Chapter XXII: The Forest of Dean

The history of this important forest has received far more attention at the hands of local historians than has usually been the case with the ancient wastes of other counties. In Atkyn’s _Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire_ (1768), it is accounted the third in size of the forty-eight ancient forests of England, and a fair outline of its history is given. This account is materially supplemented in Rudder’s _New History of Gloucestershire_ (1779), and was further followed up in Bigland’s _Historical Collections_ (1741). The third report (115 folio pages) of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, 1783-97, is almost wholly given up to the consideration of Dean Forest. Many of these facts are to be found in Fosbroke’s _Record of Gloucestershire_ (1807). The Rev. H. G. Nicholls, in 1858, published an _An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Forest of Dean_, which covered 286 pages, and to this he added, in 1863, a supplementary volume on _The Personalities of the Forest of Dean_, containing much fresh information.

There is still, however, so large an amount of unused material extant with regard to the history of this forest, that a monograph, which promises to be of an exhaustive character, is now (1905) in course of preparation. All that can be here attempted is to give a very brief outline of the forest annals, citing a variety of information that has not hitherto been published.

The forest of Dean forms a considerable division in the west of Gloucestershire, and comprises about 30,000 acres between the rivers Severn and Wye. Of its great dimensions Michael Drayton thus sings in his _Polyolbion_:—

——Queen of forests all that west of Severn lie,
Her broad and bushy top Dean holdeth up so high,
The lesser are not seen, she is so tall and large.

It derives its name from Dean, the old market town of that name within the forest bounds. The tithes of the forest venison were granted by Henry I. to the abbey of Gloucester. Henry II. granted to the abbey of Flaxley, founded in 1140, the right to have two forges for the making of iron in the forest, one stationary and the other itinerant. For the feeding of these forges the abbey was allowed two trees every week. The keepership of the forest was usually associated with the custody of the castle of St. Briavel, which is said to have been built by Milo, Earl of Hereford, in the reign of Henry I.

The restless King John, as is shown from his itinerary, was frequently sojourning in the forest between the years 1207 and 1214, doubtless for purposes of the chase; he generally stopped a day or two both at the abbey of Flaxley and the castle of St. Briavel during his visits. In February, 1215, when staying at Marlborough, he directed Hugh de Nevill to permit William de Cliff to take four hinds in the forest of Dean, and John de Monmouth and Walter de Lasey three each. In June, 1216, the king appointed John de Monmouth to the custody of the castle of St. Briavel and to the keepership of the forest, and directed the verderers, foresters, and other officials to submit themselves to him as the king’s bailiff. Two months later John instructed the newly-appointed keeper to find everything that was necessary for Alberic, his huntsman, with twelve dogs, two horses, two grooms, and a berner.

On 30th September, 1216, John wrote from Lincoln to the constable of St. Briavel, ordering that cattle were only to be agisted on the fringes of the forest, and not in the forest itself, nor in those places frequented by the wild boars (_porci silvestres_).

The Close Rolls of Henry III. abound in references to this great Gloucestershire waste, but lack of space prevents the majority of these cases being cited here.

Boar hunting at this period was sufficiently important for Henry III. to grant in 1226 a tithe of the boars thus killed to the abbey of Gloucester. In December of that year the king was hunting here in person, and he instructed Roger de Clifford to hand over to the sheriff of Gloucester, for due conveyance, five great boars, fifteen hinds, and the rest of the results of the royal hunt. In the summer of the following year the king was supplied with ten harts from this forest. In July, 1231, when John, the huntsman, was taking harts for the king’s use at Dean, he was ordered to dispatch a hart without delay to Eleanor, the king’s cousin. From these and many later entries it is quite clear that the red deer largely predominated in Dean forest during the first half of the thirteenth century, though there was a small admixture of fallow deer; but the proportions were reversed before the time Edward I. came to the throne.

The regulations with regard to the forges of this forest for iron-making were frequent, stringent, and changeable. The necessity for limiting them arose from the quantity of fuel they required. The manor of Cantelupe had early chartered right to an itinerant forge, and endeavours were made from time to time to confine its consumption to dry or windfallen wood. In 1228 the king gave orders that there were not to be more than three itinerant forges worked by the royal servants. In the following year the abbot of Faxley was ordered to confine his itinerant forge to the thorn thickets (_spissitudinibus_) on the confines of the forest. So much difficulty arose from the abbey’s insistence on its old chartered rights to two forges, that in 1244 the Crown compromised the matter by the handsome grant of 872 acres of woodland in exchange for the charter’s surrender.

In 1225 Henry III. granted a recluse, or hermit, named Panye de Lench, four acres of land in the forest and two oaks wherewith to build himself a house.

It is stated in Nicholls’ history of this forest that the first recorded perambulation took place in the reign of Edward I., but this is an error. A perambulation was undertaken by an inquest of twelve knights in 1228, with the result that the bounds were declared to be the same as in the days of Henry II. The forest occupied the whole peninsula ground between the Wye and the Severn, proceeding north-east as far as Newent, and north as far as Ross, save that the Bishop of Hereford had a chase in the wood of Laxpeniard, and the Earl Marshal a warren at Tudenham.

Forest pleas were held in 1258 and again in 1270. The next eyre was in 10 Edward I., when the bounds of 28 Henry III. were confirmed. At that date there were nine bailiwicks in the forest, each under the charge of an hereditary forester-in-fee, and all subordinate to the constable of St. Briavel, who was the keeper, or master forester, of the whole. He also had the special charge of the tenth bailiwick of Rywardyn. The nine other bailiwicks and their respective foresters were Abbenhalle, under Ralph de Abbenhalle; Blakeney, under Walter de Astune; Bleythe, under Ralph Hatheway; Berse, under William Wodeard; Bicknoure, under Cecilia de Michegros; the Lea, under Nicholas de Lacu; Great Dean, then in the hands of the king; Little Dean, under Ralph de Abbenhalle; and Stauntene, under Richard de la More. The verderers were four in number, and elected, as elsewhere, by the freeholders for life, but removable by the Crown.

Of these pleas of the forest of Dean, which were held at Gloucester in the octave of St. Hilary, 1282, before Luke de Thany, Adam Gurdon, Richard de Crepping, and Peter de Lench, justices, exceptionally long details are extant. The first membrane is taken up with twenty-seven _essoins de morte_, established in each case by the appearance of the heir, near relative, or some other responsible person; and with the names of fifty-eight persons who surrendered themselves on the first day of the session for venison trespasses, ten for vert trespasses, and two for heath-burning. Fines, varying from 12_d._ to 40_d._ were imposed on upwards of seventy persons for non-appearance. Among the vert presentments were charges of taking timber for sale by boat to Bristol, and a few cases of charcoal burning.

The presentments of venison trespasses were very numerous; they cover both sides of eight long membranes. They are arranged chronologically, beginning in 1271, after the last eyre, when the Earl of Warwick was keeper of the forest, and continuing through the keepership of Philip Wyther and Walter de Snape up to the year of the eyre.

The great majority of the cases are concerned with fallow deer, but in a few cases the killing of red deer, and in two instances roe deer are recorded. Boats on the river were much used by venison as well as vert trespassers.

The regard of the forest, which had been taken in preparation for the eyre, is set forth in great detail on six membranes—the old and new assarts, the old and new purprestures, and the survey and destruction of woods. In the last case it was presented that the wood of chestnuts had much deteriorated since the last eyre, through the bad custody of Ralph Abbenhall, the forester-in-fee of the baily of Abbenhall. The regarders found there thirty-four stumps of chestnuts that had recently been felled, of which Roger de Clifford, the justice, had had two for making tables. A wood of sweet chestnuts was a great rarity in England, and evidently much prized. When Henry II. founded Flaxley abbey, he gave the monks the tithes of the chestnuts of Dean. The old name for Flaxley, as mentioned in the foundation charter, was the valley of Castiard, a place-name probably derived from the presence of the chestnut trees. The vert presentments of this eyre show that the chestnut, from its rarity, was about three times the value of the oak, namely, 8_s._ a tree.

The regarders also reported as to the boats owned by the tenants, which were so often used for the illegal exporting of wood and timber. The regarders estimated the damage done to the king by each boat in sums varying from half a mark to forty shillings. These sums, with a usual additional fine of 12_d._, were exacted by the justices.

This highly interesting roll of forest pleas, one of the fullest extant, which specially deserves being printed _in extenso_, concludes with long lists of mainpernors or the givers of bail, and with statements of claims to liberties and the names of the attorneys by whom they were supported.

At the time of this eyre there were found to be, according to Nicholls, no fewer than seventy-two of the itinerary or movable forges within the forest; the Crown received for licensing them 7_s._ each a year.

Mr. Nicholls has printed much concerning the receipts and expenditure of this Crown forest, from the Pipe Rolls of 1130 downwards, and this could easily be supplemented by further particulars, especially of the reign of Edward II. Throughout the fourteenth century the forest of Dean was frequently called upon to furnish considerable contingents of archers and miners to serve in the wars with Scotland and France. In 1316 the men of the forest also took a prominent part in the suppression of Welsh disturbances. Three commissioners of array were appointed in February for the purpose of raising a force of 1,000 foot soldiers in the forest of Dean and elsewhere in the county of Gloucester, who were to be marched, at the king’s wages, against Llewellyn Bren and his followers.

In 1316, tithes to the value of £10 issuing from the iron mines in the parish of Newland were granted to the Bishop of Llandaff; but this assignment met with great opposition at the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford, who sent their servants to use forcible resistance. In the following reign this dispute was settled in favour of the bishop, who also obtained the great tithes of Newland and the advowson of the vicarage. In 1324 the Earl of Pembroke was ordered to cause his ministers to desist from hindering the abbot of Gloucester from felling wood for his houses and for fuel in the woods of Bridewode and Hopemaloysel within the forest bounds, as he held an ancient chartered privilege.

Edward III., in 1329, granted to Guy de Brien, the farmer and keeper of the forest, the cutting of all the underwood, to find wages for four foresters. In the same year Gilbert Talbot was licensed to impark and hold in fee-simple a plot called Haygrove, parcel of his manor of Lynton, Herefordshire, containing one hundred acres of land and fifteen acres of wood, which was within the metes of the forest in the time of Edward II., but had by perambulation been then placed outside the forest.

Notwithstanding their bravery and skill as soldiers, the inhabitants of some parts of the forest had an evil reputation as wreckers. Thus in 1344 a special commission was issued to deal with the persons who had attacked a ship of Majorca, laden with goods and wares, which had been driven ashore by stress of weather in the parts of the forest of Dean, and had plundered the master and mariners of the ship and others deputed to guard the goods, and this at a time when the king had entered into truces with his adversaries on every side.

Richard II., in 1391, granted the castle of St. Briavel and the forest of Dean, to the value of £80 a year, with assarts, purprestures, rents, advowsons, liberties, etc., to his uncle Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, in part satisfaction of the sum of £1,000 a year granted to him to maintain his ducal rank.

In the days of Henry VI. the character of the miners and tenants of the forest had grown worse. The men of Tewkesbury, in a petition to Parliament of 1430, charged them with attacking their vessels, by which they conveyed goods down the river to Bristol, “with great ryot and strengthe in manner of warre,” despoiling them of their merchandise and their wheat, malt, and flour, sinking their boats and drowning those who resisted them.

The Crown was continuously appointing, during the latter part of the fifteenth century, to various offices in this forest, the duties of which were generally discharged by deputy, or granting charges on the receipts to their servants. Thus in 1480, Edward IV. granted to Robert Mutton, “gentilman,” the office of porter of St. Brivel and receiver of the forest of Dean; to William Sclatter, the king’s servant, in 1481, the parkership of Whightmede park and 4_d._ daily from the forest issues; and to John Grenehill, one of the Crown yeomen, in the same year, 6_d._ daily from the issues of the king’s mines. Richard III., in 1484-5, granted to George Hyett the office of riding forester, together with that of “ale cunner” in the parish of Newland; and to John Peke the life office of one of the rangerships.

The suppression of the monasteries brought about much confusion in this and other forests. Dean forest was more especially effected by the dissolution of the abbeys of Flaxley and Tintern. The Kingstons, father and son, to whom much of the monastic properties and forest privileges were granted, were insistent on their rights, but failed to discharge the obligations that had been fulfilled by the religious houses.

It has been stated both by Fuller and Evelyn that the Spaniards so fully recognised the great value of Dean forest, as supplying the best timber for England’s navy, that special instructions were given to the admirals of the Armada, to accomplish the devastation of these woods, even if they were not able to subdue the nation and make good their conquest.

A grant was made to William Earl of Pembroke, in 1611, of the castle of St. Briavel and of the forest, with all its appurtenances, save the timber, for forty years at a rental of £83 13_s._ 4_d._ A survey of 1638 returned that the forest contained 105,557 trees, containing 61,928 tons of timber, in addition to 153,209 cords of underwood. An entire sale was thereupon made by the Crown to Sir John Wintour of all woods, mines, quarries, etc., within the forest in consideration of £106,000, to be paid by instalments, and a fee-farm rent of £1,950 12_s._ 8_d._ for ever. The commissioners and commoners agreed at this time to the disafforesting and enclosure of 18,000 acres.

Sir John Wintour, on entering into possession, made many enclosures, and grubbed up much timber and underwood; but the outbreak of the Civil War checked his proceedings, and the inhabitants threw down all the enclosures. For a time it seemed as if general lawlessness would bring about the destruction of all the woods, but Cromwell and the Parliament took vigorous measures for their preservation in 1648. An Act was passed in 1656 by which Wintour’s grant was declared void, and the whole forest was vested in the Protector for the use of the Commonwealth.

At the Restoration, however, Wintour again entered into possession, and began to re-enclose. The inhabitants offered strenuous resistance, and the matter was referred to a commission to survey and report. It was found that there were 25,929 oaks and 4,204 beeches, “as good timber as any in the world.” A new treaty was entered into with Wintour in 1661, by which he surrendered his former patent, and agreed to preserve 11,335 tons of shipping timber. It was, however, reported to the House in 1663 that Wintour had 500 cutters at work, and that the woods would all speedily disappear unless there was further interference. The work of destruction went merrily on until 1668, when it was decided by Act of Parliament that 11,000 acres might be enclosed by the Crown; that all the wood and timber on the remaining 13,000 acres was to be vested absolutely in the Crown and reafforested; that the deer on that waste were never to exceed 800; and that the winter heyning and fence month, when no kind of cattle were to be agisted, was to extend from St. Martin’s Day to St. George’s Day in April, and for fifteen days before and fifteen days after Midsummer.

Into the question of the pulling down of the king’s iron works in the forest, in 1674, and the establishment and continuance of the Mine Law Court, space prohibits us to enter. The more recent development of coal and iron industries in this beautiful district is also foreign to our purpose.

As to the deer, which seem to have been almost entirely fallow after the Restoration, they became much reduced in number by the end of the eighteenth century, although a most elaborate and costly staff of forest officials were maintained. The commission of 1788 found that there was a warden, six deputy wardens, four verderers, a steward of the swainmote court (which never sat), nine foresters-in-fee, nine woodwards, and six keepers! Mr. Charles Edwin, chief forester-of-fee and bow-bearer, told the commissioners that he was entitled to the right shoulder of all bucks and does killed in the forest, and to ten fee-bucks and ten fee-does annually; and that as bow-bearer it was his duty to attend the king with bow and arrow and with six men clothed in green whenever His Majesty might be pleased to hunt in the forest. But though receiving all his venison perquisites, this chief forester-of-fee was so ignorant of any corresponding duties, that he could not tell the commissioners the number of deer or anything as to venison warrants executed in the forest. From the six keepers the commissioners gained the vague information that they believed there were about 500 “of all sort” in the forest. The deer were finally all destroyed or removed from the forest in 1850, as the result of Lord Duncan’s committee of the previous year, to the number of about 150 bucks and 300 does. The general feeling at that time was that their presence had a demoralising effect as an inducement to poaching.