many mining localities."
While the forest trees may have been, and apparently
were, extensively devastated by man, they may have been,
and most probably were, to some extent destroyed also by
the animals preserved for the chase, though that also may
have unconsciously contributed to the maintenance of the
woods. In a foot note appended by Mr Marsh to another
passage in the work cited, he remarks : —
" No lover of American nature can have failed to observe
a marked difference between a native wood from
which cattle are excluded and one where they are per-
mitted to browse. A few seasons suffice for the total
extirpation of the ' underbrush,' including the young trees
on which alone the reproduction of the forest depends, ami
all the branches of those of larger growth which hang
within reach of the cattle are stripped of their buds and
leaves, and soon wither and fall off. These effects are observ-
able at a great distance, and a wood-pasture is rocognised,
almost as far as it can be seen, by the regularity with
which its lower foliage terminates at what Ruskin some-
CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 195
where calls the ' cattle line.' This always runs parellel to
the surface of the ground, and is determined by the height
to which domestic quadrupeds can reach to feed upon the
leaves. In describing a visit to the grand-ducal farm of
San Rossore near Pisa, where a large herd of camels is
kept, Chateau vieux says : ' In passing through a wood of
evergreen oaks, I observed that all the twigs and foliage
of the trees were clipped up to the height of about twelve
feet above the ground, without leaving a single spray
below that level. I was informed that the browsing of the
camels had trimmed the trees as high as they could reach.'
— Lullin de Ohateauvieux, Lettres sur I'ltolie, p. 113.
" Browsing animals, and most of all the goat, are con-
sidered by foresters as more injurious to the growth of
young trees, and, therefore, to the reproduction of the
forest, than almost any other destructive cause. Accord-
ing to Beatson's Saint Helena, introductory chapter, and
Darwin's Journal of Researches in Geology and Natural
History, pp. 582, 583, it was the goats which destroyed the
beautiful forests that, three hundred and fifty years ago,
covered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand
acres in the interior of the island [of St. Helena], not to
mention scattered groups of trees. Darwin observes:
' During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most positively
assured that sandal- wood formerly grew in abundance on
the Island of Juan Fernandez, but that this tree had now
become entirely extinct there, having been extirpated by
the goats which early navigators had introduced. The
neighbouring islands, to which goats have not been carried,
still abound in sandal-wood.'
" In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great
American moose-deer, subsist much on the buds and
young sprouts of trees ; yet — though from the destruction
of the wolves, or from some not easily explained cause
these latter animals have recently multiplied so rapidly
in some parts of North America, that, not long since, four
hundred of them are said to have been killed in one sea-
son, on a territory in Maine not comprising more than one
196 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
hundred and fifty square miles — the wild browsing quad-
rupeds are rarely, if ever, numerous enough in regions un-
inhabited by man to produce any sensible effect on the
condition of the forest. A reason why they are less inju-
rious than the goat to young trees may be that they resort
to this nutriment only in the winter, when the grasses and
shrubs are leafless or covered with snow, whereas the goat
feeds upon buds and young shoots principally in the sea-
son of growth. HowTever this may be, the natural law of
consumption and supply keeps the forest growth, and the
wild animals which live on its products, in such a state of
equilibrium as to insure the indefinite continuance of both,
and the perpetuity of neither is endangered until man
interferes and destroys the balance.
" When, however, deer are bred and protected in parks,
they multiply like domestic cattle, and become equally
injurious to trees. 'A few years ago,' says Clave/ there
were not less than two thousand deer of different
afjes in the forest of Fontainebleau. For want of
grass they are driven to the trees, and they do not
spare them. . . It is calculated that the browsing
of these animals, and the consequent retardation of
the growth of the wood, diminishes the annual product of
the forest to the amount of two hundred thousand cubic
feet per year, . . and besides this, the trees thus mutil-
ated are soon exhausted and die. The deer attack the
pines, too, tearing off the bark in long strips, or rubbing
their heads against them when shedding their horns \ and
sometimes, in groves of more than a hundred hectares, not
one pine is found uninjured by them.' — Revue des deux
Mondes, Mai 1863, p. 157.
u Vaupell, although agreeing with other writers as to
the injury done to the forest by domestic animals and
by half-tamed deer — which he illustrates in an inter-
esting way in his posthumous work, The Danish Woods —
thinks, nevertheless, that at the season when the mast is
falling, swine are rather useful than otherwise to forests of
beech and oak, by treading into the ground, and thus sow-
CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 197
ing beechnuts and acorns, and by destroying moles and
mice. — Be Dantske Shove, p. 12. Megusher is of the same
opinion, and adds that swine destroy injurious insects and
their larva?. — Memoria, &c, p. 233.
" Beckstein computes that a park of 2,500 acres, con-
taining 250 acres of marsh, 250 of fields and meadows, and
the remaining 2,000 of wood, may keep 364; deer of dif-
ferent species, 47 wild boars, 200 hares, 100 rabbits, and
an indefinite number of pheasants. These animals would
require, in winter, 123.000 pounds of hay, and 22.000
pounds of potatoes, besides what they would pick up
themselves. The natural forest most thickly peopled with
wild animals, would not, in temperate climates, contain,
upon the average, one-tenth of these numbers to the same
extent of surface."
Other changes consequent upon the progress of the
nations, affected the forests, tending generally to the
devastation of them, and calling forth warnings, counsels,
and protests.
A change of habit in regard to hunting, and the neces-
sity felt from time to time raise money by the sale of timber,
led to great changes. I find it alleged that the gradual
destruction of forests after the Reformation may be attri-
buted to the following, amongst other causes — the confis-
cation of Church property, the diminished habit of hunting,
the extermination of wild animals, the unusual demand for
timber, the disturbances during the civil wars, and gene-
rally to the progress of civilisation.
In an edition of Evelyn's Silva, published in York in
1786, the editor, Dr. Hunter, says in a note on this sub-
ject :—
" In order to trace the history of the decay of our forest
trees, it will be necessary to remark that the first attack
made upon them of any material consequence was in the
twenty-seventh year of the reign of Henry VIII., when
that monarch seized upon the church-lands, and converted
them, together with their woods, to his own use, Ruinous
198 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
as such an attempt might appear at first, it did not bring
with it any very pernicious consequences, as the whole
kingdom, at that early period, was plentifully stocked with
all kinds of timber-trees, especially the oak. During the
civil war which broke out in 1642, and all the time of the
inter-regnum, the royal forests, as well as the woods of the
nobility and gentry, suffered a great calamity, insomuch
that many extensive forests had, in a few years, hardly
any memorial left of their existence but their names.
From that period to the present, there is some reason to ap-
prehend that the persons appointed to the superintendence
of the royal forests and chases have not strictly and dili-
gently attended to their charge, otherwise the nation would
not at this day have reason to complain of the want of oak
for the purposes of increasing and repairing the royal navy.
This loss, however, would not have operated so severely,
had the principal nobility and gentry been so solicitous to
plant as to cut down their woods. But this reflection
should be made with some degree of limitation, as several
thousand acres of waste land have, within these twenty
years, been planted for the benefit of the rising-
generation. The Society of Arts, &c, established in 1754,
have greatly contributed, by their honorary and pecuniary
premiums, to restore the spirit for planting ; and I flatter
myself that a republication of Mr. Evelyn's Sylva will also
contribute to that desirable end. Tuffer, a versifier in the
reign of Henry VIII. . complains at that early period, that
men were more studious to cut down than to plant trees ;
and as this author is often quoted by Mr Evelyn, it will
be proper to remark that his book is entitled Five Hundred
Points of Husbandry, and is printed in black letter. It
is written in quatrains, or stanzas, of four verses each, and
contains more lines than Virgil's Georgics. The first edi-
tion was published in 1562. There are other editions in
1664 and 1672 ; also in 1710 and 1743, with notes and
observations. Every thing that has a tendency towards
the raising and diffusing a spirit for planting, is highly
meritorious ; and as our wooden walls have been esteemed
CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 199
for many ages past the bulwark of the nation, we may
hope, from the goodness of our august sovereign, that he
will set an example to the nobility and men of large pos-
sessions, by ordering his wastes to be planted with timber-
trees, especially the oak."
Latterly much more has been done to secure the con-
servation and extension, and to some extent the replenish-
ing of woodlands in England. The demand for timber for
the navy, in the commencement of the present century,
gave a fresh impulse to the arrest of wasteful treatment
of them, to the correction of abuses in the administration
of them, and to the development of the productiveness of
woodlands. But the detailing of what in consequence was
done would lead us beyond what may be called with strict
propriety, Early English Forestry. One purpose of the
present treatise is to prepare for a correct appreciation of
what has latterly been attempted by shewing, what pre-
viously was the condition of the woods and forests of
England, and what had previously been done both in
devastating these, and in endeavours to arrest, or miti grate
the evil.
In connection with this allusion to planting hundreds of
years ago, may be adduced the following record of prices
paid in the reign of Charles II., for planting some trees in
an orchard : —
" An appricock tree, twenty pence ; an orange tree,
eight pence ; two royal Windsor pear trees, twenty pence ;
two Kentish pippins, twenty-eight pence ; two Flanders
cherries, thirty pence ; twenty-six roods of Peruvian roses,
sixty-six pence ; eight young apple trees, seven shillings ;
a mulberry tree, four shillings ; a peach tree, half-a-crown ;
a medlar tree, one shilling ; and two dozen of tulips, three
shillings."
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL FOREST LEGISLATION
IN ENGLAND.
The devastation of forests in England appears to have
been going on while the Romans were resident there.
From the time of Canute attempts have been made by
legislation to restrict the destruction of woods deemed
necessary for the shelter of game; and only incidentally
was the preservation of the forests from devas-tation and
destruction thus secured.
By the consideration of the Forest Laws successively
enacted, something may be learned in regard to the con-
dition of the woodlands, and of the state of things which
required a resort to legislation to meet.
In France, and in other countries on the Continent of
Europe, in which attention has been given to the explora-
tion of forests in accordance with the advanced forest
science of the day, the laws relating to their conservation,
protection, and management have been formally codified.
It is not so in Britain ;* and thus are secured for us faci-
* In a review of Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, by Frederick Pollok, M.A.,
LL.D., which appeared in The Spectator of 9th September, 1882, the reviewer says : —
" In defiance of every principle of scientific legislation, but for reasons peculiar to
our Parliamentary system, the Acts of Parliament constantly passed for remedying
practical grievances, almost invariably enact little special systems of law, applicable
only to particular classes of persons and transactions, instead of establishing any
general principle of law applicable in all cases. We will j^ive one illustration out of many.
Fifty or sixty years ago, it was discovered that gross cruelties and serious dangers were
SUMMARY OF MEDLEVAL LEGISLATION. 201
lities which otherwise we might not have possessed for
making ourselves acquainted with the past treatment of
woods and forests in England ; and of this I proceed to
avail myself, citing laws and injunctions which have been
issued at different times anterior to the commencement
of the present century, when a new departure was taken
in the management of the crown forests, with results which
have led to more attention being now given to them as
sources of gain than as coverts for game. Some of these
laws served a temporary purpose, and the circumstances to
which they were applicable having disappeared, they be-
came effete, or they may otherwise have become obsolete,
though never abrogated ; but for our purpose they still are
useful.
involved in the employment of boys in sweeping chimneys, and thereupon a Chimney
Sweepers' Act was passed. A few years later, there followed Acts for the protection
from various risks of accident of children employed in certain kinds of factories or
mines. Later still public attention was directed to the danger incurred by children
employed as acrobats, and a few sessions ago an Act was passed for the protection of
such performers. Very probably there exist at this moment other employments for child-
ren quite as cruel or dangerous as any which the Acts in question applied to, but which
public has not found out, and which are untouched by any Act. Certainly, for instance
the statutory penalties which attach to sending a boy up a chimney, would not attach
to sending him up a sewer, in which his chance of being wedged in or suffocated might
be quite as great. Why, then, in spite of ail these special Acts, was not an Act passed
establishing, once for all, as a general principle of law, that the employment of boys
and girls in any manner involving either serious cruelty or serious danger to life or
lirnb, should be a criminal offence, attaching appropriate penalties to this offence, and
leaving the Courts of Justice to put this law in force against chimney sweepers, acro-
bats, and all the world besides? The answer is not without practical force. The Home
Secretary of the day, backed by a certain amount of public indignation, might reason-
ably expect to be too strong for the chimney-sweeping interest, or the acrobatic interest.
But if he had sought to attain his end by establishing any general principle of law, the
opponents of the measure would have found it easy to raise so much alarm amongst the
employers of boys and girls all over the country, that the bill could not have been carried.
So the statute law is botched, and made year by year more patchy and complex, to satisfy
the exigencies of Parliamentary management.
" For this intolerable jumble of case law, statute law, and no law at all, there is but
one deliverance. As Mr Pollok says with reference to our commercial law, he might
have said with reference to our whole system of law : —
" ' The remedy lies straight before us, and has already been applied with success by
the majority of civilised nations. It is the statement of the law by the supreme autho-
rity of the Legislature, and in an orderly and lucid form ; in one word, codification. If
Parliament is afraid of undertaking this, it is afraid of undertaking that which the
Italian Parliament, the German Reichstag, and the Swiss Federal Assembly have been
doing, without fear and failure, for several years past.'
" So, too, have we been doing something of this, and doing it with excellent results,
but doing it for India, not for ourselves. But an Indian code has not to pass the House
of Commons."
I cite this here solely in illustration of the point to which I refer in the text, and I do
bo the more freely that in all the more important schools of forestry on the Continent,
provision is made for the study of jurisprudence both in its moie comprehensive sense,
and in its more restricted application to the science of law by all aspirants for appoint-
ments foresters in the forest service of the country.
202 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
In regard to the interest taken by the kings of Eng-
land in the forests as hunting-grounds reserved for their
use, a writer in the Journal of Forestry tells : —
" Though extravagantly fond of the pleasures of the
chase,. Canute confirmed to his subjects, by his general
code of laws, full power to hunt in their own lands, pro-
vided they abstained from the royal forests, in which the
greatest rigour still p .evaded ; but after the extinction of
the Danish princes, and during the weak and disturbed
reisn of the Confessor, these laws were little observed. The
natural consequence was that the revival of them by the
Normans became more severely felt. The Conqueror, it
is universally agreed, was most passionately fond of hunt-
ing; to him the tyranny of the forest laws may be justly
ascribed, as well as the severe subjection in which the
nobility, without distinction, were kept at that period.
William Rufus proceeded in a great degree upon his
father's plan, and suffered his passion for the chase to
oppress his subjects to such an extent that the remem-
brance of his tyranny was long preserved with detestation
and abhorence. Andrews, in his History of Great Britain,
relates that when ten Englishmen had been cleared by
the ordeal of fire from a charge of killing deer, Rufus
exclaimed, " Pretty justice above, indeed, to let ten such
scoundrels escape !" His son and successor, Henry I., found
it expedient on his coming to the throne to ingratiate
himself with his people, and with a view to this he restored
the law of Edward the Confessor. The usurper Stephen
at his accession promised much, more particularly as to
the redressing of the grievance of the forest laws, but his
performances in that respect were very limited. During
the reign of Henry II. a milder system appears to have
prevailed, which was far from being the case in that of
Richard I., whose attachment to the chase and to field
sports is well authenticated ; by him we find the rigour of
the forest laws again revived, and nearly to the same
extent as they existed in the time of his grandfather,
though what he did was rather a declaration of the laws
SUMMARY OF MEDLEVAL LEGISLATION. 203
(much relaxed in practice) than an enactment of new
ones. To one merit, if we give credit to Matthew Paris,
he was most unquestionably entitled : the then existing
penalties of loss of eyes and of cutting off hands and feet for
transgressions committed in hunting were repealed, and
such offences declared to be punishable in future by fines
only. John, amongst his other extravagances, stretched
the forest laws to the utmost, and by the severity of his
proceedings provoked insurrections amongst his barons
and principal feudatories, the consequences of which we
are well acquainted with. Yet it was in this reign that
all lands aforested by Henry I., or Richard (except the
demesne woods of the Crown) were declared to be dis-
afforested. Various provisions were likewise made respect-
ing the woods of individuals within the royal forests, and
a laudable restriction was enacted that in future no person
should lose a life or a member for taking the king's deer,
but should pay a considerable fine, and if unable to do so,
should be imprisoned for a year and a day, as well as find
security for his good behaviour. If these terms were not
complied with, he was then compelled to leave the realm.
Similar regulations were repeated in the succeeding reign
of Henry III., and in the ninth year after his succession
that famous charter of Englibh liberties, the Cliarta de
Foresta, was promulgated. The various regulations origi-
nating with John, and afterwards adopted by Henry III.,
were also sanctioned by Edward I. The latter monarch,
amongst other acts equally wise, both confirmed the charter
of the forest and added much to the regulations of his
royal progenitors. In his reign perambulations of the
king's forests were required by the people, and acceded to
by the king, with a view to ascertaining their real bound-
aries, as well as to prevent disputes in respect to their
extent ; on the other hand, the boldness and audacity
of offenders in forests, chases, and warrens, rendered it
absolutely necessary to give protection to the keepers, and
occasioned the statute ' De Malefactoribus in Parcis.' The
1 Ordinatio de Foresta/ which passed in the thirty-fourth
204 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
year of his reign, contains many useful regulations, more
particularly in respect to the proceedings which were to
be had in the forest courts. Nothing worth noticing
appears to have occureed in the time of Edward II., but
in the reign of his successor we find several new regula-
tions in respect to trespasses committed in forests, parti-
cularly a statute which enacts that no person shall be taken
or imprisoned for vert or venison unless taken within the
'mainour.' We find also a general pardon of all offences
that had been previously committed in the royal forests.
Notwithstanding the wise and prudent regulations of
Edward III., the officers of the forest must have renewed
their attempts, and used improper means to influence the
verdicts of juries upon the subject of forest offences ; other-
wise it is fair to presume that the aid of Parliament would
not have been resorted to by Richard II. in the seventh
year of his reign. Here the regulations of the forest seem
to have rested for many years. It is true, indeed, that
hunting in forests in the night with painted visors was made
a felony by Henry VII., as well as the entering into a forest
with intent to steal deer by Henry VIII. ; but the latter
statute was repealed by his successor, Edward VI., towards
the close of his reign, and Mary and Elizabeth showed no
inclination to tyranise over their subjects through the
medium of forest laws. The character of Charles I. has
been the subject of much discussion. Amongst the various
abuses which existed in the reign of that unfortunate mon-
arch, we find the latent power of the forest laws most
unseasonably revived. He summoned the forest courts,
and called forth the full extent of their powers to his assist-
ance ; not that his intention was to punish the offences
created by the forest laws, but to extort revenue inde-
pendent of the grant of Parliament, which, however,
passed an Act, the principal object of which was to give
effect to former laws respecting the boundaries of forests.
No alteration or amendment seems to have been deemed
necessary at the time of the Reformation ; a justice seat
was, however, held for form only in the time of Charles II.
SUMMARY OF MEDIEVAL LEGISLATION. 205
by Vere, Earl of Oxford, who made the last ' iter/ or cir-
cuit of which there is any evidence on record. Since the
time of Charles I. the prerogative in forests annexed to
royalty has certainly not been used for oppressive pur-
poses; and although there has been mismanagement and
worse, there has been nothing but what it was always in
the power of Parliament to redress.'
The chronological order of matters leading to the en-
actments of these forest laws appears to have been this.
The primitive forests were the abode of numerous beasts
of prey, which destroyed the nocks and herds, and also
possessions of the inhabitants, and so annoyed them that
they were fain to destroy the woods adjacent to their
dwellings as a means of keeping away the wild beasts
sheltering in them.
In the tenth century, Edgar, a Saxon prince, nearly
exterminated wolves and foxes both in England and
Wales : from the Welsh he also required an annual tribute
of wolf-skins; and a wild pleasure was experienced in the
chase. To secure this enjoyment for themselves and
their associates the kings then took measures to preserve
for their hunting the wild beasts of the field, and more
especially those the flesh of which was delicate to the
taste ; and all beasts and birds which were wild by nature
were claimed by the king as belonging to him alone,
wheresoever they might be found ; so that it was not
lawful for any man to kill, take, or hurt any wild beast or
bird even within his own grounds, and if any one did so
he was liable to punishment for so doing. And further,
a restriction was imposed on the destruction of woods in
which wild beasts might find shelter, so that no man was
allowed to cut or destroy these woods — a restriction in
which we find the primitive form of the creation in
England of forests as royal hunting-grounds.
c' Ordericus Yitalis," says the Hon. George P. Marsh, in
his volume, entitled The Earth, as Modified by Human
206 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Actio?i, informs us "that William the Conqueror destroyed
sixty parishes, and drove out their inhabitants, in order
that he might turn their lands into a forest, to be used
as a hunting-ground for himself and his posterity ; and
he punished with death the killing of a deer, wild-boar,
or even a hare/'
The theoretical ground upon which the royal right to
constitute a forest, was that the monarch needs recreation
from the severe and harassing cares of state, But I
know of nothing to be said in justification of such laws,
nor can I find appropriate language expressive of my
feelings of utter condemnation of them, but I think it
proper to bring under notice the circumstance that they
were in keeping with like laws issued in other lands.
According to Bonneme're, a bold writer in regard to
much which occurred in mediaeval times, these barbarous
acts were simply a transfer of the customs of the French
kings, of their vassals, and even of inferior gentlemen, to
conquered England, and according to him, in his Histoire
des Paysans, a work of great value, from the fearlessness
with which he states truths which others have glossed or
suppressed. The death of a hare was a hanging matter;
the murder of a plover a capital crime. Death was in-
flicted on those who spread nets for pigeons ; wretches who
had drawn a bow upon a stag, were to be tied to the animal
alive ; and among the seigneurs it was a standing excuse
for having killed game on forbidden ground, that they
aimed at a serf.
Such were the game laws, of which the game laws of
the present are the modern continuation.
CHAPTER II.
FOREST LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO THE
"CHARTA FORESTA."
Ox Canute obtaining the throne, he, in the first year of
his reign, formally claimed certain hunting-grounds, forests,
and chases, with prescribed lands, and from Winchester
he issued laws for the preservation of his forests.
An anonymous writer, who has been repeatedly cited,
says : —
" Under the code of forest law, coolly made by Canute
at Winchester, and which continued in force until the reign
of Henry III., the king, without leave asked or recom-
pense given, could take possession of any tract of country,
and use it for his purposes of recreation as he might think
proper. In those days the timber of the forests was little
regarded; the chief objects of care were the wild animals
by which they were inhabited, and for the preservation of
whose lives no precautions could be too strict. In each
forest there were usually verderers appointed to its charge ;
and so sacred were their persons held, as being in charge
of the king's deer, that if any man offered force to one of
them, he was, if a freeman, to lose his freedom and all his
property ; and if a villein, his right hand was to be struck
off; and for the second offence, the penalty was loss of life.
It was death to kill a deer in a royal forest, — sometimes
the offender had his eyes destroyed ; and even if any one,
through sport or malice, should chase a deer until the deer
panted, the lowest penalty was a fine of ten shillings — an
enormous sum, comparatively, in those days."
20S THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
Mr M" William supplies the following translation of
extracts from a law issued by Canute : —
" 1. Let there be then four men of the higher class, who
shall have the right, according to the customs, which the
English call pegened, followed in each province of my king-
dom, of distributing justice, and of inflicting punishment,
and of all matters concerning the forest, before all my
people, whether English or Danes, throughout all the
kingdom of England, which four we order to be called
jjrimarii forestcz, chiefs (or earls) of the forest.
" 2. Let there be under each of these four of the
middling class of men (which the English call lespegend,
but the Danes yoong men), [and which would now be
called yeomen, or perhaps esquires,] who shall undertake
the care and custody as well of vert as of venison.
" 3. In admininisteriug justice, these {yoong men) shall
not interfere in the least ; and such middling persons, after
having had the care of the wild animals, shall be held
always as gentlemen, which the Danes call ealdermen.
" 4. Again, under each of these, let there be two of the
lower class of men, which the English call tineman ; [or,
in our modern phrase, grooms] : these shall take the right
charge of vert and venison, and do the servile works.
" 5. If any one of this lower class shall be a slave, so
soon as he is placed in our forest, let him be free, and we
therefore discharge him from bondage.
" 6. Let every one of the primarii have every year of
our wardrobe (or treasury) wdiich the English call mickni,
two horses, one with a saddle, the other without a saddle,
one sword, five lances, one dagger (cusjris), one shield, and
two hundred shillings of silver.
"7. Every one of the middling class, one horse, one
lance, one shield, and sixty shillings of silver.
" 8. Every one of the lower class, one lance, one cross-
bow (arcubalista), and fifteen shillings of silver.
" 0. Let all of them, whether of the higher, middling, or
lower order, be free, and quit of all provincial summons
and popular pleas, which the English call hundred laghe
LEGISLATION' ANTERIOR TO "CBLARTA FORE-STA," 203
[hundred courts] ; and from all burdens respecting arms,
which the English call war scot, [i.e., show of armour, and
perhaps militia duty] ; and from all summons to any other
court, except that of the forest.
" 10. Let the causes of the middling and lower officers,
and the correction of them, as well civil as criminal, be
judged and decided by the provident wisdom and reason
of the first class, but the enormities of the first class, if
any should happen (lest any crime should go unpunished),
we will punish ourselves in our royal anger.
" 11, 12, and 13 respect the holding of courts.
" 14 to 27, enumerate crimes of the forest as to hunting,
&c Of these I shall only notice —
"21. There shall not be the same penalty and forfeiture
for a gentleman (whom the Danes call ealderman) and a
common person ; for a master and a servant ; for one
known and one that is not known; nor one and the same
treatment of civil and criminal causes, of those relating to
the beasts of the forest, and of the royal beasts, of vert and
of venison ; for a crime respecting the venison has been
ranked from the old time, and not undeservedly among
the greater crimes ; but one respecting the vert, except in
its being an infraction of our royal chase, is so small and
trifling, that our constitution scarcely notices it, never-
theless if any one offends therein, let him be esteemed a
criminal of the forest.
u 28. Let no one cut any of our wood, or underwood, with-
out leave of the chiefs of the forest; which, if any one do, he
shall be adjudged guilty of an infringement of the royal chase
" 29. But if any one shall cut down an oak (ilicem), or
any tree, that furnishes food for the beasts of the forest,
beside infringement of the royal chase, he shall pay to the
king twenty shillings.
" 30. I will, that every free man shall have venison or
vert at pleasure on his open grounds (plana) on his own
lands, but without chase [or the right of punishing in-
truders] ; and let all avoid mine (venison or vert), where-
ever I think proper to have it."
P
210 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
This first forest law of which we have any record was
passed in 1016.
In the Histoire des Dues de Normandie et des Rot's
d' Angleterre, it is told how William Rums met his death
in " a new forest which he had caused to be made out
of eighteen parishes, which he had destroyed.
In which same forest his brother Richard ran so hard
against a tree that he died of it, and men censoriously said
that these thiugs were because they had so laid waste
and taken the said parishes.'' And these occurrences were
spoken of by the people as judgments of God passed
upon them for their oppressive selfish appropriation of
land which under culture had yielded food for man and
beast.
The power granted to the kings by the forest laws
imposed by the Norman conquerors enabled them to
enclose any tract of forest they pleased, or to create new
forests — not plantations of trees, but lands reserved for
their hunting, — and this power was exercised with the
greatest tyranny. Under the Norman kings the breadth
of land appropriated as hunting grounds was greatly
increased.
From the list of English forests given by Sir Henry
Spelman (ante p. 134), it appears that out of the forty
counties of England only fifteen of them, consisting chiefly
of those situated on the east coast, did not contain forests,
while some counties, such as York, contained five or six.
And it is said that, what with their own possessions and
the encroachments they were perpetually making on the
property of their subjects, the kings of England had at
length one-eighth of the counties in their possession as
royal forests.
Originally the deer and other wild beasts, and the right
of hunting them, was what was claimed by the crown ;
but at length the forests themselves were brought under
the same class of laws without reference to the game; and
LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO '• CHARTA FORESTA." 211
they remained in this state even when of trees there were
none, the laws being executed with the right of forestage,
and with all the privileges pertaining to royal forests and
the laws of Canute. Mr M* William writes : —
" The laws of Canute were afterward confirmed by divers
succeeding kings, though in practice they generally appear
to have been little if anything more than the will of the
crown. Yet during the time of Canute, and several
of- his successors, they affected the purse only : but the
clergy, barons, and others, felt the severity of Henry II.,
and the far greater of Richard I. ; for the last king
directed, that whoever was convicted of killing bird or
beast, or royal game, within the royal forests, should lose
his eyes and testicles. For carrying this command into
effect he appointed Hugh Neuill, Hugh Waly, and
Hernisius Neuill, commissioners : yet notwithstanding all
this, it is pretty clear that an overstretch of power,
exercised by King John towards the higher classes, was
the principal cause of curtailing the authority of the crown
in the matter of forests. The fact was this. In the year
1209 he made war upon the King of Scotland, because
that monarch had married his daughter to the Earl of
Bullen without his consent. On his return with his army
he overthrew and destroyed a great number of parks,
warrens, &c, of which some belonged to his barons, but by
far the greater part to the abbots and prelates. For,
hearing the complaints of the people on his march, he
swore with an oath that he would not suffer wild beasts to
feed on the fat of his soil and see the people perish for
want of food.
" Whatever might have been his real motive, the clergy
and their adherents ascribed this act to an intention to
spoil the property of those that opposed him, and to
impoverish and bring the northern part of the kingdom to
destruction, because he had been refused assistance by it
in his expedition against Scotland* This appears to have
* Holinshed, p. 206.
2 1 2 TH E FOR BStS 01 K M,L\ND.
roused the feelings of the nation ; and six years afterward
we find the barons, &c. encamped in hostile array on
Runingmede from Monday the fifteenth to Friday the
nineteenth of June, 1215 ; during which time they were
actively engaged roughhewing the broad basis on which
the bulwarks of our liberty are built, by forming the
Magna Charta with King John. When the prelimi-
naries were adjusted, the articles agreed upon, and the
instrument sealed, which was a parchment ten inches and
three quarters broad, and twenty one and a half long ;
their next employment was to reduce them to the form of
a charter, of which such a number was made originally
that one was sent into every county, or at least into every
diocese. In this charter there were several transpositions
and alterations, and there were added in chap. 47 an
article concerning the disafforesting of forests; in chap.
48 one about the information to be given to the king by
the twelve knights before they should redress the griev-
ances of the forest ; and the whole of chap. 53, concerning
the respite of disafforesting the forests, which were
afforested by the king's father and brother. The people
of every class were so fond of the privileges of chap. 48,
that the archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, with
several bishops and others, being alarmed at the havoc
made in the forests, entered a protest against the opinion
that the general words of this chapter should extend to
abolish the customs of the forest; as without their exist-
ence the forests themselves could not be preserved. This
protest is among the records in the Tower of London."
The following are extracts translated from the Magna
Charta of King John : —
"Ch. 44. Men who live out of the forest shall not be
brought for any cause before our justices of the forest by
common summonses, unless they are concerned in the cause,
or are the bail of those who are attached to the forest.
" 47. All forests which have been afforested (or made
into forests) in our time, shall be immediately disafforested;
LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO " CHARTA FORESTA." 213
and the same shall be done with all wears for fish (riparit),
which in our time have been by us forbidden.
" 48. All the bad customs relating to forests, and
warrens, and foresters, and warreners, and sheriffs, and
their officers, and wears and their keepers, shall be im-
mediately inquired into, in every county, by twelve sworn
knights of the same county, who must be chosen by just
men of the same county ; and within forty days after
this inquisition being made, they shall be abolished, so that
they shall never be revived, provided that we are first
informed of it, or our justiciary, if we shall not be in
England.
u 52. But we will have the same respect and the same
manner of exhibiting justice, of disforesting forests, and of
continuing forests, which Henry our father, or Richard our
brother afforested,'' (namely, that they shall be done as soon
as possible).
The nobles as well as the people had felt the grievance
of forest laws, and they winced under the encroachments
made upon their lands by William the Conqueror and
his successors. They saw themselves for a time to be
powerless to prevent the kings from seizing any part of
their estates they chose, and making it a Royal forest ; and
it is alleged that, had the peasants and the people — the
commons — alone been the sufferers, the nobles — the peers
of kings — might not have done anvthing to arrest the evil :
but when they found themselves being despoiled of their
property they moved in the matter, and, after much nego-
tiation, they extorted from Henry III. the Carta de Foresta,
or Charta Forestce, issued 10th February, 1225.
There is some confusion in the historical notices which
have appeared, of these different charters. Matthew Paris
relates that King John must have granted a Charta
Forestce, besides the Magna Charta signed by him — which
view he seeks to support by the allegation that the small
size of the parchment, on which was written the Magna
Charta, is inconsistent, if not incompatible with the sup-
21 -J THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
position that it could contain two charters. But Sir
William Blackstone proves that the Charta Forestce in
question was not given by King John.
"On the twelfth of November following he renewed the
great charter formerly granted by his father. This charter
contained the forest lawTs, and the parchment was seventeen
inches in breadth, and somewhat more than sixteen inches
from top to bottom. It has two endorsements, and was
sealed, as itself informs us, with the seals of Cardinal Gualo,
the Pope's legate, and William, Earl of Pembroke : King
John's great seal having been lost in passing the Wash of
Lincolnshire, and no new seal having been made for the
king till twro years after the accident.
"In the writs of the 22d of February 1217, is the first
authentic mention of a separate charter of the forest ; and
in the great charter the word forest is then left out, because
they had a separate charter of the forest, which was after-
wards almost constantly subjoined to the great charter,
which bears the same date as the forest charter. In this
year, about the 6th of November, a new great seal was
made for Henry ; but it was forbidden to be affixed to any
thing of perpetuity, till the king should come of age.
About the same time this charter of the forest was first
promulgated among the people. This appears to disprove
the fact of a separate charter of the forest being granted
by King John, and confirms its being embodied in the
great charter granted by him. ' For,' says Blackstone, ' it
would be easy to prove that the first chap, of the forest
charter has respect to the 53d of that of King John, the
execution whereof was repealed by the first charter of
Henry III. : that the second chapter is in a manner trans-
cribed from chap. 44 of John, and 36 of Henry I. : that
the third and fourth chapters are similar to chap. 47
and 53 of King John, and 36 of Henry I. : and the rest
are amplifications of chap. 48 of King John.'
" ' The original charter of the forests,' adds the same
author, * and all au thentic record of it, are at present lost :
but that such a one did exist is certain from a writ on
THE "CHARTA FOREST A." 215
record in the patent rolls, dated the 24th of July 121S.
From the whole of this it appears that the barons, clergy,
&c., had guarded very much against the power of the crown
in forest grants*.' "
In the Magna Charta, made in the 9th of Henry III.,
cnap. XXI., it is declared : —
"No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take
the horses or carts of any man to make carriage, except he
pay the old price limited, that is to say, for carriage with
two horses, Xcl. a day; for three horses, xivd. a day. (2)
No demesne cart of any spiritual person, or knight, or any
lord, shall be taken by our bailiffes ; (3) nor we, nor our
bailiffs, nor any other shall take any man's wood for our
catties, or any other necessaries to be done, but by the
licence of him whom the wood is."
In a work entitled English Liberties ; or the Free-lorn
Subject's Inheritance, compiled by Henry Care, and con-
tinued with large additions by an anonymous writer of
the Middle Temple, which was published in 1719, there
is given, together with the Magna Charta, the Charta de
Foresta, with amendations illustrative of the design of the
several chapters, and of the necessity which existed for
the introduction of each.
The following is a copy of the Charta Foresta : —
Charta Foresta, 10th of Feb., 9th Henry III., 1225.
" I. First we will, that all forests, which King Henry, our
grandfather, afforested shall be viewed by good and lawful
men ; (2) and if he have made forest of any other wood
more than of his own demesne, whereby the owner of the
wood hath hurt, forthwith it shall be disforested, and if he
* In another place, however, he informs us, that one of the original copies was
found in the archives of the cathedral of Durham, but considerably mutilated, having
been gnawed by the rats.
210 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
have made forest of his own wood, then it shall remain
forest ; (4) saving the common of herbage, and of other
things in the same forest, to them which before were
accustomed to have the same.
" II. Men who dwell out of the forest, from henceforth
shall not come before the justicers of our forest by com-
mon summons, unless they be impleaded there, or be sure-
ties for some others that were attached to the forest.
" III. All woods, which have been made forest by King
Richard, our uncle, or by King John, our father, till our
first coronation, shall forthwith be disforested, unless it be
our demesne wood.
"IV. All archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons,
knights, and others, our freeholders, which have their woods
in forests, shall have their woods as they had them at the
first coronation of King Henry, our grandfather, so that
they shall be quit for ever of all purprestures, wastes, and
asserts, made in those woods after that time, until the
beginning of the second year of our coronation ; and those
that from henceforth do make purprestures without our
licence, or waste, or assert, in the same, shall answer unto
us for the same wastes, purprestures, and asserts.
" V. Our rangers shall go through the forest to make
range, as it hath been accustomed at the time of the first
coronation of King Henry, our grandfather, and not other-
wise.
" VI. The law of dogs in forests.
" VII. No forester or bedel from henceforth shall make
scotal, or gather garb, or oats, or any corn, lamb, pr pig,
nor shall take any gathering but by the sight, and upon
the view of the twelve rangers, when they shall make
their range (2.) So many foresters shall be assigned to
the keeping of the forests, as reasonably shall seem suffi-
cient to the keeping of the same.
" VJII. No Swanimote shall from henceforth be kept
within this our realm, but thrice in the year, videlicet, the
beginning of fifteen days before Michaelmas, when that our
gist-takers, or walkers of our wood, come together to take
THE "CHARTA FORESTA." 217
agistment in our demesne wood ; about the feast of St
Martin, in the winter, when our gist-takers shall receive
our pawnage : (2) and to these two swanimotes shall
come together our foresters, vienders, gist-takers, and none
others, by distress : (3) and the third swanimote shall be
kept in the beginning of fifteen days before the feast of
St John Baptist, when that our gist takers do meet to hunt
our deer \ and at this swanimote shall meet our foresters,
vienders, and none other by distress : (4) moreover every
forty days throughout the year, our foresters and vienders
shall meet to see the attachments of the forest, as well for
greenhue as for hunting, by the presentment of the same
foresters, and before them attached : (5) and the said swani-
mote shall not be kept but within the counties where they
have used to be kept.
"IX. Every free man may agist his own free wood
within our forest at his pleasure, and shall take his pawnage.
(2) Also we do grant, that every free man may drive his
swine freely without impediment through our demesne
woods, for to agist them iu their own woods, or else where
they will. (3) And if the swine of any free man he one
night within our forest there shall be no occasion taken
thereof whereby he may lose any of his own.
" X. No man from hencefor shall lose either life or a
member for killing our deer : (2) but if any man be taken
and convicted for taking our venison, he shall make a
grievous fine, if he have any thing whereof; (3) and if he
have nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned a year and a
day; (4) and after the year and a day expired, if he can
find sufficient sureties he shall be delivered ; and if not
he shall abjure the realm of England.
"XI. Whatsoever archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron,
coming to us at our commandment, passing by our forests,
it shall be lawful for him to take and kill one or two of our
deer, by view of our forester, if he be present, or else he
shall cause one to blow a horn for him, that he seem not
to steal our deer, and likewise they shall do in returning
from us, as it is aforesaid.
218 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
" XII. Every free man from henceforth, without danger,
shall make in his own wood, or his land, or in his water,
which he hath within our forest, mills, springs, pools,
marlpits, ditches, or earable ground, without enclosing that
earable ground, so that it be not to the annoyance of any
of his neighbours.
" XIII. Every free man shall have within his own wood
ayries of hawks, sparrow hawks, falcons, eagles, and herons,
and shall also have the honey that is found within his
woods.
" XIV. No forester from henceforth, which is not forester
in fee, paying to us ferm for his bailiwick, shall take any
chiminage, or toll within his bailiwick ; (2) but a forester
in fee, paying us ferm for his bailiwick, shall take chimin-
age ; that is to say, for carriage by cart the half year iic?.,
and for another half year iid. : for a horse that beareth
loads, every half year a halfpenny, and by another half
year a halfpenny ; but of those only who come as mer-
chants through his bailiwick by licence to buy bushes, tim-
ber, bark, coals,* and to sell them again at their pleasure ;
but for none other carriage by cart chiminage shall be
taken ; (3) nor chiminage shall not be taken but in such
places only where it hath been use to be. (4) Those
which bear upon their backs brushment, bark, or coal to
sell, though it be their living, shall pay no chiminage to
our foresters, except they take it within our demesne
woods.
"XV. All that be outlawed for the forest only, since the
time of King Henry our grandfather, until our first corona-
tion, shall come to our peace without let, and shall find
two sureties, that from henceforth they shall not trespass
unto us within our forests.
" XVI. No constable, castellan, or bailiff, shall hold plea
of forest, neither for greenhue nor hunting ; (2) but every
forester in fee shall make attachments for pleas of forest,
as well for greenhue as for hunting, and shall present
* By coals in these laws charcoal is to be understood.
THE ":CHARTA FOEESTA." 219
them to the vienders of the province; (3) and when they
be enrolled and enclosed under the seal of the vienders,
they shall be presented to our chief justicers of our forest
when they shall come into those parts to hold the pleas of
the forest, and before them they shall be determined;
(4) and these liberties of the forest we have granted to all
men, saving to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls,
barons, knights, and to other persons, as well spiritual as
temporal, Templars, Hospitallers, their liberty and free
customs, as well within the forest as without, and in warrens
and other places which they have had. (5) All these liberties
and customs we, &c, as it foUoiceth in the end of the great
charter specified. That is, that the clergy, nobility, and
gentry had given the king the fifteenth part of all their
movables ; and that the king, for himself and his heirs,
should do nothing to infringe, or break any of the liberties
of the charter, which is witnessed by a great number of
nobility and gentry therein named."
The forests which were made by Henry II. or by John,
had their boundaries known by record ; for there was a
perambulation of them taken in the time of Edward I, and
notice was given, in the several forest counties, to all con-
cerned to appear at a certain time and place, to show cause, if
they had any, why the perambulation should not be con-
firmed ; and according to Matthew Paris, all the new made
forests were disforested, and the perambulation confirmed
on the 14th of February 1300, being the 28th of Edward I.;
and these borders,then fixed,were to continue forever. ' This
seems,' says Blackstone, ' to have been the final and com-
plete establishment of these two charters of liberties and of
the forest ; which, from their first concession under King
John, A.D. 1215, had been often endangered and undergone
very many mutations for the space of near a century, but
were now fixed upon eternal bases, having in all, before and
since this time (as Sir Edward Coke observes), been estab-
lished, confirmed, and commanded to be put in execution
by two and thirty several acts of parliament.'
220 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
By the laws of Canute people had been prohibited from
entering the royal forests, and, as has been shown, the forest
might include the lands of private individuals. The free-
hold of such lands remained in the hands of the proprietor,
but the forest laws were in force there as in other parts
of the enclosure. By this charter all such lands were
released from these, and only the royal demesne remained
subject to their rule. Of the necessity which there was
for these, and of the amelioration which followed, which,
though not perfect, was great. Care supplies some interest-
ing illustrations.
The Charta de Foresta was confirmed in the same year
with the Magna Charta, viz., anno 9th, Henry III., and it
was confirmed in the 38th year of Edward I., and pub-
lished with ecclesiastical denunciations by the bishops
against all who should break either of these charters,
copies of which denunciations are also given by Care.
Much interesting information is embodied in Manwood's
treatise of the Laics of the Forest, &c, already referred to.
Amongst other things it appears, that in the legal phraseology
of the sixteenth century, vert is the arborescent vegetation
of the forest shrubs and trees ; game, the beasts of the
forest ; and venison, the beasts of the field. They are thus
distinguished : —
" Beasts of the forest make their bed during the day in
the coverts ; and in the night season betake themselves to
the pleasant feeding," and such, according to him, are the
beasts of the venerie — the hart, the hind, the hare, the boar,
and the wolf.
" Beasts of the field lie all the day in the field, and upon
the hills and mountains, where they can see, and eat
during the night. They are the beasts of the chase — the
buck, the doe, the fox, the marten and roe." These con-
stitute the venison.
The author, holding enthusiastically to the legal use of the
designation forest, as if it were that which in all ages and
in all lands must have regulated the use of it in all
LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO "CHARTA FORESTA." 221
circumstances, with great naivete, adduces from Scripture
testimony to the great antiquity of forests, and by
consequence of forest laws.
Quoting Psalm 1. 10, — Ever}7 beast of the forest is mine,
and the cattle upon a thousand hills ; and Psalm cxxxii 6,
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of
the wood. He adds, " Hereby we may gather that there
were forests in the prophet David's time," and by the same
authority he justifies the distinction he has drawn between
the beasts of the forest and the beasts of the field, adducing
as proof, Psalm civ., v. 20 : Thou makest darkness, and it
is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat
from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves to-
gether, and lay them down in their dens ; and Psalm 1.
9-11: I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats
out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine,
and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the
fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are
mine. I cite his exposition, but I do not accept it !
The vert, consisting of the arborescent vegetation of
the forest, is described by him as consisting of Over-vert or
trees, and Neather-vert or shrubs. " And/' says he, " as a
forest might, and generally did, include private properties
as well as royal demesnes, there were a number of particulars
relating to them, iD regard to which the proprietor was re-
quired to satisfy the forest-officers ; and heavy penalties
were attached to waste of the vert. If a man cut down
aught of his own, without licence to do so, even though it
should grow again, it was reckoned waste, and punished as
such, because destroying the covert of the game. If, having
a licence to cut upon his own property, and he should do so,
but not enclose or fence the ground to secure the renewed
growth of the vert, it was waste, and was punishable as
such. If holding such a licence to fell his woods, he doth
fell them at such unseasonable times that they do thereby
die, and grow no more to be covert in the forest, this shall
be said to be waste and destruction of the forest.
'222 f HE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
"Assart is the plucking up covert by the roots, and con-
verting the vert into tillage ; and Pier reste is erecting
houses or enclosures in the forest, — both of them offences
against the forest laws, to be severely punished. Agistment
is the pasturage of the forest, or mone}7 received for this.
Pannage is the money received for mast, acorns, &c, eaten
by hogs : and Fence Moneth is the close time enacted for
the security of the game, at the time of dropping and
suckling the young."
All of these, and many other subjects connected with
the game and venison, are discussed in the work. Included
amongst these are the designations to be employed in
describing the different animals at different ages, or in
herds, and the designation to be given to the different
parts of the animals and their cries, &c.
With regnrd to designations given to wood, it is stated
by a writer in the Journal of Forestry : —
11 Lop and Top is that part of the stem or body of the
tree, stripped of the branches, which in navy timber is cut
off by direction of the purveyor, as unfit for naval use ;
and in stolen timber that part which the thief either
voluntarily leaves behind him, or has not an opportunity
of conveying away. It frequently happens that these
tops contain timber fit for carpenters' or coopers' uses,
and sometimes knees and crooked timbers fit for small
vessels, but very rarely for king's ships. When they are
unfit for any of these uses they are cut into cordwood.
" Cordwood consists of the boughs and branches of trees
cut into pieces a little over two feet in length, and gene-
rally about the thickness of a man's arm. Where the
branches happen to exceed that thickness, they are cleft
into two or more pieces to reduce them to that size, in
order to be made into charcoal. A cord of wood is a pile
of these pieces of the exact dimensions of 8 ft. 8 in. long,
4 ft. 4 in. high, and 2 ft. 2 in. thick, which last is the
length of each piece.
" Lop, crop, and offal have all the same signification ,
LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO "CHARTA FORESTA." 223
viz., the boughs and branches of trees, and all are made
into cordwood, but the cordwood of naval timber is made
from the whole lops or branches of navy trees, and that
arising from miners and stolen timber only from the
boughs and branches left by the colliers or timber stealers,
and the wood so left is termed ' offal wood.'
" Kibbles are stolen pieces of timber cut into suitable
lengths for cider casks and for wheelwrights."
Of the forest officers and their duties the following-
account is given in the Journal of Forestry : —
" The origin of the laws and regulations of forests seems
to be involved in equal obscurity with that of the forests
themselves ; but if we except the Justices in Eyre, there
was no officer who had auy general superintendence of
the forests before the reign of Henry VIII. But in each
forest there was a distinct set of officers, viz : —
* 1st. Verderers, or judges of the Swainmote Court, and
directors of all the other officers in the forest. There
were usually four in every forest.
" 2nd. Regarders. who were to go through the whole
forest, and make their regard every third year ; to inquire
of all offences in the forest, and survey all ' asserts, wastes,
and purprestures.' There should be twelve regarders in
every forest.
" 3rd. Foresters, whose duty it was to preserve the vert
and venison in the forest, to attack offenders, and present
offences at the forest-court. The number was determined
by the occasion for them in each forest, according to the
discretion of the regarders.
" 4th. Agistors, whose office was to receive and account
for the agistment or profit arising from the herbage or
pannage of the king's woods and lands in the forests.
The full complement was four to each forest.
" 5th. Woodwards, whose charge was to look after the
woods, and to present offences therein at the forest courts
Their number does not seem to have been determined.
" 6th. A steward, whose duty it was to attend the courts
22 1 TtfE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
of Swainmote, and assist the verderer or j udge. Besides
these officers there were usually a lord warden, lieuten-
ant, or master forester appointad by the king in each
forest, and probably other officers, according to local
custom. There were three courts appertaining to the
forest, namely, the Court of Attachment or Woodmote,
the Court of Swainmote, and the Justice Seat, or Court
of the Chief Justice in Eyre. The first two of these
courts were composed of the officers in each forest. The
Court of Attachment or Woodmote was expected to be
held every forty days, every officer in the forest attending.
This court was to inquire into all offences of every kind
done in the forest, and to present them at the Swainmote
Court, and to the Lord Chief Justice in Eyre. The Court
of Swainmote, in which the verderers were judges, was
supposed to be held three times a year : the first court,
fifteen days before Midsummer, for the purpose of clearing
the forest of all animals except deer for the next month,
which was called the fence month, which is the fawning
season, and the deer require to be undisturbed ■ the next,
fifteen days before Michaelmas, when the herbage money
for cattle was received, and the swine admitted to feed on
acorns and beechmast, called pannage ; and the third
court forty days after Michaelmas, on the feast of St.
Martin. At that time the forest was again cleared, and
no animal except deer admitted from the 11th November
until the 23rd April (old style), which period was called
the Winter Haining. At this court the presentments of
the Court of Attachment were received and enrolled, the
smaller offences tried and those of more importance pre-
sented to the Justice in Eyre, to whom the rolls of this
court were certified at the next sessions of Eyre, and those
rolls were expected to contain an account of every offence
committed, of every deer killed, and of every tree felled
in the forest by what warrant, and of what price or value ;
with every fine imposed, and the agistment of money
paid for the pasturage of cattle and pannage of swine. The
court of justice seat was to be held in each forest once in
every three years.
LEGISLATION ANTERIOR TO "CHARTA FOREST A." 225
" Though many of these ancient regulations appear to
be well calculated for the preservation of the forest, yet
even as early as the reign of Henry VJLJLJL., some other
regulations were deemed necessary. In the 33rd year of
that reign an Act was passed establishing a court called
the Court of General Surveyors of the king's lands, which
was to consist of the king's surveyor, a treasurer, an
attorney, the master of the woods, auditors, general
receivers, a clerk of the court, an usher, and messenger.
This court had a general superintendence of the lands
belonging to the Crown. The master of the woods was
empowered, with the assent of the court, to make sales of
wood, &c, in the forest, and none could be cut without his
warrant and the assent of the said court. But in the 38th
year of the same reign that court was dissolved, and a new
one called the Court of Augmentations was created, and
invested with all the powers of the former court. One
master and one surveyor for the month, and one of each
for the north of the Trent, were members of it, and in
each district wood sales were ordained to be made
by the certificate of the surveyor, and by the commission
of the master of the woods, with the consent of the Justice
in Eyre. Both these courts seem to have been very well
constituted for the remedy of what was defective as to
the preservation of timber, and in the administration and
management of the forests under the forest laws. From
the account which has been given of the Courts of Attach-
ment and Swainmote, of the duty of the different officers
within each forest, and of the power of the Justice in Eyre,
it appears that ample means were provided for the care
and preservation of the forest, for guarding against intru-
sions, and for the punishment of offences, so long as the
functions of those officers were properly executed. But
the power vested in the Chief Justice in Eyre himself was
often abused, and that officer irregularly disposed of tim-
ber in the forest for his own advantage. This abuse the
authority given to those courts was well calculated to pre-
vent. By uniting the different officers, the surveyors -
Q
226 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
general, the masters of the woods, the receivers and the
auditors in one court, they would have been a check upon
one anotber,and if either of these courts had been continued,
and had acted in conjunction with the forest officers as was
intended, great profit to the country would have been the
result. But the last of these courts being established onlv
by letters patent, it had perhaps on that account the less
weight ; and the Justices in Eyre, who had usually but
improperly taken upon themselves to make wood sales,
and who happened during that and the succeeding reign
to be men of great power, contracted the measures of the
Court of Augmentations, and made great waste of the
timber for their own profit — in fact, they stole it. And
although that court was afterwards confirmed by Act of
Parliament, power was given by another Act to Queen
Mary to alter, change, transpose, dissolve, or determine
the Court of Augmentations, and she did accordingly soon
afterwards dissolve that court, and by other letters patent
annex the same to the Court of Exchequer. According
to such articles and ordinances as were contained in a
schedule annexed to the letters patent, by one of those
articles no wood sales could afterwards be made without a
commission from the Lord Treasurer and two such other
of the court as he should call to him at the time, or in his
absence by the Under Treasurer, calling to him two of
the said court ; and another article gives power to the
Lord Treasurer and the Court of Exchequer to amend,
reform, and correct any clause or article therein contained,
and to make such further order as the court should think
expedient. The Court of Augmentations was thus
dissolved, and its powers transferred to the Court of
Exchequer ; but the system of management being still found
to be defective, a surveyor-general of the woods was after-
wards appointed, which office existed for a very long
period, and finally the control of the forests was vested in
the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who are at pre-
sent the custodians of the public interests.''
CHAPTER III.
FOREST LEGISLATION SUBSEQUENT TO THE " CHARTA
FORESTA" TILL THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.
In the preceding chapter we have had occasional allusions
in the forest legislation to the conservation of trees :
subsequently this demanded more attention, and that on
different grounds. Thus far it had been attended to in
the interest of the sportsman wishing covert for his game ;
now it began to demand attention in the interest of the
community requiring fuel for the cooking of their food, and
the maintenance of comfortable warmth in their homes.
Mr M' William writes : —
" The restriction on cutting of wood appears now to have
been considerably felt, for at this time they depended
entirely on the wood, not only for fires, but likewise light ;
for it was usual then to split the wood into thin slips, and
use it for candles, as they now do in the highlands of
Scotland.
" The 13th of Edward III., chap. 1 and 2, gave consider-
able liberty for cutting and carrying wood ; but it was to be
done within view of the keepers of the forest. Henry VII.
made some little alterations with respect to hunting
illegally in the royal forests.
" In the 17th and 25th of Henry VIII. there are several
acts respecting the forests; but they are principally
modifications of former acts.
" In the 27th of this reign, chap. 7 is an act, by which
all the king's subjects and friends are allowed to pass
freely through the forests of Wales, without the payment
of certain fees, which used unjustly to be demanded by
the foresters.
228 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND-
" The act in the same year, chap. 28, by which Henry
seized the greater part of the church lands, with their
timber, and converted them to his own use, was a severe
blow to the woods in general.
" In the 35th of this reign was passed an act for the
preservation of wood, but principally respecting coal and
billet wood.
" In chap. 17, an act for the preservation of timber, we
find : — ' The king our sovereign, perceiving and right well
knowing the great decay of timber and wood universally
within the realm of England, and that, unless a speedy
remedy in that behalf be provided, there is a great and
manifest likelihood of scarcity and lack, as well for build-
ing houses and ships, as for firewood ; it is enacted, that
in copse of underwood felled at 24 years' growth there
shall be left twelve standrells, or store oaks, on each acre,
or in default of oaks, so many elm, ash, or beech, &c. j and
that they be of such as are likely trees for timber, and
such as have been left at former fellings, if there have
been any left before ; under pain of forfeiting of 3s. 4d.
for every such standard not left, one half to the crown, and
the other to the party who may inform, and may choose
to sue for it in any court of record, which might be done
as in an action for debt. When cut under fourteen years'
growth, the ground shall be enclosed or protected for four
years, by the proprietor or the lawful possessor of the
wood, under pain for not enclosing for every rood so left
unenclosed 3s. 4d. for every month it may remain so un-
enclosed. No calves are to be put in for two years after
felling, and no other cattle for four years. Wood cut from
14 to 24 years of age to be six years enclosed under the
same penalty ; after 24 years twelve trees to be left, under
penalty of 6s. 8d. each tree, the moiety to the crown, and
the informer may recover as before. The ground to be
kept enclosed for seven years, under the penalty of 3s. 4d.
per rood per month as before.' And cutting trees on
waste or common lands was to be punished by forfeiting
6s. 8d. for every tree so cut : but in the county of Corn-
LEGISLATION SUBSEQUENT TO " CHARTA FOREST A, " 229
wall, within two miles of the sea, trees might be felled
when dead on the top.
" No wood containing two or more acres, at the distance
of two furlongs from the house of the owner, was to be cut
down, under the pain of forfeiture of ten pounds for every
acre of woodland so destroyed. Woods felled under
fourteen years were afterward not to have colts or calves
put into them till eight years after cutting and enclosing.
Most of these acts of Henry, &c, were only temporary, till
the 13th of Elizabeth, chap. 25, when the time of protection
was enlarged, and the whole made permanent. By the
7th of Edward VI., chap. 7, the act of the 35th of Henry
VIII., chap. 3, was confirmed, and a little modified.
" It was then enacted, that every sack of coals should
contain four bushels ; and every taleshide (bundle of cleft
wood) be four feet long beside the carfej and if named
one, to be marked one, and to be sixteen inches circum-
ference within a foot of the middle : if two, marked two,
and twenty-three inches girt : if three, marked as such,
and to be twenty-eight inches girt : if four, to girt thirty-
three inches : if five, to girt thirty-eight inches : and so
on, in proportion. Billet wood was to be three feet four
inches in length : the single one to be seventeen inches
and a-half in girt, and every billet of one cast, as they term
the mark, to be ten inches about ; and of two cast, to be
fourteen inches girt, and to be marked within six inches
of the middle, unless for the private use of the owner.
Every bound faggot should be three feet long, and the
band twenty-four inches in circumference, beside the knot.
This act was principally for London, but the 43d of
Elizabeth, chap. 14, rendered the statute more general;
and ordered that the faggots should be every stick three
feet in length, except one to harden and wedge the binding
of it. This was to prevent the abuse then much practised
of filling the middle with short sticks.
" These acts were confirmed by the 9th of Ann, chap.
15 ; and the tenth of the same reign, chap. 6, directs that
the assize of billet shall not extend to beech; but that
230 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
these shall not be sold in London or Winchester, unless
the vender make them of the same size as required by the
statue for other wood. Chap. 17 of the 7th of Edward
VI. is an act for preventing unlawful hunting in parks,
chases, forests, &c. ; and confirms the 38th of Henry VIII.
"The 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, chap. 2, confirms
that of Henry VII., and of the 20th of Henry VIII. ; and
in the 27th of Elizabeth there is another act to the same
effect nearly as that of Henry VIII., which she then made
permanent; and to render it still more complete and
effectual in promoting improvement, it farther enacts that
timber of 22 years' growth shall be exempted from tithes.
By the first of Elizabeth, timber shall not be felled for iron
workers of the breadth of one foot at the stub, and grow-
ing within 14 miles of the sea, or of the river Thames,
Severn, Wye, Humber, Dee, Tyne, Tees, Trent, or any other
navigable river or creek, under pain of forfeiture of forty
shillings for every tree, one moiety to the crown, and the
other to the informer, recoverable as before.
" Second of Elizabeth, chap. 10, is an Act for the preser-
vation of timber in the wolds of Kent, Surrey, and
Sussex.
" By the 43d of Elizabeth, chap. 7, it is enacted that,
if any idle person cut or spoil any wood or underwood,
pales, or trees standing, and be convicted by the oath of
one or more witnesses, if they cannot pay the satisfaction
required, they shall be whipped. Receivers of wood so
cut, knowing it to be so, to incur the same punish-
ment.
" The 2d of James I., chap. 22, is an Act respecting
bark, as it relates to tanners, curriers, shoemakers, and
others concerned in leather. By sect. 19 it is enacted
that no person shall contract for oak bark to sell again,
&c. By sect. 20, that no person shall fell, or cause to be
felled, any oak tree meet to be barked, where the bark is
worth two shillings a cartload over and above the charges
of barking and peeling, timber to be employed in building
and repairing houses and mills, excepted, but between the
LEGISLATION SUBSEQUENT TO "CHARTA FORESTA." 231
first day of April and last day of June, upon pain of
forfeiture of every such oak tree, or double the value
thereof. And by sect. 21, for the better preservation of
timber, (which by the takers is spoiled through the desire
of gain, from the top and lop, or bark of timber trees), it
is therefore enacted that no taker, purveyor, &c., or their
deputies, shall fell for the use of the crown, any oak tree
meet to be barked, but in the barking season, except for
the purposes before mentioned; or take or receive any profit,
gain, or commodity, by any top, or lop, or bark of any tree to
be taken or cut out of the barking season ; and then onlv
those for the king's house or ships, under pain of for-
feiture to the party aggrieved (or on whose grounds the
tree may be cut) for every tree so felled forty shillings :
and it shall be lawful for every party, of whom such tree
shall be taken to retain all the bark, top, and lop of the
whole of such trees, notwithstanding any commission or
other matter.
" The 15th of Charles II., chap. 2, is an act to render the
43d of Elizabeth more effective ; and it enacts farther
punishment, on account that the destruction of wood tends
to destroy the commonwealth. It is therein declared that
the officers of justice may apprehend even on suspicion of
having carried, or in any way conveyed any burden or
bundle of wood of any kind, underwood, poles, young trees,
bark, or bast of any tree, gate, stile, post, rail, or hedgerow,
wood, broom, or furze. And by warrant from a justice of
the peace they may enter their houses or premises, to
search and appreheud, even on suspicion, either the carrier
or the receiver. For the first offence on conviction, to be
fined at the discretion of the justice, not exceeding ten
pounds, or be sent to the house of correction for any
time not exceeding one month ; or be whipped. For the
second offence the offender is to be sent to the house of
correction for one month ; for the third he is to be deemed
an incorrigible rogue. The buyers of any wood from sus-
picious persons are to be fined treble the value of such wood,
or be committed to prison for one month without bail.
232
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
" Chap. 3 of the 19th of Charles II. is an Act for the
increase and preservation of timber within the Forest of
Dean. Eleven thousand acres are directed to be enclosed.
Commissioners may sell decayed trees, to make good and
maintain the said enclosures. When and how much shall
be laid open, and by what authority as much shall be
enclosed as has been opened, is declared. Wood fit for
sale must be viewed and marked by the justices. Cutting
wood contrary to this act subjects the party offending to
the penalties mentioned in former acts. The enclosed land
to be all re-afforested. All estates made out of it to any
person whatever to be null and void. The king may retain
game of deer, but not above eight hundred.
" Proviso for owners, tenants, and occupiers : former
offences remitted ; pannage shall be re-enjoined after
Mich. 1687 ; and when and in what manner all privileges
to be enjoyed. Proviso for the inhabitants of St Brerils
to enjoy the woods growing upon a place called Hudnals.
Minors' rights saved. Letters patent for certain Woods
and iron works saved. Coal mines and grindstone quar-
ries may be leased.
" In the 9th and 10th of William III., chap. 36, is an
Act for the preservation of wood in the New Forest, in the
county of Southampton. Two hundred acres, part of this
forest" to be enclosed for the growth of timber, after being
set out by commissioners : two hundred acres more to be
enclosed yearly for twenty years, and to remain in posses-
sion of the Crown for ever. Wood is not to be cut without
sufficient authority. No coppice wood to be cut. Enclo-
sures not to be ploughed or sown. The foresters to be fined
if they browse or lop any oak or beach tree in the forest.
Charcoal not to be made within one thousand paces of the
enclosure. Persons breaking down fences may be com-
mitted as rogues and vagabonds.
" Ninth of Ann, chap. 17, is for the preservation of white
and other pine trees growing in Her Majesty's colonies
of New Hampshire, Massachusets Bay, and Province
of Maine, Khode Island, Providence Plantation, the New
LEGISLATION SUBSEQUENT TO " CHARTA FORESTA." 233
Narraganset Country, or King's Province, and Connecticut
in New England, New York, and New Jersey. No person
within the said colonies shall presume to cut, sell, or
destroy white or other sort of pine tree, fit for masts, not
being the property of any private person, such tree being
the growth of twenty-four inches and upward at twelve
inches from the ground, without the royal licence for so
doing, under the pain of forfeiting £100 for every such
offence, one moiety to the crown, and the other to the
informer, who may recover the same in any court of record.
The surveyor-general to mark the trees to be cut with the
broad arrow; but no other person than he or his deputy
to make any mark under the penalty of £5.
" In the 12th of Ann we find an Act, chap. 9, for
encouraging the importation of naval stores from America
and Scotland for eleven years, and thence to the end of
the next session.
" Section 26 observes : ' Whereas there are in several
parts of North Britain, called Scotland, pine and fir trees
fit for masts, and for making pitch, tar, resin, and other
navai stores ; but the land and woods which may yield such
naval stores are mostly in parts mountainous, and remote
from navigable rivers, therefore, for the encouragement of
the proprietor of such lands and woods in making roads
and passages in rivers in those northern parts useful and
commodious to the public, as well as for conveying such
naval stores to the seaports in North Britain, to be brought
by sea to England : Be it enacted, that there be given a
premium for every tun of hemp £6, of tar <£4, of pitch £4,
of resin £3, of masts 20s. ; to be paid by the officers of the
navy on a certificate from the custom-house officer, where
the stores are landed.'
" The first year of George I. presents us with an Act, chap.
48, for the encouragement of planting and preserving
woods. By it maliciously setting fire to woods is made
felony.
" Sect. 17 of chap. 2, 5th of George I., directs particular
examination into the quality of Scotch tar*
234 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
"The 6th of George I., chap. 1G, is another Act for the
encouragement of planting and preserving woods. By it
damage done to woods is made recoverable from the parish,
unless within a certain time it discovers and convicts the
real offender.
" Sect. 3 of chap. 12 of the 8th of the same king directs,
that the inspecting officer shall grant no certificate, unless
the articles, of which tar is particularly mentioned, are of
good quality. It has been said, that this act was a repeal
of the acts of Ann above-mentioned : yet there appears no
other repeal than of what relates to cutting or destroying
the white pine in America ; the rest, being temporary, was
left to expire in due course. In it, however, many sorts
of timber are enumerated as being imported from America ;
among them oak, wainscot, pine, &c. ; and, in consequence
of these being imported from foreign countries at very
advanced prices, particularly in time of war, it is enacted,
that due encouragement be given to importation from the
colonies. The law respecting the pine is nearly the same
as enacted by Ann, but the penalty is reduced.
"In the 6th of George III., chap. 36, is an Act for the
better preservation of timber and trees. It is enacted, that
every person, not being the lawful owner, who shall lop or
top, cut or spoil, split down, damage, or otherwise destroy,
any kinds of wood, underwood, poles, stack of wood, green-
stubs, or young trees, or carry or convey away the same,
or shall have in their custody any such, and shall not be
able to give a satisfactory account how they came by them,
shall be convicted before a magistrate on the oath of one
or more credible witnesses, and be fined, for the first
offence, any sum not exceeding 40s., with all costs; for the
second, not exceeding £5 ; and for the third offence be
d eemed an incorrigible rogue. Oak, beech, ch esnut, walnut,
ash, elm, cedar, fir, asp, lime, sycamore, and birch, to be
considered as timber.
"This Act was confirmed by chap. 33 of the 13th of
George III., which farther enacted that poplar, alder, larch,
maple, and hornbeam, should be deemed timber trees.
LEGISLATION SUBSEQUENT TO " CHARTA FORESTA." 235
" And it was farther confirmed in the 45th of the same
reign, chap. 66, which was made to prevent illegally carry-
ing away bark, and destroying holly, thorns, quickset, &c.
Previous to the last, in the session of 39-40, an Act nearly
the same as that of the 2d of James I. respecting bark had
been passed.
" By chap. 53, 47th of George TIL, however, so much of
that of the 2d of James I. as prohibited oak bark from
being sold again, under forfeiture of the whole of the bark
so sold, was repealed.
"An. Beg. 48, chap. 72, was for the better preservation
of wood in the Forest of Dean, similar to that of the 19th
of Charles II., chap. 3, where eleven thousand acres are
directed to be kept enclosed in the forest ; and this Act
enjoins six thousand acres to be kept enclosed in the New
Forest, to be called nurseries for wood and timber. When
the wood in such enclosures is past danger from the brows-
ing of deer, &c, they may be laid open, and other quantities
enclosed. Every person who shall unlawfully destroy, or
take away, or break any timber, shall forfeit for the first
offence £10, for the second £20 ; but the third offence is
felony, and incurs a punishment of transportation beyond
seas for seven years.
"In 50 George III., we have an Act to extend and
amend that of the 39th and 40th of his reign for the pre-
servation of timber in the New Forest, and to ascertain its
boundaries: and another, chap. 218, for disforesting the
Forest of Bere, in the county of Southampton. The waste
land, it observes, had been of great value and utility from
the timber and underwood thereon, which of late years
have been much injured,and in many parts totally destroyed.
In sect. 64 it is enacted that no sheep, lambs, &c, be kept
for ten years in any of the enclosures of the Forest of Bere,
unless the owners protect their neighbour's fences from
such sheep, &c.
"An. Beg. 52, an Act passed for making perpetual that
of the 12th of his reign for lowering the duty on bark, after
it comes to a certain price."
236
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
By an ancient law of some nations, he forfeited his hand
who beheaded a tree without leave of the owner.
In the Duke of Luxemburg's dominions, no farmer
was permitted to fell a tree, without he could make it
appear that he had planted another. Lewis XIV. of
France would permit no oak trees to be cut, to whom-
ever they might belong, till his surveying officer had
marked them out : nor could they be felled beyond such
a circuit as was sufficiently fenced in by him who
bought them ; and then no cattle were allowed to be put
in, till the seedlings which sprung out of the ground
were perfectly out of danger.
Mr M' William reports: — " By a law of our King Ina it
was enacted, that if anyone set fire to a wood, he should be
punished beside paying a fine of three pounds (an immense
sum in those days): and for those who clandestinely cut, of
which the very sound of the axe was to be sufficient convic-
tion, for every tree he should be mulcted thirty shillings.
For a tree so felled, under the shadow of which thirty hogs
could stand, the offender was to be mulcted three pounds.*
If any one cut down a standing tree so as to cross the way,
or bore away a bough or branch, for each misdemeanour
he was to forfeit to the king one hundred shillings."
Clerk's Doomsday, p. 3.
CHAPTER IV.
FORMER GAME LAWS.
The legislation of England throughout the centuries
preceding the present has shown endeavours to restrict
the devastation of forests; but it was all in the interest of the
sportsman. I quote again the report of Mr M'William : —
" Notwithstanding the havoc committed by the Romans,
this country abounded with high woods and thickets ; and
these were full of wild beasts, which after their time
annoyed the inhabitants so much, that they were anxious
to destroy the woods in order to drive the wild beasts
farther from them. In the year 954, Edgar, a Saxon
prince, was king of this island. He nearly exterminated
the wolves and foxes, both in England and Wales, so that
but few remained. As a ready way of destroying them,
he obliged the Welsh to pay him yearly a certain tribute
of wolfskins. When the ravenous beasts were destroyed,
the others afforded great amusement to the king and his
nobles. The kings then began to be careful of them,
particularly venison and those which were delicate food*
and to privilege or protect the woods, where these wild
beasts remained ; so that no man was allowed to cut or
destroy these woods, and these receptacles for wild beasts
became forests. At that time, all beasts and birds, that
were wild by nature, were wholly the property of the kino",
on whosever ground or lands they were found,t within any
part of the realm, as well as those that were out of the
forests, chases, and warrens, as those that remained within
iny of them ; so that it was not lawful for any man to
* Manwood. t Ibid. p. 13.
238 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
kill, take, or hurt, any wild beast or bird, within his own
ground ; and if any one did so, he was liable to be
punished for the same. This law continued till Canute
the Dane came to the English crown ; who, it appears,
appointed certain forests and chases, and fixed their limits
the first year of his reign."
" A Juris-consult," in the first number of The Farmers'
Magazine, published in the last year of the last century on
Manorial Claims, thus speaks of the claim or right to the
game of a manor or district: —
" The game of a manor, i.e., deer, hares, partridges,
pheasants, and moor game or grouse, &c, was, at a remote
period, considered as the property of the crown, but granted
with the manor itself to an inferior lord, under the ancient
forest laws, and has been, for many centuries, a fertile
source of strife and discord to the more spirited inhabitants
of this and other countries. The regulations concerning
this subject of legislative wisdom, might seem indeed to
have been invented with no other view; for though it
were not probable that the lord of a manor, so granted,
would have any dispute with his superior or granter, yet
the opportunities of harassing his inferiors, by efforts of
petty tyranny, were such, as perpetually to embitter the
minds, and indeed ultimately to debase the character, of
both the oppressor and oppressed. After a part of the
lands within the manors had been alienated so generally
in fee simple, during the reign of Henry VII. and in sub-
sequent times, the purchasers of such lands, or their heirs,
now become freeholders, very naturally conceiving them-
selves interested in the game, in proportion to their
acquisitions of landed property, except in cases of free
warren ; the difficulties of preserving, the monopoly of
this object of diversion and luxury, in the hands of the
manorial lords, were much increased. Hence arose the
apparent necessity of applying to the legislature for a new
code of game laws, the partiality and injustice of which
are not more glaring than their absurdity.
FORMER GAME LAWS. 239
" This famous code is ably explained by that excellent
commeDtator on the laws of England, Sir Wm. Blackstone,
in the following words (vol. iv., p. 40$, 4th edit.) : — 'Another
violent alteration of the English constitution consisted in
the depopulation of whole countries, for the purposes of
the King's royal diversion ; and subjecting both them, and
all the ancient forests of the kingdom, to the unreasonable
severities of forest laws imported from the continent,
whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal
as the death of a man. In the Saxon times, though no
man was allowed to kill or chase the king's deer, yet he
might start any game and pursue and kill it upon his own
estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions vested
the sole property of all the game in England in the kino"
alone ; and no man was entitled to disturb any fowl of the
air, or any beast of the field, of such kind as were specially
reserved for the royal amusement of the sovereign, without
express licence from the king, by grant of a chase or free
warren ; and those franchises were granted, as much with
a view to preserve the breed of animals, as to indulge the
subject. From a similar principle to which, though the
forest laws are now mitigated, and by degrees grown
entirely obsolete, yet from this root has sprung a bastard
slip, known by the name of the Game Law, now arrived to,
and wantoning in its highest vigour; both founded upon
the same unreasonable notions of permanent property in
wild creatures; and both productive of the same tyranny
to the commons ; but with this difference, that the forest
laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the
land, the game laws have raised a little Nimrod in every
manor. And in one respect the ancient law was much
less unreasonable than the modern : for the king's grantee
of a chase, or free warren, might kill game in every
part of his franchise; but now though a freeholder of less
than £100 a year is forbidden to kill a partridge upon his
own estate, yet nobody else (not even the lord of the
manor, unless he hath a grant of free warren) can do it
without committing a trespass, and subjecting himself to
an action.'
240 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
u The partiality and injustice of this code is further
apparent, in the attempts of the lords of manors to pre-
serve the monopoly of the game in themselves or their
deputies, by limiting the right, or qualification to kill it,
to the owner of c£100 per annum ; while a man, having
any quantity of land less than the above partial and
unjust limitation, is prohibited from killing a hare or a
partridge in his own field or garden. The absurdity of
the game laws is obvious ; because the very man who
cannot kill a hare on his own field or garden, can prevent
the one qualified by law from killing it there, by action
of tresspass and damages, and previous discharge from his
premises. Is it necessary here to call the attention of the
reader to the absolute impossibility of rendering any law,
authorising a marauder to enter the property of another
man, under pretence of killing game, compatible with the
sacred security of property, so imperiously demanding the
attention of every legislator ; but, in addition to this,
what ought to be the character of that law, which
demands ten times as much to qualify a man to kill a
partridge, as it does to qualify a juror to kill a man? In
fact, since all these laws, instead of preserving the game
for the rightful ownerj have been fabricated in the genuine
spirit of a grasping monopoly, the present property in the
game is completely vested in the hands of the nocturnal
poacher, who has, in most manors, even the undisputed
possession ; indeed it is a necessary consequence of all
unjust laws, to create the very thing they are intended to
prevent.
u On the whole, these game laws form a grievance to
the cultivator of the soil, not only because he is generally
debarred from any part of a pleasure which the game on
his farm might occasionally furnish, and to "which he seems
to have so natural a right; but because his crops and
fences are frequently injured by men, with their horses
and dogs, taking liberties utterly inconsistent wTith that
security of property which ought to be held inviolable
in all civilised countries.
FORMER GAME LAWS. 241
" All this injustice and partiality, all this absurdity and
grievance, would be effectually banished, were the whole
code of the game laws repealed, and a new law enacted,
founded on the principles of justice and equity; whereby
the absolute property of the game should be vested, as of
common right it ought to be, in the proprietor of the land
it can be killed on, whether such land be a rood or an
acre, whether a garden, a field, or a wood. It will appear
from the above quotation from the learned and laborious
Blackstone, that this would be nothing more than a re-
vival of the ancient Saxon or British law, which for ages
had thus operated before the inruption of the Norman
conquerors, by whose fatal success all the excellent and
free institutions of Anglo-Saxon policy were swept away,
and on the ruins of which those tyrannous maxims of the
feudal and military system were firmly established. A
reasonable objection to this repeal can scarcely be started;
and the writer of this essay well remembers it as the
decided opinion of that illustrious peer, the late Marquis
of Rockingham, the situation of whose principal mansion,
in the vicinity of populous towns, rendered all attention to
the preservation of the game from poachers almost a joke,
on the principles of the game laws, which, in addition to
its obvious equity, might probably create a wish in him for
the restoration of the more just and rational Saxon law."
Well nigh another century has since passed ; and the
game laws are in an unsatisfactory state still !
R
CHAPTER V.
STATE OF CROWN FORESTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.
Towards the close of the century, increased attention
was given to the importance of the forests as lands
yielding timber urgently required for the maintenance
of the navy. It was not, then, for the first time in the
history of the forests that the importance of the forests
in producing wood had been realised; but the demand for
timber was now becoming so much more urgent, that a
new development, if not a new departure, was given to
the forest economy of the county.
Commissioners, were appointed to enquire into the state
and condition of the woods and forests and land revenues
of the Crown, with power to sell or alienate forests held
in fee, and other unimprovable rents.
Their first report, dated 25th January 1787, stated
difficulties which had been experienced in the enquiry,
which were attributed by them to the novelty of the
undertaking in connection with the woods and forests, and
they intimated that some delay must take place in their
preparation of a report on the state and condition of these.
In their second report, dated 11th December 1787,
while reporting on the land revenues of the Crown, they
stated that it had been their expectation that they would
have been able to report at the same time the result of
their enquiries relative to the management and the con-
dition of the woods and forests ; but they had discovered
such abuses in connection with the management of these
that it was impossible to report fully in regard to them
then. And in subsequent reports, severally devoted in
STATE OF GROWN FORESTS, 243
general to what had been learned in regard to one forest,
the information obtained by them was communicated.
In their third report, dated 3d June 1788, they reported
at considerable length the abuses which had come to light,
what had been done, and what was still required. They
then reported in regard to the Forest of Dean — first, grants
which had been made prior to the Act of Charles II. ;
and second, circumstances which had led to the enactment
of that law, stating the regulations established by it, and
on vino- some account of the forest while these retaliations
were observed. Under a second head they reported errors
and abuses which had crept into practice, and the effect
which these had upon the forests ; explained the system
of management pursued at the date of the report, and the
condition to which the forest was then reduced. In a third
they submitted for consideration the heads of arrangements
which they suggested should be made with those who have
rights of common and other claims upon the forest, and of
such a system of management as they thought would be
most likely to protect the forest from similar evils in time
coming, and make the forests valuable nurseries of timber
for the navy. In an appendix were given several important
documents — the replies given by the overseer of the Forest
of Dean to the enquiry of the Commissioners, an abstract
of accounts, &c.
The fourth report, dated 3d February 1789, states that
the commissioners were prosecuting their enquiries in
regard to other forests belono-ino- to the Crown.
In the fifth report, dated 28th July 1789, a report similar
to that previously given in regard to the Forest of Dean,
is given in regard to the New Forest, with a statement of
the measures suggested by them, to meet and rectify the
abuses and evils which had crept in : and in an appendix
are given various documents relating to matters embraced
by the report.
In the sixth report, dated 8th February 1790, a similar
report is made in regard to the Forests of Aliceholt and
"Woolmer, with a similar appendix.
244 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
In the seventh report, dated 13th December 1790, it is
stated in the preamble that there are two distinct classes
of Crown forests : one in which the principal share of the
property belongs to the Crown, and which, from their
extent and their proximity to the dockyard, it is an object
of importance to the nation to keep and improve : another
in which the greater part has been alienated in grants, and
in which it would perhaps be upon the whole better to
make grants, on satisfactory terms, of what remains. To
the former class belong all the forests to which the previous
reports refer. To the latter class belongs, amongst others,
the Forest of Salcey ; and in regard to this a report is made
similar to the others, and a similar appendix is given.
The eighth report, dated 12th January 1791 and 6th
February 1792, gives information in regard to the Forest
of Whittlewood.
The ninth, dated 6th July 1792, information in regard
to Rockingham.
The tenth, bearing the same date, 6th July 1792, is in
regard to Wichwood. All of these are mutatis mutandis,
similar to that given in regard to the Forest of Salcey.
The eleventh report, bearing the same date, 6th July
1792, takes a wide range, embracing the whole subject,
treating in several parts : —
1. Of the state of the country in regard to the supply
of timber in former times ;
2. Of laws relative to timber as private property, and
in Crown forests ;
3. On the consumption of oak, particularly for naval
purposes ;
4. On the supply of timber and other advantages to be
expected from the forests ;
5. On various means of lessening waste in the consumption
of naval timber, and providing substitutes in the event of
a scarcity of oak ; and to this a valuable appendix is added.
From this report of the Parliamentary Commissioners,
issued 6th February 1792, it appears that the average
annual consumption of oak timber in the construction and
STATE OF CROWN FORESTS. 245
repairs of His Majesty's ships in the year 1788, was above
50,000 loads; and that the woods or private estates could
not be relied on for any thing like a regular supply to the
amount then required. They had been led to conclude that
the quantity of large timber on these estates was being
annually diminished, and was likely to be totally exhausted ;
and they recommended that 100,000 acres should be
planted in time to arrest the evil.
In the twelfth report, dated 25th February 1792, are
given (1) an account of the regime of the Crown forests
from the time of William the Conqueror to the passing of
the 1st of Queen Anne, by which "the Crown was restrained
from making farther grants ; (2) an account of subsequent
mismanagement and the results; (3) a statement of the
necessity of some change being made, with suggestions of
some things which mio-ht be done.
In the thirteenth report, dated 31st May 1792, is given
information obtained in regard to the Forest of Bere, with
an appendix.
The fourteenth report, dated 28th March 1793, supplies
information in regard to the Forest of Sherwood.
The fifteenth report, bearing the same date, does the
same in regard to the Forest of Waltham.
The sixteenth report, under the same date, treats of
improvable rents.
The seventeenth, also bearing the same date, 28th
March 1793, gives a concluding report of the changes
they deemed necessary, with a defence aDd justification of
the counsel they had given relative to the establishment
of a Forest Board.
PART IV.
FORKSTAL LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
FORESTAL AND ARBORICULTURAL LITERATURE PREVIOUS
TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,
The literature of England on the subjects of forests and
plantations has been published almost entirely within the
last three centuries, and a like statement may be made to
cover the whole of such literature in the English language.
By the more restricted phraseology of the literature of
England on the subject I wish to specify what has been
published in England alone, to the exclusion of works
which may have been published in Scotland or elsewhere.
Reference has been made in preceding chapters to
several of these, both of the earlier and the later periods
of that era. Amongst these are Manwood's Forest Laws
and Sir Henry Spelman's List of English Forests.
The first of these was published, as has been stated, in
1598. It was entitled "A Treatise of the Laws of the
Forest, and of the Purlieu, wherein is declared not only
these laws (then 1598-1599) in force ; but also the original
and beginning of Forests ; what a Forest is in its own
proper nature, and wherein the same doth differ from a
Chase or Warren ; with all such things as are incidental
or belonging thereto." It is an interesting work, often
quoted as an authority on the subjects referred to. A second
edition appeared in 161 5, a third in 1665, a fourth in 1718,
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 247
and a fifth in 1744 — the two last-mentioned differing only
in the date of the title-page. In successive chapters are
discussed the definition of a forest ; how a forest may be
made; and who may make and who may hold a forest. In
subsequent chapters Manwood discusses what are beasts of
game, what is venison, and what is vert ; the bounds of
forests ; the woods or coverts in these ; waste, assart,
pier-reste, agistment, pannage, and fence moneths, &c,
Manwood published, beside the volume cited, a work
entitled Project for Improving the Revenue by Enclosing
Wastes. It must have been published about the year
1G00. I have made several endeavours to get hold of a
copy for perusal, but I have not succeeded.
Sir Henry Spelman, Kt. of Congham, in Norfolk, whose
List of English Forests has been mentioned, was born in
1562, and studied law; and being in 1593 admitted a
member of the Society of Antiquaries, his interest in
archaeology was quickened, and numerous treatises on
subjects connected therewith were written by him and
published, some during his lifetime, and others after his
death. He died in 1641 at the house of his son-in-law
Sir Ralph Whitfield, in Barbican. From this place his
corpse was carried with great solemnity, by order of King
Charles, to Westminster Abbey, where it was buried in
the south aisle near the door of St Nicolas' Chapel, at the
foot of the pillar opposite to the monument of Mr Camden,
the most indefatigable antiquary and historian of his time,
of whom he had been an old friend. A list of forests given
by him has been cited above (ante p. 134.)
In Hearn's " Collection of Curious Discourses " I have
found some interesting papers bearing on the subject
of forests. The history of this work, which is valued by
antiquarians, is this : " On the revival of literature during
the reign of Elizabeth, a set of gentlemen of great abilities,
many of them students in the Inns of Court, applied
themselves to the study of the antiquities and history of
248 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
this kingdom, a taste at that time very prevalent, wisely
foreseeing that without a perfect knowledge of those
requisites, a thorough understanding of the laws of their
native country could not be attained. For the better
carrying on of this their laudable purpose, they, about the
fourteenth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, formed
themselves into a college or society, under the protection
of that great patron of letters, Matthew Parker, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and laid down the necessary rules
for their conferences and conduct. Their method of pro-
cedure appears to have been this : at every meeting, two
of the body being appointed propositors and moderators,
gave out one or more questions as they thought proper,
upon which each member was expected at the subsequent
meeting either to deliver in a dissertation in writing, or to
speak his opinions ; and in order thereunto a copy of each
question was sent to such members as happened to be
absent. The opinions spoken were carefully taken down
in writing by the secretary, and together with the disser-
tations delivered, were carefully deposited in their archives.
The society daily increased by an accession of new and
learned members, several of whom were persons of high
rank and distinguished abilities. They entertained some
thoughts of erecting a library, and obtaining for themselves
a charter of incorporation under the style of The Academy
for the Study of Antiquity and History, founded by Queen
Elizabeth. A petition for that purpose, together with
reasons for such an establishment, were actually delivered
to the Queen; but this project, for what reasons we are
not told, unhappily miscarried. The society, however,
continued in a flourishing condition until the year 1604,
when, many of their chief supporters dying, particularly
their second great patron Archbishop Whitgift, and the
jealousy of King James I. suspecting their loyalty and
attachment to his government, their meetings were dis-
continued.
" About fourteen years after, some of the old members,
together with some of the most eminent lawyers of that
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 249
time, renewed the assembly of the society; and they,
having formed the same rules for their governance, and
resolved not to meddle with matters either of State or
religion, proposed two questions to be discussed at their
next meetmg. But before the period fixed for that pur-
pose they received notice that his then Majesty took a
dislike to the society, he not being informed that they
had resolved to decline all matters of State, whereupon
their meeting was stopped, and the society was dissolved.
" On this event their papers became dispersed ; but
fortunately a considerable part of their notes and obser-
vations soon after falling into Mr Camden's hands, were
by him deposited in the Cotton Library. Trari scripts of
some few of these dissertations were taken by the learned
Dr Thomas Smith, in order for publication ; but he dying,
they came into the hands of Mr Thomas Hearne, the
celebrated antiquary, who, in the year 1720, printed them
at Oxford in one volume octavo, under the title of A
Collection of Curious Discourses written by eminent Anti-
quaries upon several Heo.ds in our English Antiquities."
The sale was immediate and complete. A second
edition was resolved on, but he died before it could be
printed ; and in 1775 the papers collected by him were
published, together with all the others which had been
obtained, including such as had been printed, many of
the original papers having been preserved in the Cotton
and Harlein Libraries.
Amongst these was a treatise entitled Antiquity of
Forests, by Arthur Agarde, which appears to have been
previously published in 1771. The author was a learned
and industrious antiquary, who was born in Derbyshire in
1510, and who died in 1615, and was buried near the door
of the Chapter-House, in the cloisters of Westminster
Abbey. He was educated for the practice of the law,
but was appointed deputy-chamberlain of the Exchequer,
which office he held forty-five years. He was author of
several of the papers in this collection, and of several
valuable treatises published in his lifetime.
250 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
The following is a copy of Mr Award's paper "On Forests,"
treating of (1), Their etymology, or definition of name ;
(2), Their antiquity ; (3), The laws thereunto belonging.
" In the XXVIII. chapter of the Black Book, which was
written in the 23rd year of the reign of King Henry II.,
as appeareth by the same book, a forest is defined in Latin
thus : Foresta est tuta ferarum mansio scilicet silvestrum,
non quibuslibet in locis, sed certis, et ad hoc idoneis ; wide
foresta dicitur mutata E in 0, quasi ferarum statio. As
the word statio is by Isedorus in his etymologies defined
a place of stay of ships for a time ; even so in like manner
the king's deer, being out of his forest and hunted, return
to their home again for rest, answering to the name of
Forest [for rest ?] ; for they being returned, no man ought
to pursue them further.
" As for the antiquity of forests in England, I read that
they were long before the Conquest, for Saint Edward,
returning from hunting in the Forest of Clarendon, beside
Sarisbury, and coming to visit his mother-in-law, was, by
her order, slain while he was drinking with her, to the
end that her son Ethelred might enjoy the kingdom ; we
also find that King Edward the Confessor had his forest
in Essex, as appeareth by his charter beginning thus : 1c
Edward, K'Onig, have given of my Forests the keeping, §c.
" That he had likewise a forest at Windsor appeareth by
Doomsday, where it is said that he changeth with the
Abbot of Westminster, and giveth him the manor of
Baltrichsey, now called Battersey, in Surrey, for the
Wyndsores, where his forest was.
" But after the Conqueror entered, it appeareth by sundry
chronicles that he converted divers towns in Hampshire
to be forest, and made thereof New Forest, and constituted
severe laws to be kept concerning the same.
"By these laws of the forest it seemeth that the kings of
this realm after the Conquest, and before King John's
time, had this prerogative to make or put any man's
manors or woods to be his forest ; for among the records
of the forest it is presented that King Henry I., by the
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 251
name of Henericus Senex, passing through Leicestershire
towards Scotland, saw iij. staggs in that place where the
Forest of Rutland is, now called Lyefield, and finding the
place fit to make a forest, he committed the keeping
thereof to one of his servants till his return, when he put
over the keeping thereof to one Husculfus ; this rather
appeareth to be so, because that King Stephen coming
to be crowned after the death of the said King Henry,
and the people finding themselves aggrieved with the
multitude of forests, and the rigour of the forest laws,
they made him to grant redress in that and other things ;
whereupon he swore to perform three things, among
which this was one : quod nullius clereci seu laid silvas in
manu sua retinent sicut Henericus rex fecerat ; but mine
author saith nil eorum tenuit. For the laws of the forests
were such as pleased the king to inflict upon the offenders
for verte or venery, and not according to the laws of the
land ; non justum absolute, but justum secundum legem
Forestae. So that I conclude that forests were here in
England before the Conquest, but that they never were
in so great estimation, nor governed with so precise laws
as they were in the times of the Conqueror and his sons,
who were given (as the Normans for the most part were)
to take great delight in hunting."
On 3d November 1591, there was read at a meeting of
the Academy, the following note in regard to the New
Forest, but by whom it was lodged is not stated : —
" William the Conqueror pulled down villages and
churches, for the space of 30 miles, to make thereof a
forest betwixt Salisbury and the sea southward, which
unto this day is called the New Forest ; also, he seized
the most part of the forests of England with his own
hands, and made a law against those that should kill any
of the deer, which was to have their eyes put out : in
which New Forest William Rufus was slain."
There may be nothing learned from such notices which
may not have been learned from other sources of informa-
■-'..•J
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
tion ; and occurring without name of writer prefixed ot
appended they may possess no authority ; but I find it
interesting to learn how such facts were looked at by men
of antiquarian taste three hundred years ago.
In the Collection of Curious Discourses is another paper
on the NewForest by Mr Richard Broughton, whose identity
it is difficult to determine. By Mr Hearne, the author of
the collection, he was understood to be a distinguished
ecclesiastical historian, described on his gravestone in the
church of Great Stukely, in Huntingdonshire, as antiquari-
orum sui saeculi exquisitissimus, and known amongst archae-
loogical students of ecclesiastical history as the author of
the Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain from the Nativity
of our Saviour unto the Conversion of the Saxons, printed at
Douay in 1633, folio ; and of the Monasiicon Britannicum,
printed at London in 1650, 8vo ; and of some other tracts.
But by Mr Tate, who was for many years secretary of the
society, it is stated that the Richard Broughton who was
a member of the society was not that writer, who was
a clergyman, but was a student of the Inner Temple,
London, and was a Justice of North Wales in the time of
James I.
The following is a transcript of the paper referred to : —
" The great charter of forests granted by King Henry
III. unto the commonality, maketh mention of forests
to be made in England by King John, Richard L,
and Henry II.; and giveth authority to view the same,
and to disafforest so much as was made by them
forest, and was not their own demesne ; but long before
this time was the New Forest, made by William the
Conqueror, as appeareth by these words, which are in an
old English chronicle that I have : — William Rous, that
was William Bastard's son, who made the New Forest,
and cast down and destroyed 26 towns and 80 houses of
religion, all for to make his forest longer and broader,
became wondrous glad and proud of his wood and of his
forest, and of the wild beasts that were therein ; but so it
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 253
befel, that one of the knights, that hight Walter Tyrrel,
would have shot at an hart, but his arrow glanced upon a
branch, and through insaveture smote the king to the
heart, and so he fell down dead."
The paper goes on to say : — " Mr Camden makes men-
tion of a forest in Essex, granted by charter of Saint
Edward : —
' Ich Edward, Kixg,
Hane geven of my Forest the Keeping,
Of the hundred of Chetmer and Dancing,
To Randolph Pepking, and to his hinting,
With harte and hinde, do and bucke,' &e.
And Mr Hoker, in his chronicle, fol. 207, hath certain
laws of the forest made by Canute."
The charter granted by King Edward, cited by Brough-
ton, is the same as that cited by Agarde in the paper
previously quoted.
In the same collection is a paper by James Lee, which
I have had occasion to quote oftener than once in regard
to old forest laws. I have failed to identify him, unless
he be Sir James Ley, afterwards Lord Ley of Ley, and
formally created by Charles I. Earl of Marlborough, by
whom a great many papers were contributed to the
Society. He was successively Chief-Justice of the King's
Bench in Ireland, Chief- Justice of the King's Bench in
England, and Lord-President of the Council. He died on
the 14th of March 1628, and was buried in the parish
church of Westbury, in Wiltshire, under a magnificent
tomb ; and was a man of great research.
In this paper it is stated, " The word forest is derived
from foris stare, which doth signify to stand or be abroad ;
and forestarius is he that hath the charge of all things that
are abroad, and neither domestical nor demean • wherefor
foresta in old times did extend unto woods, wastes, and
waters, and did contain not only vert and venison, but
also minerals, and maritimal revenues. For proof whereof
the words of Johannes Tilius (lib. i.) are thus : Guher-
254 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
natores et cast-odes Flandriae ante Baldivinum, qui a brachio
ferreo dictus est, erant officiates arbitrio Regum Gallorum
mutalbilis, dr., turn autem dicebantur forestarii, id est Salt writ,
non quod ipsorum munus. agrum tantum spectaret, qui turn
confer tus erat sylva carbonaria, sed etiam ad maris custodiam
pertinebat ; nam vocabulum Mud forest, prisco sermone infei ioris
Germaneae aeque aequas ac sylvas spectabat. And to this effect
the same author doth cite precedents of charters granted
by the kings of France. So that it appeareth by this and
divers other authorities that the Governor of Flanders,
under the name and title of the Forester of Flanders, had
the charge both by land and sea, and of the general
revenues of the same country. Neither is the estate of
forests in England unlike unto that in Flanders, insomuch
as the charge and articles which are to be enquired of in
the court, called The seat of the justices itinerants of the
forest, do not only tend to the preservation of the game,
but also extend to see a just survey, and to call a full
account of diverse kinds of profits issuing and happening ;
as the forms of assarts, purprestures, and improvements ;
the wood and timber called Greenhawgh, herbage for
cattle, paynaige for swine, mines of metals and coals,
quarries of stones, and wrecks upon the sea coasts."
In accordance with what is thus stated, the famous
French Forest Ordinance of 1669 is entituled Ordinnance
de Louis XIV. Roi de France et de Navarre sur le fait des
Eaux et Forests. The collection of old and new forest
ordinances, edicts, orders, and decrees, published in 1769,
has the title Dictionnaire Raisonne des Faux et Forets ; and
the designation of the compiler, M. Chailland, is Ancien
Procureur du Roi en la Maitrise des Eaux et Forets de
Rennes; while the title of the French Journal of Forestry
now published is the Revue des Faux et Forets.
In accordance also with what is stated, we have met
with as important references to the mines and mining
operations in the Forest of Dean, as to the trees and the
game. And another statement throws light upon the Forest
Court of Justice, or Court of Justice for the trial and
decision of questions raised in regard to forest misde-
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 255
meanours and forest rights, being the Court of Eyre. The
court is so named from a corruption of an old French term
applied to it as a circuit court, described here as B The
seat of the justices itinerants of the forest."
The author of the paper goes on to say : — " But when
forests were first used here in England, for my part I find
no certain time of the beginning thereof. Yet I think
the name of ' forest ' was known in England, though not
in the same sense as now it is taken : and although that
ever since the Conquest (as the readers upon the statutes
de foresta do hold) it hath been lawful for the king to make
any" man's land (whom it pleased him) to be forest, yet
there are certain rules and circumstances appointed for
the doing thereof."
He states that a forest is constituted by what is called a
writ of perambulation being issued by the sovereign,
u directed unto certain discreet men, commanding them to
call before them twenty-four knights and principal free-
holders, and to cause them, in the presence of the officers
of the forest, to walk or perambulate as much ground as
they shall think to be fit and convenient for the breediDg,
feeding, and securicg of the king's deer; and to put the
same in wiiting, and to certify the same under the seals of
the same commissioners, and to lodge the same in the
chancery. After the full execution of which writ of pro-
clamation, it is to be sent unto that shire to the sheriff
thereof, commanding him to proclaim the same to be a
forest, although it be the land of any subject or of the
mg.
In accordance with this is the account given by Man-
wood of How a forest may be made. Mr Lee proceeds : —
" And as there are prescribed circumstances to the making
of a forest, so there are set down diverse laws and ordin-
ances by the statutes of Charta de Foresta and of ArticuJi
de Foresta, and other ordinances for the preservation
thereof, which, in truth, may be more rightly accounted
qualifications of the rigorous laws of William the Con-
queror, qui pro fer is homines, mutilavit, exheredavit, incarceravit ,
256
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
trucidavit, et si quia cervum vel aprum caperet, oculis priva-
batur [Matt. West. p. 9.] Moreover, notwithstanding
King Henry III., by the great charter of forests, chap.
3, had granted that all woods which were made
forest by King Richard his uncle, or by King John his
father, until his coronation, should be forthwith dis-
afforested unless it were the king's demean wood ; yet the
same charter took no great effect, but the officers of the
forest not only continually grieved the subjects by claiming
liberty of forest in their lands, but also King Edward I.,
in anno 7 of his reign, caused several perambulations to be
made through all England, by which he made forests, of
much, or more, of his subjects' lands, than his'own domains
amounted unto; but the subjects, finding themselves
greatly oppressed thereby, did make earnest suit to the
king for redress ; who first by divers acts confirmed the
great charter, and afterwards, in anno 28, caused a new
perambulation to be made by commissioners through all
England, by which the greatest part of the subjects' lands
taken in before were then clearly left out and freed ; and
afterwards, in consideration of a fifteenth granted unto
him by the subjects, the same king, in anno 29, con-
firmed the said perambulation by Act of Parliament;
which last perambulation, and none else, do stand good at
this present, as it was ruled in a case before the judges
in the King's Bench in Hillary term, anno 33, tliz. It.,
upon the traverse of an indictment between the servants
of Edward, Earle of Hertford and the Queen's Majesty, in
behalf of Henry, Earle of Pembroke, concerning the
bounds of the Forest of Groveley, in the county of Wilts ;
as concerning such grounds as being taken in by the first
perambulation were afterwards left out by the last, the
same being at this day called Purle, not of pur luy, id est,
for himself, not of pur la ley, id est, for the law as (men
commonly think), nor of pur le purrail, id est, for the poor
commoners (as the readers do suppose), but of the word
pur oiler or per aller, which is the French word to walk or
perambulate, in respect they were first perambulated and
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 257
walked, and so retain the name of terras pur aller, or
perambulated and walked ground, and yet no forest."
Sir Henry Spelman was amember of this Academy, and
prepared a paper entitled " Of the Antiquity and Etymo-
logy of Terms, and Times for the Administration of
Justice in England," wbich was to have been submitted to
the meeting for which arrangements Avere made, but which
was prohibited by King James I. from an apprehension that
the members intended to intermeddle with matters of
State. Sir Henry Spelman being thus disappointed of
reading his discourse to the society, caused it to be
printed, and it was afterwards rejorinted in the Collection
of Curious Discourses with the papers cited. Of other
works of his mention has already been made.
In 1612 was published "The Commons' Complaint/"' by
Arthur Standlish, gentleman, wherein are stated two
special grievances. The first is the general destruction and
waste of woods in the kingdom, with a remedie for the
same ; also, how to plant wood according to the nature of
everie soile, without losse of ground, and how thereby
many more and better cattell may be yearely bred, with
the charge and profit that yearely may arise thereby.
The second grievance is the extreme dearth of victuals.
Four remedies are proposed. The first is a general planting
of fruit trees, in the discussion of which work information is
supplied in regard to the expense and profit of such an
enterprise with information in regard to the natural
history of the different kinds of trees suggested by the
author for culture.
After " general observations on the great profit that may
be made by judicious plantations of timber trees," and on
" the necessity of shelter for trees, and the proper method
of planting in an exposed situation," with " general obser-
vations on the different circumstances that ought to be
attended to in making a plantation of trees in different
situations," detailed information is given in regard to the
S
258 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
culture of different varieties of fir, of the larch, the pine,
the sugar-maple, and the oak, with details of appropriate
operations for procuring or manufacturing rosin, turpen-
tine, potash, and maple sugar, and like notices in regard
to the bark of the oak and other trees which can be used
in the arts.
In 1664 appeared a well-known work entitled " Sylva ;
or a Discourse on Forest Trees, and the Propagation of
Timber in His Majestie's Dominion," by John Evelyn.
This work, to which reference has already been made, has
secured for its author a fame likely to endure for ages, as
it is still great, if not undiminished, after the lapse of
centuries : every writer who has occasion to advert to the
subject has a word of admiration, or commendation, or
liking for John Evelyn, whose Sylva may be classed with
Isaac° Walton's " Complete Angler," or with Daniel Defoe's
"Robinson Crusoe," and other older works which have
awakened in susceptible minds an enthusiasm bordering
upon passion for the pursuits of which they treat.
Evelyn was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and eminent in
his day as a philosopher and patriot, skilled more particu-
larly in natural history and the fine arts; and this has
given to his famous work much of its charm. Published
first at the time mentioned, it has passed through several
editions.
' He quaintly remarks that " men seldom plant trees till
they begin to be wise, i.e., till they grow old and find by
experience the necessity of it." And, quoting a saying of
Socrates to the effect that it is easier to make than to
find a good husbandman, he says : — " I have often found it
so in gardeners ; and so I believe it will hold good in
most of our country employments. Country people
universally know that all trees consist of roots, stems,
bouo-hs, leaves, &c., but can give no account of the species,
virtue, or further culture, besides to make a pit or hole,
casting and treading in the earth/' &c.
He writes strongly in favour of planting seeds in the
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 259
place where it is desired that the tree should grow, instead
of transplanting trees from the forest to insert in the
place. " I do affirm upon experience/' says he, " that an
acorn sown by the hand, in nurseries, or ground in which
it is free from encumbrances encountered in the forest,
shall, in two or three years, outstrip a plant of twice that
age which has been self-sown in the woods, or removed,
unless it fortune by some favourable accident to have
been scattered into more natural, penetrable, and better
qualified place. But this disproportion is infinitely more
remarkable in the pine and the walnut tree, where the
nut set in the ground does easily overtake a tree of ten
years' growth, which was planted at the same instant."
He alleges that transplanting greatly improves fruit-
trees, but that " unless they are taken up the first year, it
is a considerable impediment to the growth of forest trees."
I am giving the views published by Evelyn irrespective
of what my own views on points referred to may be ; and
doing so, I abstain from modifying his statements or
attempting to make them more lucid by substituting
some modern phrase.
After a discussion of earth, soil, seeds, air, and water,
in their connection with arboriculture, and of the ex-
pediency, or rather inexpediency, of transplanting trees
from the forest, he gives a great deal of information in
regard to the different trees which then were, and still are,
generally planted in England ; and he treats at large of
diseases to which some or all of them are liable — in doingf
which he advances some things not altogether consistent
with modern ideas of the physiology of plants. He then
discusses the subject of coppice-woods, of the pruning and
the felling of trees, the seasoning of timber, and the manu-
facture of charcoal. And he gives, in a series of aphorisms,
a summary of the counsels and instructions enumerated.
The work is followed up with encouragements to plant
Crown lands with trees, for the doing of which he submits
appropriate plans ; and concludes with a prose poem on
the sacredness of groves in the olden times.
260
THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
By request, Evelyn, on April 29th, 1G75, delivered
before the Royal Society, a lecture, or, as it is designated,
a philosophical discourse of earth, relating to the culture
and improvement of it for vegetation and the propagation
of plants.. &c. This also is published with the Silva, and
in the same volume is given a treatise on cyder, and a
treatise on sallads, for which he considered most suitable
many plants which are not now generally so used.
Silva Terra Pomona and Acctaria complete the volume.
To many editions of Evelyn's Silva there is appended
a treatise on the making of cyder, by Moses Cook, who
published also, in 167G, a work entitled " The manner of
raising, opening, and improving forest and fruit trees."
In this he exposes the folly of some ridiculous vulgar
errors prevalent at that time in connection with the
culture of plants. And after supplying information in
regard to different methods of propagating trees — by
layers, cuttings, and seeds, with some sensible remarks
on the propriety of laying the sown seed in a position
similar to that which it assumes when it falls from the
tree— he proceeds, like Evelyn, to give detailed infor-
mation in regard to different trees then cultivated.
There follow strictures on planting, fencing, and pruning
trees ; on the diseases of trees ; the felling and the measure-
ment of trees ; and the laying-out of grounds.
In 1652 was published Common Good, or the improve-
ment of commons, forests, and chases by enclosure, by
Silas Taylor, a man somewhat distinguished for his anti-
quarian research. Of this treatise I have met with notices ;
but I have failed in different efforts made by me to get a
sight of it ; nor have I seen anything of works on arboricul-
ture or forestry which may have been published in the
course of the subsequent hundred years, with the exception
of Care's English Liberties, which contains comments on the
Charta de Foresta, and statistics of importance, and was
published in 1719. Other works there were ; but from the
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 261
circumstance that no copies of them have been found by me
iD any of the public libraries which I have searched, and
these comprise most of the important public libraries in
Scotland, I conclude that they did not exercise any very
important influence on the arboriculture of the country.
But in the latter half of the eighteenth century there
appeared several volumes treating of measures calculated
to secure an improved culture of trees, and some of them
have a special reference to the Crown forests.
The Rev. WiUiam Watkins, a curate in Brecknock-
shire, published in 1753 a sensible pamphlet, entitled " A
Treatise on Forest Trees," in which he shows that estates
might be improved to a great extent by attention being
given to the culture of trees.*
I have met with reference to a treatise on the
management of forests and timber, entitled Anleitilng zum
Forst- Wesen, by John Andrew Crammer, said to have been
published in 1766. But I have failed to get sight of the
work, either in the English or the German language.
In 1791, well-nigh forty years later, there was published by
the Rev. William Gilpin, Prebendary of Salisbury, a work
entitled " Remarks on the Forest Scenery and other Wood-
land Views/' relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, illus-
trated by the scenes of the New Forest in Hampshire, in
which, along with interesting notices of the different kinds
of trees there cultivated, and of remarkable trees of one
and another of the kinds described, and also of the game
and game laws of the forest, there are given descriptions
and representations of the sprays and ramification of
* In Scotland, about the same time, attention was given to the subject, and the resuit3
were published, both by land-holders and nurserymen, and the treatises of the Earl of
Haddington and of William Boucher were welcomed in England, I do not doubt ; but
the publication of these throw only an indirect light on the interest taken in the subject
in the south. Boucher called special attention to the neglect of attention to aesthetic
effects in the la3ing-out of plantations. Lord Haddington's work and observations are
still cited with commendation by writers on Forest Science on the Continent.
262 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND.
different genera, including the oak, beech, elm, &c, the
specific character of the appearance of the trees, and the
effect produced under various forms and combinations,
from the small clump to the extensive forest; and the
effect produced by the growth upon them of such
epiphytes as moss, lichens, and ivy, &c.
If Evelyn's Silva may be spoken of in the terms I have
cited, not less entitled to commendation for its interesting
style of narration, and facts and phenomena selected for
description, is this work by Gilpin, written con amove with
manifest spontaniety and personal enjoyment in what he
describes, and also in describing it for the delectation of
others. Lengthened quotations from it have been given
in preceding chapters.
In Dallas's Sherriff : Oficium Vice Comitum, or the Office
and Authority of Sheriffs, is reproduced Reading on Charta
de Foresta by Trecherra. But I have failed to discover at
what date it was published.
Other treatises on Forestry appeared at subsequent
dates before the close of the century, but most of them
known to me bear more directly on the illustration of the
treatment of forests and woodlands in recent times, than
they do on the illustration of the treatment to which they
had been previously subjected.
It was not in England alone that a change in the
treatment of forests was introduced in the beginning of
the nineteenth century. In Saxony the advance of forest
science led to a new development of forest economy, which,
so soon as quiet was secured in France, was adopted there,
and has since then been adopted in almost every country
on the Continent of Europe, securing simultaneously an
amelioration of the condition of the forest woodlands, a
natural reproduction of these, and a permanent sustained
production of wood, whether as firewood or timber. To
the student of the forestry of the past, I would recommend
FORESTAL LITERATURE. 263
the study of this as it developed itself in France ; and to
the student of modern scientific forestry, which is alto-
gether different from what is seen in England, I would
recommend the study of its development in Saxony, and
its application in France. Having to do in this volume
only with the forestry of the past — I may say, the anti-
quated forestry of the past, before the nineteenth century
" rung out the old, and runsf in the new " method of forest
management based on the advanced forest science of the
day — I would direct the attention of students of this more
especially to the early forest legislation of France, to the
famous forest ordinance of 1669, to the mediaeval forest
litigation in France, to the Code Forestier, and the Ordinnance
reglementaire of later times. This I do on the ground that
these are of more easy access to many in England than are
the corresponding indications of the progress of forestry in
other lands ; and on the ground that they supply informa-
tion more succinct, satisfactory, and continuous than any
treatise known to me in any other language.
THE END.
To the Members of the Scottish Arboricultural
Society — of the English Aeboeicultueal
Society — of the American Forestry Associa-
tion — AND OF THE AMERICAN FORESTRY
Congress.
Gentlemen,
Presuming on the interest in the promotion
of Forest Science which has been manifested by you, I
desire to submit to you the following statement, and to
invite your co-operation in the enterprise to which it
relates.
In the summer of 1875 — with results which I am
about to state — I devoted to the publication of the first
of a series of Treatises on subjects pertaining to Forest
Science, a sum of money which had been presented to me
on the conclusion of a brief ministry in Berwick-on-Tweed ;
and I have now set apart a sum of money which came to
me last year in a somewhat similar way, to the publication
of another series of volumes on Forest Economy, of which
The Forests of England and the Management of them in bye-gone
times, now published, is the first ; and a second, to be
entitled The French Forest Ordinnance of 1699, with Notices of
the Previous Treatment of Forests in France, is now in the
press.
In reporting to myfriends in 1875 the disposallhad made
of their gift, I referred to the fact that Benjamin Franklin
tells that one mode of doing good which he followed, was
to lend money to young men beginning business under
the condition that it was not to be repaid to him, but to
some young man in like circumstances, on a similar con-
dition ; " and thus/' said he, u I have the satisfaction of
knowing that my money will go on doing good until, if it
fall not into the hand of a rogue, it is used up by some one
whose circumstances rendered this necessary ; " and stated,
" whatever amount may be realised by the sale of this volume
will be employed without deduction in the publication of
some similar work, the publication of which I may con-
sider likely to be useful, but not likely to command a sale
which would make it remunerative to a publisher to
publish it. I shall be glad if I can thus to some extent
perpetuate the good done by your gift ; and I am prepared
to go to press with a treatise on Reboisement in France, so
soon after the publication of the volume on Hydrology of
South Africa, as may be expedient."
The results have been the publication of the following
volumes and pamphlets : —
I. — Hydrology of South Africa ; or, details oj the former Hydrographic
Condition of the Cape of Good Hope, and of causes of Us present
aridity, with suggestions of appropriate remedies for this aridity.
In this the desiccation of South Africa, from pre-Adamic times
to the present day, is traced by indications supplied by geological forma-
tions, by the physical geopraphy or general contour of the country, and
by arborescent productions in the interior, with results confirmatory of
the opinion that the appropriate remedies are irrigation, arboriculture,
and an improved forest economy : or the erection of dams to prevent the
escape of a portion of the rainfall to the sea — the abandonment or re-
striction of the burning of the herbage and bush in connection with
pastoral and agricultural operations — the conservation and extension of
existing forests — and the adoption of measures similar to the reboisement
and gazonnemeat carried out in France, with a view to prevent the for-
mation of torrents and the destruction of property occasioned by them.
London : Henry S. King & Co. 1875. Price 10s.
II. — Water Supply oj South Africa, and facilities for the storage of it.
In this volume are detailed meteorological observations on the
humidity of the air and the rainfall, on clouds, and winds, and thunder-
storms ; sources from which is derived the supply of moisture which i8
at present available for agricultural operations in the colony of the Cape
of Good Hope and regions beyond, embracing the atmosphere, the rain«
fall, rivers, fountains, subterranean streams and reservoirs, and the sea ;
and the supply of water and facilities for the storage of it in each of the
divisions of the colony — in Basutoland, in the Orange River Free State,
in Griqualand West, in the Transvaal Territory, in Zululand, at Natal,
and in the Transkei Territory. Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd. London {
Simkpin, Marshall, & Co. 1877. Price 18s 6d.
III.— Forests and Moisture ; or, Ejects of Forests on Humidity of Climate.
In which are given details of phenomena of vegetation on which the
meteorological effects of forests affecting the humidity of climate depend
— of the effects of forests on the humidity of the atmosphere, on the
humidity of the ground, on marshes, on the moisture of a wide expanse
of country, on the local rainfall, and on rivers — and of the correspond-
ence between the distribution of the rainfall and of forests — the measure
of correspondence between the distribution of the rainfall and that of
forests — the distribution of the rainfall dependent on geographical
position, determined by the contour of a country — the distribution of
forests affected by the distribution of the rainfall — and the local effects
of forests on the distribution of the rainfall within the forest district.
Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd. London : Simkpin, Marshall, & Co. 1877.
Price 10s.
IV. — Pine Plantations on Sand- Wastes in France.
In which are detailed the appearance presented by the Landes of
the Gironde before and after culture, and the Landes of La Sologne ;
the legislation and literature of France in regard to the planting of the
Landes with trees ; the characteristics of the sand-wastes ; the natural
history, culture, and exploitation of the maritine pine and of the Scotch
fir; and the diseases and injurious influences to which the maritine pine
is subject. — Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd. London : Simpkin, Marshall,
& Co. 1878. Price 7s.
V. — Reboisement in France ; or, Records of the Re-planting of the Alps,
the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees with Trees, Herbage, and Bush, with
a view to arresting and preventing the destructive consequences of
torrents.
In which are given, a risume of Surrel's study of Alpine torrents, and
of the literature of France relative to Alpime torrents, and remedial
measures which have been proposed for adoption to prevent the disas-
trous consequences following from them, — translations of documents and
enactments, showing what legislative and executive measures have been
taken by the Government of France in connection with reboisement as a
remedial application against destructive torrents, — and details in regard
to the past, present, and prospective aspects of the work. London : C.
Kegan Paul & Co. 1879. Price 12s.
The Schools of Forestry in Europe : a Plea for the Creation of a School
of Forestry in Edinburgh. Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd. 1877. Price 2s.
On Schools of Forestry. Reprinted from Transactions of the Scottish
Arboricultural Society. Edinburgh : M'Farlane & Erskine. 1877.
The School of Forestry in the Polytechnic School of Carlsruhe. The
School of Forestry in the Royal Wurtemburg Academy of Land and
Forest Economy. The School of Forestry in the Escurial of Spain.
The School of Forestry at Evois in Finland. Opinions of Continental
Foresters and Professors of Forest Science on the location of a School of
Forestry. A British School of Forestry : Review of opinions relative to
its formation. Rural Primary Schools of Science, Agriculture, Forestry,
and Rural Economy. Glances at the Forests of Northern Europe — I,
Denmark; II., Norway; III., Sweden; IV., Finland; V., Northern
Russia. Glances at the Forestry of France — I. , Forest Reforms carried
out under Colbert, a translation ; II., Forest Budget for 1880, a resume,
A British School of Forestry : Present position of the Question. All
reprints from The Journal of Forestry and Estate Management.
London : J. W. Rider & Son. 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, and 1881.
The commencement of the publication of this second
series originated in an unexpected offer from a National
Association to contribute £10 towards the publication of
the first of a series of like treatises which it was known I
had prepared, and in regard to which the Council of the
Association expressed the opinion that the successive
publication of them would certainly contribute, to further
the ends the Society had in view.
To this offer I replied : — " I am prepared to add £30
to the £10 spoken of, or any larger amount, in like pro-
portion to whatever sum may be contributed by the
Society, and therewith to publish without delay at my own
risk an edition of 500 copies of that portion of the treatise
which refers to England ; thereafter, so soon as what may
be realised by sales will suffice for the purpose, to do the
same with what relates to Scotland; and thereafter, so
soon as what may be realised by sales of both will suffice
for the purpose, publishing what relates to Ireland."
The design was to supply a treatise on Forest Manage-
ment and Arboriculture in Great Britain and Ireland ; but
this, it was found, could best be accomplished by the publi-
cation of a series of volumes, each of them complete in
itself. In the first volume of the series, that now published,
The Forests of England and the Management of them in Byegone
Times, information is supplied in regard to several Crown
Forests, Chases, Parks, Warrens, and Woods; it is shown
that from the earliest times Forest Laws were Game
Lav/s, and that forest economy was for ages subordinated
to the chase ; ancient terms and usages pertaining to
forests are explained ; progressive legislation leading to
better conservation and exploitation of forest woodland is
traced ; and information is supplied in regard to earlier
literature of English forestry.
In the second volume of the series, which is ready for
publication, it will be shown how changes in the woods and
forests of England resulted from the demand made for
wood for the British Navy in the beginning of the present
century; gross abuses of management then discovered
will be detailed ; administrative changes then and sub-
sequently introduced will be noticed ; details will be given
of the recent history and present condition of English
woods and forests, and of sylvicultural operations latterly
carried on at the expense of Government and by private
enterprise ; the alleged meteorological effects of woods
will be noticed ; and some account will be given of the
forestal literature of England of the present century.
The publication of this volume has been deferred, only
because it would entail an expenditure exceeding the
amount which had been appropriated to the undertaking.
In the volume entitled The French Forest Ordinnance of
1669, &c, which will be published shortly, is given a
translation of this famous Ordinnance, which has exercised
a deeper, more extended, and more prolonged influence
on the Forest Economy of Europe than has any other
work known to me ; but so far as is known to me, it has
never been published in its entirety in the English lan-
guage. As introductory to it are given notices of the
treatment of forests in France in prehistoric times ; of
the incursion of the Normans, and changes introduced by
them ; of the administration of the forests of France in
the first half of the seventeenth century, and the abuses
and devastation of forests which followed; of the method
of exploitation then practised, Jardinage ; of La Methode,
a tire et aire, which was then introduced ; of La Methode
6
des Compartiments now practised; and explanations of
some of the old technical terms made use of in the Ordi-
nance. The proceeds from sales of this volume, if they
suffice for the purpose, will be spent on the publication of
one on the subsequent Forest Economy of France ; and the
subsequent proceeds of the sales of both, if sufficient, will
be spent on the publication of one on Sylviculture and
Forest Management in France at the present time.
In the conclusion of my letter accepting the offer made
to me, I said : — " I may add that it is my purpose, if any
such arrangement be carried out, to devote subsequent
proceeds of sales to the publication of some similar works
which I may consider likely to be useful, but not likely to
command a sale which would make it remunerative to a
publisher to publish on his own account."
The reference made was to treatises on the Forest
Economy of different nations on the Continent of Europe.
The number of probable readers for such works is very
limited ; and I speak advisedly when I say that no pub-
lisher in Britain or America would undertake the publica-
tion of such otherwise than at the risk of another, and
that they are acting in accordance with strict propriety in
declining the risk.
Some fifty years ago, Isaac Taylor, in his volume
entitled Saturday Evening, remarked : — "The extension of
knowledge, and the incalculable multiplication of readers,
has effected, in an indirect manner, a revolution in litera-
ture as complete as that produced by the invention of
printing, though less conspicuous. If a plain fact is to be
spoken of in plain terms it is this, that books have at last
thoroughly come under the laws that regulate the quan-
tity, quality, fashion, form, and colour of silks, potteries,
furniture, jewels, and other articles of artificial life. The
exceptions to the rule are— when the production is of so
rare or peculiar a kind, &c, or when the demand is so
limited that the traffic escapes the spirit of trade. It is
an illusion to suppose that any very extensive or perma-
nent exemptions from the laws of trade can have place in
matters of trade."* It is in full knowledge of this having
been said, and that it is in accordance with observed facts,
that I have undertaken the risks of my enterprise, and I
do not ask for any protection against the operation of the
laws referred to. But, as I have intimated, I shall be glad
to have in the prosecution of my scheme the co-operation
of any who may share my views in regard to the expedi-
ency of extending our literature in forest science, though
to do so may not be immediately pecuniarily remunerative.
The progress of successive publications is likely to be
slow. Should any one, or any association, be willing to
expedite the work by meeting the expense of putting on
the market, on like conditions to those stated, any one or
more of the treatises prepared, I shall value highly such
co-operation, and duly acknowledge it : it is only in con-
sequence of my being required to abstain from doing so
that I do not state the name of the Society to whose
grant in aid the first volume of the series owes its
publication.
Prices, I may mention, are determined by the number
of copies printed. If an edition of 500 copies cost in
printing £100, or 4s each, an edition of 1000 copies would
cost in printing not £200, but .£120, or less than 2s 6d
each copy; while an edition of only 250 would cost £90,
or 7s 2|d per copy for paper and printing. The difference
* Taylor expresses himself much more strongly than is done in the words cited. He
says : — " The simple circumstance that books have become one of the most considerable
articles of commerce has reversed the direction of the influence of which the press is the
medium. Our literature is commanded, or controlled, by the people ; and only in a
secondary sense commands them. The reader has grown into an importance that makes
him lord of the writer. Authors furnish— how should they do otherwise ? — that which
readers ask for, or will receive." In regard to the articles of artificial life mentioned,
he says: — "Who does not know that the purchaser of any such commodity must,
whatever special circumstances may seem to disguise the fact, stand in the relation of
master to the manufacturer, the artist, the workman? Mind struggles much against
these mighty powers, and writhes under their tj ranny ; but its resistance is successful
only in single instances, or for an hour. Our modern literature has one reason, and of
this reason the buyer is the sovereign, and the vendor is the interpreter, and the writer
is the slave."
8
in the retail price would be still greater, as there are several
charges which are the same whether the edition be large
or small; thus is it with the binding; thus it may be
with advertising; but the cost of publication increases
with the price of the book in a regular ratio. I confine
myself to small editions ; and it is a relief to me to give
this explanation.
Such is the enterprise, and the circumstances, in which
I invite your co-operation.
Communications have been made to me in regard to
difficulties experienced in places remote from towns in
procuring some of the volumes mentioned. I have made
arrangements for any volume being sent by post pre-paid
to any place in the world embraced by the British postal
arrangements, on receipt by me of a postal order for the
amount of the selling price of the book.
JOHN C. BROWN.
Haddington, 1st March, 18S3.
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