Chapter XIII: The Forests of Staffordshire

The ancient forest of Needwood was situated in the northern extremity of the hundred of Offlow, and in the four parishes of Tutbury, Hanbury, Tatenhill, and Yoxall. It was famed not only for the beauty, extent, and size of its timber, but more especially for the richness of its pasture land.

The earliest particulars with regard to Needwood forest, whilst it was yet under the control of the Ferrers, occur in the minister’s accounts for 1255-6. The foresters named for Tutbury ward were Robert Coan and Robert de Wynfleth; among the receipts were 13_s._ 10_d._ for the sale of dead wood, 3_s._ 4_d._ for the sale of forty customary rent hens, 7_s._ 3_d._ for agistment of cattle, 7_s._ 8_d._, and for a charcoal-burner’s licence for ten and a half weeks, 11_s._ 3_d._ The court fines of this ward included several penalties of 6_d._ for collecting nuts, and one for charcoal burning without a licence, but were chiefly for vert offences. The total ward receipts were £2 18_s._ 6_d._ Barton ward produced £4 9_s._ 8_d._; Marchington ward, £3 16_s._ 11½_d._; and Uttoxeter ward, £2 9_s._ 1_d._ The swine turned out in the forest for pannage amounted to 227, of which twelve went for tithe, six in alms, one to the steward, and one to the chief forester.

On the attainder of Robert Earl Ferrers in 1266, his confiscated estates were granted by Henry III. to his son Edmund, afterwards created Earl of Lancaster. One of the finest portions of these estates, afterwards known as the Duchy of Lancaster, was the honor of Tutbury, and within its limits was the splendidly wooded and exceptionally fertile stretch of Needwood forest. An extent of the lands of Edmund, the king’s brother, drawn up 1298, gives definite particulars relative to Needwood forest. It was then divided into the five wards of Yoxall, Barton, Tutbury, Marchington, and Uttoxeter.

In Yoxall ward the agistment of cattle produced 30_s._, the sale of bark of lime trees 14_s._ 3_d._ the pannage of swine 30_s._, and court fees and escapes 6_s._ 8_d._ The sum of 7_s._ 7_d._ was also realised by the sale of eighty-eight hens, the customary payment of the tenants. In this ward was Rowley Park, the profits of which in herbage, mast, and wood was £1 6_s._ 8_d._ The whole profits of the ward came to £13 15_s._

The profits of the ward of Barton from the like sources were £5 6_s._ 9_d._ Barton Park was in this ward, together with a hay called High Lindes.

Tutbury ward, including the parks of Rolleston, Hanbury, and Stockley, and Castlehay, produced £12 10_s._ 8_d._

The hens, agistment, pannage, woodmote fees, etc., of Marchington ward, with the park of Agardsley, made receipts to the amount of £6 1_s._ 8_d._

The like sources in Uttoxeter ward, together with the herbage and mast of a hay called the More, produced £3 18_s._ 4_d._

The annual value of the whole forest, etc. (apart from all demesne lands and manorial rights, which were ten times the value of the forest), amounted at this date to £41 11_s._ 5_d._

There is also a full record extant of the forest accounts for 1313-14. Robert de Cruce was the receiver of Tutbury ward. The receipts included 5_s._ 3_d._ for the sale of forty-two hens; 2_s._ 8_d._ for wood; 2_s._ for passage of carts and pack-horses; 26_s._ 1_d._ for agistment of cattle; 103_s._ for agistment in Castlehay; 25_s._ 4_d._ for the like in Stokeley Park, and 12_s._ in Hanbury Park; 71_s._ 2_d._ for windstrewn boughs for deer in winter; 9_s._ for shingles; £8 for all underwood in the ward and Castlehay sold for deer in winter; £8 for the like in Rolleston Park, and £2 in Hanbury Park; 9_d._ for honey and wax; 2_s._ 4_d._ for sale of a stray bullock; £5 15_s._ 6_d._ in woodmote fees; 3_s._ 5½_d._ for sale of 167 old pales of Stokeley Park, and 23¼_d._ for the old pales of Hanbury Park; yielding a total of £51 10_s._ 4_d._ The expenses came to £43 18_s._ 4½_d._; the wages of the men getting the deer-browse in the ward and Castlehay amounted to 16_s._ 4_d._; making 167 new pales for Stokeley Park, 10_s._ 4¾_d._; and 3_s._ for lock and door for the forest lodge at Birkley. The wages of the parkers of Hanbury and Rolleston were each 15_s._ 2_d._, whilst that of the parker of Castlehay was 30_s._ 4_d._

The receipts of Barton ward, Ralph Laying receiver, were £13 12_s._ 7_d._, and the expenses £13 5_s._ 2_d._ John Don was the receiver of Marchington; receipts £27 2_s._ 7½_d._, expenses £28 2_s._ 7¼_d._ Robert de Tuppeleye was receiver of Uttoxeter; receipts £50 15_s._ 0½_d._, expenses £22 12_s._ 6½_d._ The receipts of Yoxall ward, Richard Coking receiver, were £34 17_s._ 8½_d._, whilst the expenses were £29 19_s._ 7_d._

In the accounts of 1321-2, the expenses include 4_d._ a day to a carpenter engaged for three days in mending the gates of the Castlehay Park, 1½_d._ a day for three days for fourteen men engaged in ditching, and 3_d._ for an iron for branding the cattle.

Woodmote courts were held for each ward. A forest roll of 1336-7 (in bad condition) gives 2_s._ 6_d._ as the receipts of the woodmote of Tutbury ward, held on February 11th, in vert fines, chiefly for taking whitethorn. The taking of a cartload of greenwood out of Hanbury Park incurred a fine of 6_d._ The fines for vert trespasses in Castlehay amounted to 4_s._ 4_d._, including 15_d._ for taking a horseload of old wood. The fines about this date at the court of Marchington ward amounted to 2_s._ 10_d._, and included the straying of foals in the wood.

The woodmote courts of the five wards, held about Martinmas, 1370, brought in a larger amount of fines: Tutbury, 9_s._ 1_d._; Marchington, 9_s._ 4_d._; Yoxall, 3_s._ 10_d._; Barton, 3_s._; and Uttoxeter, 2_s._ 10_d._ The penalties were chiefly for removing horse, cart, or wagon loads of wood.

A full woodmote roll of 1-2 Richard II. gives £7 6_s._ 7_d._ as the total of the fines of all the courts of that year. A sledge-load of wood, called _drag_, or _draw_, is of frequent occurrence in this roll. The vert fines varied from 2_d._ to 8_d._ a case. At a Marchington ward woodmote, there were four cases of removing cartloads of old wood, four of green wood, and two of a mixture of old and green; the horseloads were thirteen in number, and the sledgeloads sixteen.

The pannage fees of the whole forest, termed “tak,” realised in 1400 £5 9_s._ 5½_d._ The total forest receipts of that year amounted to £43 1_s._ 1½_d._

At an unusually heavy Marchington woodmote in 1403, when the fines amounted to 11_s._ 4_d._, the penalty in each case for a cartload of wood was 8_d._, and for a horseload 6_d._ An inquisition held that year in Tutbury ward convicted Robert Amond, John Roberg, John Fuklyn, and Giles Fuklyn, monks of the Cluniac priory of Tutbury, of breaking into the castle park, on Thursday, after the feast of St. Margaret, and there killing a doe and a fawn. This is one of the very few cases of conviction of monks for venison trespass. Woodmotes of this year were held at Birkley, or Byrkley, the site of the chief lodge.

A few years later the Benedictine monks of Burton were in trouble, but only for wood trespass.

Rolls relative to the minor forest courts of Needwood for the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries are exceptionally numerous.

At the forest woodmote held at Birkley on 15th May, 1450, various venison trespasses were presented, such as making snares (_retia_) and buckstalls, breaking into parks, hunting with greyhounds, and killing several fallow deer. There were seventeen separate charges, some of which involved several persons.

Various other records of woodmotes held in the last half of the fifteenth century are well worth consulting.

At the woodmote held on 3rd June, 1524, at Birkley Lodge, thirty-one trespassers in Tutbury ward were fined in small sums for ordinary lopping offences—one for breaking park pales, another 2_s._ for cutting eight oaks, and two men 3_s._ 4_d._ each for carrying off two cartloads of wood. The fines for this ward amounted to 18_s._ 6_d._ At the same court the fines in Barton ward were 3_s._ 7_d._, in Yoxall 9_s._ 8_d._, in Uttoxeter 2_s._ 10_d._, and in Marchington 13_s._ 9_d._

In Sir Oswald Mosley’s _History of Tamworth_ (1832) various interesting particulars of the forest customs of Needwood and Duffield are set forth at length.

DOG LEECHING (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

REWARDING THE HOUNDS (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)]

The abbot of Burton-on-Trent and the prior of Tutbury held special privileges and peculiar rights in the forest of Needwood. One of the many unforeseen unhappy results of the wholesale suppression of the religious houses was the throwing into confusion of a variety of forest customs. Those on whom the monastic estates were conferred not unnaturally endeavoured to sustain claims that had not been resisted when made by the public almoners of a district. Considerable conflict arose with regard to such matters at Needwood, and the absence of the checks exercised by the woodwards, appointed by various religious houses in most English forests, was one of the chief causes that led in this district to much wrong-doing on the part of the officials.

The detection of a particular keeper in a grave case of peculation in 1540 brought about a careful inquiry into the general conduct of the officials. It was then ascertained that in a single year the keeper of Tutbury Wood had cut down and sold 45 loads of timber, the keeper of Marchingdon, 111 loads; the keeper of Barton, 170 loads; the keeper of Yoxall, 124; and the keeper of Uttoxeter, 64. No forest could possibly stand the drain of an annual sale of 841 loads. The fraudulent keepers were discharged, and a certain amount of reformation achieved.

A survey of the parks of Needwood was taken in the reign of Philip and Mary, when the jury found that the deer of the castle park numbered 137, that those in Rolleston Park numbered 105; those of Stokeley Park, 160; those of Barton Park, 104; those of Shireholt Park, 144; those of High Lynns Park, 127; and that Castlehay Park had been disparked in favour of the king’s “race of great horses,” and Hanbury Park reserved for the king’s stud mares. A great waste of trees was in progress, and it was known that many had been cut down without any warrant, as the stools still standing showed no sign of the mark of the king’s axe. Among the claims then made by the tenants or commoners was that of “hoar lynt.” This term signified the white wood of the lime or linden tree after the basters had stripped such timber of the bast or inner bark for cordage or mats.

The survey of the first of Elizabeth, cited at length in Shaw’s _Staffordshire_, says:—

“The forest or chase of Needwood is in compasse by estimation
twenty-three miles and a half, and the nearest part thereof
is distant from the Castle of Tutbury but one mile. In it are
7,869 acres and an halfe, and very forest-like ground, thinly
sett with old oakes and timber trees, well replenished with
coverts of underwood and thornes, which might be copiced in
divers parts thereof for increase of wood and timber, lately
sore decayed and spoyled.”

After giving the bounds and acreage of the four wards then extant, and naming the former fifth ward of Uttoxeter, the survey enumerates the ten parks within the forest, but Rowley Park had been granted by Henry VIII. to Justice Fitzherbert and his heirs.

The size of the nine parks of Castle, Castlehay, Rolleston, Stokeley, Hanbury, Barton, Shireholt, Highlands, and Agardsley, with the number of deer and condition of timber in each, are also duly set forth.

Elizabethan records of Needwood woodmotes are numerous. A woodmote was held at Birkley on 17th August, 1581, before George, Earl of Shrewsbury, high steward of the whole honor of Tutbury, in person. The jury were William Rolleston, Esquire; Humphrey Minors, William Agard, and Arthur Whittington, gentlemen, and eleven yeomen. The convictions for various forms of vert offences were unusually numerous at this court, as well as a few cases of pasturing sheep and cart-horses in the forest. The penalties exacted amounted to £9 15_s._ 4_d._

The next woodmote was held at Tutbury on 16th July, 1582, when the fines reached the exceptionally high total of £22 1_s._ 5_d._ Two or three persons were fined on this occasion for not taking their pigs out of the forest wards during “le fence monethe.”

At the pannage court held at Newborough in November of this year, the fees for the pigs amounted to 48_s._ 1½_d._

There are several rolls extant of woodmote courts of the reigns of James I. and Charles I., but they contain nothing of particular moment.

In 1654 the forest of Needwood was offered for sale “for the satisfaction of the soldiery.” The knights, gentlemen, and other inhabitants of twenty-one of the adjoining villages and townships thereupon petitioned Oliver Cromwell, pointing out the injustice of enclosing the forest area—then reduced to 5,600 acres, and only worth about 5_s._ an acre—whereby the old charter rights of many would be lost, and a great number of ancient cottagers deprived of the relief afforded by the commons. It was also pointed out that the county of Stafford had already paid near £8,000 towards the soldiery on their disbanding. The last reason offered against the sale was, “That the forest of Needwood is mearly formed by nature for pleasure, no forest in England being comparable thereunto.”

This petition caused the project of the sale to be abandoned; but in 1656 a compromise was arrived at, whereby commissioners were appointed to consider all claims, and in 1658 it was agreed that half the open forest and one-tenth of the timber should be allotted to the freeholders, and the remainder be continued as the property of the State. The project went so far as to have the respective divisions for the different townships staked out and allotted. But the Restoration intervened ere the work was accomplished, and Charles II. decided to preserve the forest in its original state.

It was difficult to suppress the licence engendered during the time of civil strife. Eventually the duchy authorities overreached themselves by attempting to impose a new code of by-laws of great severity and doubtful legality.

About the year 1680, “the gentlemen, freeholders and others who have right of Common in the Forest or Chace of Needwood” drew up a petition (printed as a broadsheet) to the House of Commons, protesting against the arbitrary orders of Earl Stamford, as chancellor of the duchy, recently published, and asking relief, as their ancient rights and liberties were being invaded. The chief of these orders were—a fine of 10_s._ and forfeiture of cattle bearing a counterfeit mark; a fine of £10 apiece to the informer and forfeiture of cattle privately removed out of the forest after notice of a public drift; a fine of 5_s._, or 6_s._ 8_d._ in the case of a keeper, for conveying grist to any other mill than the Wood Mill; a month’s imprisonment for taking any crabtree, whitethorn, holly, or hazel out of the forest or parks; 6_s._ 8_d._ fine for each beast on any commoner or other person foddering cattle in the forest between the Feast of St. Andrew and the end of March; the forfeiture of all swine in the forest save in crab-time, and a like forfeiture and fine of 3_s._ 4_d._ on every swine insufficiently rung; sheep pasturing in forest to be forfeited, and 12_s._ a day fine for each sheep. These orders and others of a like nature had appeared under the great seal of the duchy, and had been read in all the parish churches within or about the forest to the great disturbance of the people. The petitioners protested against the exorbitant character of the fines and forfeitures, the setting up of informers by great rewards, and the imprisonment of their persons, claiming that such penalties could not be imposed save by Act of Parliament.

Notwithstanding, however, the damage done to the forest in the Civil War, and the little check put upon depredations in the earlier part of the reign of Charles II., the timber of Needwood was at this period by far the finest in any English forest. A careful survey made in 1684 showed that the number of good trees in the four wards was 38,218, valued at £25,744 19_s._ 6_d._; whilst those in the parks brought up the total to 47,150, with a complete value of £28,637 11_s._ 6_d._ The hollies and underwood were valued at an additional £2,000.

“Many of the treese are of soe large dimensions and length,
that there may be picked out such great quantityes of excellent
plank and other tymber, fitt for shipping, as is not to be
found in any of your majestie’s other forests in England; most
parts of this where the best tymber growes, lyeing within 12 or
14 miles of the navigable parte of the river Trent.”

The abundance of the deer proved an irresistible temptation to the poorer of the commoners, and though the gentlemen and yeomen did not exactly turn deer-stealers themselves, as in some of the southern forests, there was much sympathy with the poachers, who checked the depredations of the deer, and kept the country houses illicitly supplied with venison. The parks leased by the Crown to private individuals were rigorously protected; but the open stretches of the forest in the eighteenth century, though nominally well supplied with high-born officials and underkeepers or foresters, were, to a great extent, a prey to marauders.

An undated account of the duchy forests, _temp._ George I., at the Public Record Office, states that Needwood forest had been granted to William Duke of Devonshire, William Marquis of Hartington, and Henry Lord Cavendish, with the offices of steward of the honor, constable of the Castle of Tutbury, lieutenant of the forest, master of the game, and bailiff of the new liberties. Castlehay Park had been granted in 1677 for ninety-nine years to Henry Seymour. The parks of Hanbury and Tutbury, for a like period, in 1698, to Edward Vernon; and two of the other parks at the same, and also for ninety-nine years, to Sir John Turton.

Mr. Mundy, the poet of Needwood, left it on record that he had known and conversed with a gentleman of the district, who had been high-sheriff of Staffordshire in the reign of George II., who used to boast how many deer poachers he had got off when arrested by the keepers, and how well they used to keep his table supplied with venison.

After considerable opposition, Needwood was at last disafforested by special Act of Parliament in 1804. The damage done to cultivation by the straying deer was no doubt excessive, and there were other distinct drawbacks to its continuance as a forest. Nevertheless, the general scheme of enclosure naturally aroused keen resentment among the lovers of its picturesque beauties and historic associations. Mr. F. N. C. Mundy, who had printed a stilted poem in 1776, called _Needwood Forest_, after the classical descriptive style then in vogue, produced, in 1808, a wild screed termed _The Fall of Needwood_, which, by its very extravagance, caused the utilitarian view to be the more appreciated. The following passage is a fair example of the character and style of its forty-five pages:—

’Twas Avarice with his harpy claws,
Great Victim! rent thy guardian laws;
Loos’d Uproar with his ruffian bands;
Bade Havoc show his crimson’d hands;
Grinn’d a coarse smile, as thy last deer
Dropp’d in thy lap a dying tear;
Exulted in his schemes accurst,
When thy pierc’d heart, abandon’d, burst;
And glozing on the public good,
Insidious demon! suck’d thy blood.
Detested ever be that day,
Which left thee a defenceless prey!
May never sun its presence cheer!
O be it blotted from the year!

CANNOCK CHASE

There were two other Staffordshire forests besides Needwood—Cannock Chase and Kinver, both of which require investigating. The exigencies of space prohibit more than very brief references to them in these pages.

Cannock Chase, notwithstanding its name, was an extensive royal forest. It seems to have taken its title from the Bishop of Lichfield’s Chase, fifteen miles in circuit, which was within the forest limits, and proved a constant source of grievance to the king’s foresters. General Wrottesley has printed the pleas of the forest of Cannock for 1262, 1271, and 1286, in Vol. V. of _Historical Collections for a History of Staffordshire_ (1884); they abound in interest as to the venison and vert presentments, and the assarts and wastes of woods that came before the justices at these eyres. A venison offender in 1271 was pardoned, for the soul of the king, because he was poor and a minstrel, and two others were respited and forgiven non-attendance because they were in the Holy Land. One Thomas de Bromley, a very frequent malefactor of venison, and often indicted for trespasses in the king’s forests in Staffordshire and Salop, was caught with bow and arrows in the bailiwick of Teddesley, on Tuesday after the Feast of St. Gregory, 1267, by Walter de Elmedon, forester-of-fee of that bailiwick, and Roger de Pecham, riding forester for the whole forest. The foresters challenged him, whereupon Thomas climbed up an oak tree and shot arrows at them, until they took him by force and delivered him to the warden of the castle of Bridgnorth. There were many presentments at this eyre for the killing of roe deer.

Hugh de Evesham, a former riding forester, with other ex-foresters, were presented for stopping all carts passing through their bailiwicks with salt and other merchandise on the high roads, taking 4_d._ at least in the name of cheminage, and for other carts, 1_s._, and in some cases 2_s._ And this was done when the carts were not laden with timber or brushwood or anything from the forest, and when the carters were committing no forest trespass.

In 1276 when the king’s huntsmen were hunting in Cannock Chase, they put up a hart with their dogs and followed it to Brewood Park. There John de la Wytemore came up with bow and arrow and shot at it; the hart fled out of the forest to the fishpond of the nuns of Brewood. John followed it and dragged it out dead from the pond. Then John Gyffard, of Chyllynton, came up, said he had pursued the hart, and claimed the whole of it. They skinned it; John Gyffard took half of it, and the nuns had the other half. This case was brought before the justices at the eyre of 1286. The nuns were pardoned for the good of the king’s soul, as they were poor. Although the hart was taken outside the forest, it was the king’s chase and put up by his dogs within the forest, and taken in front of them against the assize. The sheriff was therefore ordered to arrest the two Johns; they were taken and committed to prison, but released on paying the respective fines of a mark and 20s. The case of the wolf killing a buck in this forest in 1281 has been already cited.

The Close Rolls of Edward I. give evidence, from the various royal gifts, of a good supply of fallow deer, with a smaller number of red deer on the forest or chase of Cannock. In August, 1277, the king ordered the keeper of Cannock Forest to permit William de Middleton, Archdeacon of Canterbury, to take by his men all the fat harts and bucks that were fit to kill that season, and to aid and counsel the men in so doing. In the same month, 1279, the king granted Roger Mortimer ten bucks and two harts from Cannock. In 1280 Anthony Bek had four bucks, Richard de Tybetot the same number, and Philip Marmyon three. In 1282, Ralph de Hengham had six bucks, Henry de Shaventon, Reginald de Legh, and Otto de Grandi Sono four each, and the Prior of Stone one, all out of this forest as gifts from the king. Ralph Basset, of Drayton, had six bucks in 1283. Roger Lestrange, justice of the forest, was instructed, in July, 1284, to cause the Bishop of Worcester to have twelve bucks of the king’s gift out of the forest of Cannock; and in the same year Reginald de Legh received two bucks. On December 28th, 1284, the king sent word to Roger Lestrange that if the order given in the summer for the bucks for the Bishop of Worcester had not been executed, it was to be changed to six live bucks and six live does from Cannock, to stock that prelate’s park at Alvechurch.

The king was also generous with timber gifts, oaks from Cannock for building purposes being bestowed on the priory of St. Thomas, Stafford, the priory of Cokehill, and the Franciscan friars of Lichfield. When the king was at Brewood in 1278, near Wolverhampton, a fire broke out; the justice of the forest was ordered to supply from Cannock four oaks to Henry le Mercer, of Brewood, Dean of Lichfield, four oaks to Philip le Clerk, and two oaks to Widow Amice, to aid in the rebuilding of their lately burnt houses.

KINVER FOREST

The presentments at the Staffordshire eyres in Edward I.’s reign for the smaller forest of Kinver have also been printed by General Wrottesley.

The Close Rolls of the same reign contain many references to the forest of Kinver. In August, 1278, the king instructed Henry de Ribbeford to cause thirty bucks to be taken for him in the forests of Kinver and Cannock, as should be agreed upon between the respective keepers. Grimbald Pauncefote obtained three Kinver bucks in the same year. In 1281 four live hinds were granted to Ralph Basset from Kinver to help to stock his park of Drayton. A further proof that red as well as fallow roamed over Kinver is the grant of six harts to Edmund Mortimer in 1286. Two years later John, the son of Philip, the keeper of Kinver Forest, was ordered to deliver all eyries of falcons found that year in the forest to John Corbet, the king’s falconer, to be kept for the king’s use.

In 1282 the king ordered the release from prison of Richard Saladyn, who was in gaol at Bridgnorth for venison trespass. Bridgnorth was the prison for this forest, as well as for Cannock; the official calendar of these Close Rolls has made the amusing mistake of putting Saladyn in prison at Bruges, in Belgium! _Bruges_ was the usual Latinised form for the town of Bridgnorth.

Among Edward I.’s timber grants from Kinver were six oaks to Margery de Wigornia, a nun of St. Wystan, Worcester; six oaks to the master of St. Wolfstan’s, Worcester; ten oaks for fuel to Contisse Loretti, wife of Roger de Clifford, a forest justice; and twenty oaks for shingles to Anthony Bek.

The perambulation roll of 1299-1300 shows the considerable extent of Kinver Forest at that date. Part of Arley, with Ashwood and Pensnet Chase, in addition to the parish of Kinver, were included in the forest, as well as part of Morfe in Shropshire; but the greater part of Kinver Forest then lay in Worcestershire, for it embraced Pechmore, Hagley, Old Swinford, Chaddesley, Kidderminster, Wolverley, Churchill, and part of Feckenham, in addition to Tordebig, in Warwickshire.

Nevertheless, although most of its area was in Worcestershire, and its prison in Shropshire, Kinver Forest, taking its title from the small Staffordshire town of that name, was always reckoned as a forest of the last of these three shires.