Chapter XVII: The Forests of Shropshire, Worcester, Warwick, and Hereford

SHROPSHIRE

One of the earliest references to a technical forest in Salop is of the year 1204, when King John issued his charter to certify that he “had altogether disafforested his forest of Brewood in all respects partaining to a forest or foresters; wherefore the said forest and the men who dwelt therein and their heirs were to be disafforested for ever, and quit of the king and his heirs in all those same respects.” This district and forest of Brewood was partly in Shropshire and partly in Staffordshire. Notwithstanding, however, the particularly precise terms of the charter of 1204, the inhabitants of Brewood were by no means quit of their fickle and lawless king, for at the forest pleas of 1209, cited by Eyton, the knights and men of Salop and Stafford living in Brewood gave the king 100 marks to be for ever disafforested, so that they of Salop who had hunted or taken beasts in the Salop park of Brewood might bear their share with those of Stafford. From this latter date Brewood seems to have genuinely ceased to be under forest jurisdiction.

But there are other more interesting records in the time of John as to Salop forests. The chief forest district of this time was that long known as Morf Forest. It took its name from the Staffordshire village of Morf, where the break began between that forest and the forest of Kinver. Its northern boundary, afterwards maintained, was determined by the river Worf (passing through Worfield) for several miles before it falls into the Severn a little above Bridgnorth, and from there it stretched south to its name-village. For about the first two centuries of the Norman occupation it was at least eight miles in length and about six in breadth, but it became curtailed by the forest charter of Henry III., and still more so in the days of Edward I., and was wholly in the county of Salop. The bounds are ably dealt with in Eyton’s _Salop_.

Pleas of the forest were held at Shrewsbury on March 14th, 1209, before Hugh Neville and Peter de Lion. A very curious case was brought before the justices. A certain hart entered the bailey of the castle of Bridgnorth through the postern gate; the guards took it and carried it into the castle. When the forest verderers heard the news, they demanded of Thomas de Erdinton, the sheriff, what had been done with the hart. He acknowledged the offence, and promised that his men should come before the justices, and the town of Bridgnorth was attached for the offence. Thomas de Erdinton was sheriff of both Salop and Staffordshire through most of John’s reign, and a royal favourite; the calling of him to account for such a matter as this by the local verderers is a proof of the stringency of the forest laws at that date.

Another interesting case at this eyre is set forth in the translation given by Mr. Turner, involving the seeking sanctuary in a church.

“Richard of Holton, Wilkin of Eastlegh, Hulle of Hinton, and Hulle Roebuck, the serjeants of the county, found venison in the house of Hugh le Scot. And Hugh fled to the church; and when the foresters and verderers came thither, they demanded of Hugh whence that venison came. And he and a certain other person, Roger of Wellington by name, acknowledged that they had killed a hind from which that venison came. And he refused to leave the church, but lingered there for a month; and afterwards escaped in the guise of a woman. And he is a fugitive; and Roger of Wellington likewise. It is ordered that they be exacted, and unless they come let them be outlawed.”

The sheriff of Salop was ordered, in 1274, to see that all the venison taken for the king’s use in the forest of that county was forwarded without delay to Westminster, to be there delivered to the keeper of the king’s larder.

In the following year John Fitzhugh, the keeper of the forest, was instructed to permit Roger de Mortimer or his men to take three harts for the king’s use. In 1277 the same keeper was instructed to permit the Bishop of St. Asaph to take all the wood he required for fuel for that year from the wood of the Wrekin, as the king’s gift.

In 1284 the king issued his mandate to the justices and other forest ministers not to molest the Bishop of Bath and Wells, as he had the royal licence to take timber in the king’s demesne lands, hays, and woods within the bounds of the forest of Salop, for the construction of a manor house at Acton Burnell, his native place. Two years later a still wider and exceptional licence was granted to Robert the bishop and to Hugh Burnell, his brother, in consideration of the great services the bishop had rendered the king from his earliest years, to fell and take away to his manor great and small timber, without livery, view, or other impediment in the woods of Candover, Wolstanton, Frodsley, Hope Bowdler, Corston, and Rushbury, within the forest bounds.

Space does not suffice to treat further of the forest of Morf, or, as it was sometimes called, the forest of Bridgnorth, but in connection with this county, rather than Worcestershire, brief attention must be given to Bewdley forest, which, under its more ancient style of Wyre forest, was so vast a district that it gave its name to a whole county; for Wyre-ceastre, or Worcester, was a Roman station in this forest. When the days of Norman forestry arrived, the primeval state of this great woodland district had materially changed. Wyre forest at that period no longer extended in an unbroken sweep along the Severn to Worcester; but though a portion of its southern extremity was in Worcestershire, by far the larger part of it occupied the south of Shropshire. Eyton gives good reasons for supposing that the Shropshire part of Wyre forest, pertaining to the great manors of Cleobury and Kinlet, belonged to the Crown in Saxon days, but that subsequently it went to William Fitz-Osborn, Earl of Hereford, and then to Ralph Mortimer. The forest rule that the Mortimers endeavoured to maintain, together with the persistence in the use of the term “forest” rather than the chace, point strongly to its being originally under sovereign rule. The best summary of the story of Wyre forest is to be found in Eyton’s _Shropshire_ (iv., 276-9), where he tells us that at the time when Prince Edward was embarking for Palestine, in 1270, this forest was fenced for miles to prevent any depredation of the deer in the adjacent cultivated districts. But Roger de Mortimer took occasion of his powerful position to enlarge his rights as though royal, and to level no less than two leagues of this fence, so as to give free transit to the deer to the great havoc of the country. Moreover, Mortimer arrogated to himself a right of free chace, not only in Wyre forest, but in the manor of his tenants at Kinlet and Baveney, and even in those of the king’s tenants of Stottesden and Bardley, as set forth by the jurors of Stottesden in the Hundred Rolls of 1274.

The forest of Clee, somewhat further to the north in this county, also bears witness, by the general maintenance of that name rather than Clee chase, to its former royal rights. The attempts of the Cliffords to re-establish therein quasi-royal forest jurisdiction are also dealt with by Mr. Eyton (v., 196-202).

WORCESTERSHIRE

In early days there was probably no part of England more generally covered with woodland than the district afterwards known as Worcestershire. In the Norman time there were five forest districts within the shire: Wyre, Feckenham, Ombersley, Horewell, and Malvern.

Of Wyre forest mention has just been made under Shropshire. The Crown maintained certain forest rights over the Worcestershire or Bewdley part of this ancient forest as late as the time of Elizabeth, as shown by certificates at the Public Record Office: “Two of her majesty’s regarders or presservators of woods in Bewdley Park and Forest of Wyre” received a warrant in 1587 from the Lord President of Marches for felling 200 loads of firewood for use at Her Majesty’s house called “Tycknell”; and six timber trees were to be supplied for the repair of the west chamber there, called Yew Lodging, and another one for repairs to the stable. Henry Blount, of Bewdley, gentleman, was keeper of Bewdley park, and claimed all the lop and top of these seven timber trees as his fee. The two regarders, or rather woodwards, reported that a hollow timber tree had been set on fire in the park, and that they appealed to Blount to save it; he told them to fell it, which they did, intending it for the lord president, but Blount seized it. They also reported that no person was allowed to take out any dead tree, windfall, rootfall, or stub, “unless the same be first by us vewed and prised and sealed with our sealinge axe.”

Ombersley forest began at the north gate of Worcester and extended along the banks of the Severn; it had originally been part of the great forest of Wyre.

Horewell forest began at the south gate, and extended along the eastern road to Spetchley and across the Avon. Both Horewell and Ombersley ceased to be forest districts under the Forest Charter of Henry III.

Malvern forest, or rather chase, extended from the river Teme in the north towards Gloucestershire in the south, and from the Severn to the top of the Malvern Hills. In Nash’s _Worcestershire_ (i., lxxiv., etc.) there is some interesting information as to the considerable rights pertaining to the lord of the free chase of Malvern, which are discussed by Mr. Turner in his _Forest Pleas_ (cix.-cxiii.), and clearly point to the district having once been royal forest. For instance, the dogs of this extensive chase were lawed twice in seven years. This lawing, locally termed “hombling,” differed somewhat from the method prescribed in true forests by the Forest Charter. All dogs that could not or would not be drawn through a strap of eighteen inches and a barley-corn in length had the further joints of the two middle claws cut away, for which operation the owner was amerced in the sum of 3_s._ 1_d._

Leland, _temp._ Henry VIII., says: “The Chase of Malvern is biggar than 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.” It was granted by Edward I. to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, on his marriage with Jean d’Acres, the king’s daughter. From that date it ceased to be under true forest law, being in the hands of a subject; but down to the reign of Charles I. there were verderers, foresters, and other ministers of the chase.

The best account of Malvern Chase is that which appeared in volume v. of the _Journal of Forestry_, by Mr. Edwin Lees.

Feckenham forest, on the east of the county, was of considerable extent. A perambulation of Edward I. shows that it began at the Foregate, Worcester, passed to Beverburn by Stowe to Bordesley, round by Evesham to Spetchley, and so to Sidbury. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was not infrequently termed the forest of Worcester. The following are some of the references to this forest in the Patent and Close Rolls of Edward I.:—

Pardon was granted in 1290 to the Bishop of Worcester, John Gifford, Richard Archer, and Hugh de Aston, for a fine of 500 marks made by the bishop for himself and the others, for venison and vert trespasses in Feckenham forest. A pardon was about the same time granted to the prioress of Westwood for like trespasses. In this year grant was made to Eleanor the king’s consort, who held the forest by Edward’s grant, to hold pleas of vert and other trespasses through her stewards and bailiffs every six weeks, and to take fines due for the same to her own use, save pleas of venison and those which belonged to the regard and agistment of the forest; also all attachments of indicted persons and venison trespassers, provided that all persons indicted of venison were imprisoned at Feckenham, and then bailed against the next eyre of the justices. In the same year Walter de Aylesbury was pardoned all venison trespasses up-to-date, on condition of surrendering his bailiwick in Feckenham forest. A special commission had been appointed to inquire into the venison and vert trespasses said to have been committed both by foresters and other ministers, and this resignation was one of the results.

Edward II., in 1293, granted for life to James Beauchamp liberty of hunting with his own dogs, in all the foreign woods and groves without the great covert of the forest of Feckenham, the hare, fox, badger, and wildcat whenever he will, save in the fence month; provided that he took none of the king’s deer, and did not hunt in the warrens.

Licence was granted in 1294, after inquisition, by John de Selvestrode, keeper of this forest, to Grimbald Pauncefote, who was going to Gascony on the king’s service, to sell wood to the value of 100 marks out of such parts of his wood of Bentley, at the least damage to the forest.

When a perambulation was taken of Feckenham forest in 1300, it was stated there was no forester-of-fee, and no verderer for that part which was within the county of Warwick.

The king made a considerable sojourn at Feckenham in April, 1301; during that visit he granted a pardon to William de Stapelhurst for taking a buck in this forest, and carrying it away.

Feckenham was finally disafforested in 1629.

WARWICKSHIRE

Early references to the forest of Warwickshire seem to apply to that small part of the Feckenham forest (Worcestershire), which extended into the south-west border of the former county, lying between the river Arrow and the boundary of the two shires, and which was added to Feckenham in the reign of John. The perambulation of 1300 states that there was no forester nor verderer pertaining to the county, and that at the date of the coronation of Henry II. there was no forest anywhere in Warwickshire.

The great woodland district of the Forest of Arden is so closely associated with the north-west of Warwickshire that unless the technical meaning of forest is borne in mind, the assertion of the jurors, in the time of Edward I., as to its absence would seem remarkably strange.

HEREFORDSHIRE

When special forest inquisitions were being held in 1219 and again in 1224, particular instructions were issued with reference to a detailed regard, and mandates were directed to the sheriff and others of Herefordshire with reference to the forest of Hereford. Probably all that was meant by that term was the south-east portion of the county that was included within the bounds and purlieus of Dean forest, Gloucestershire. A large portion of the hundred of Greytree had been made forest under Henry II. and John, but this was duly disafforested by the Forest Charter of Henry III. An entry in the register of Bishop Swinfield shows that when the bishop was at Ross, on a visitation tour, in 1206, his huntsmen killed a young stag in his chase of Penyard, but a dispute arose between the bishop’s servants and the king’s foresters of Dean, whether the place where the stag was caught was not within the forest. An inquest was held at Howl Hill, when the jury declared that it was lawfully caught within the episcopal chase.