Chapter XXV: The Forests of Sussex

In early historic days, almost the whole of Sussex, together with considerable parts of Kent and Surrey, formed one great forest, called by the Britons Coit Andred, from its vast extent. The Saxons called it Andredes-weald, which was doubtless adapted from the Anderida Silva of the Roman Itineraries. The Saxon Chronicle, under date 893, gives its extent as 120 miles long from east to west, and thirty miles in breadth. That considerable part of the county which remained forest or open till much later days—some, indeed, until the present time—was known as the Forest Ridge; it formed the elevated district of the north-eastern part of the county, and stretched in a north-westerly direction along the borders of Surrey. The principal sections of this are still known as the forests of St. Leonard and of Ashdown.

Young, in his _Agricultural Survey_, at the end of the eighteenth century, said: “A great proportion of these hills is nothing better than the poorest barren sand, the vegetable covering consisting of ferns, heath, etc. St. Leonard’s Forest contains 10,000 acres of it, and Ashdown 18,000 more, besides many thousand acres in various other parts of the county.”

Ashdown forest is described by Mr. Turner, in a good paper contributed to the collections of the Sussex Archæological Society (vol. xiv.), as consisting of about 10,000 acres, situated in the parishes of Maresfield, Fletching, East Grinstead, Hartfield, Withyham, and Buxted. It formed part of the honor of Pevensey, and from 53 Henry III. was invested in the Crown in perpetuity, and hence was a technical forest under forest law, a position that it did not lose when it came to John of Gaunt in 44 Edward III. It reverted to the Crown, with the rest of the Duchy of Lancaster, until the time of Charles II., when it was formally disafforested, and found its way into the hands of speculators in waste lands. Various Tudor commissions show that the timber suffered severely from the inroads made on it to supply charcoal for the iron foundries.

In the early part of Edward I.’s reign, the free chace and warren of Ashdown were held by the king’s mother. Proceedings were taken in 1283 against divers persons for hunting and carrying away deer and rabbits from her park at Maresfield. In 1297, Edward I. granted Thomas Paynel licence for life to hunt with his own dogs, the fox, hare, cat, and badger in the king’s forest of Ashdown except during fence month; it was also specially stipulated that he did not take deer, nor course in the king’s warrens. On 30th July of that year, the king appointed Walter Waldeshef to the bailiwick of the forestership of Ashdown, on condition that he answered for the same in like manner as his predecessors. Ashdown was a favourite hunting resort of James I., and it was well stocked with deer. The Parliamentary Survey of its seven wards is extant, as well as a great variety of papers of earlier date. The history of this and the other forests of Sussex yet remains to be written, though certain contributions in that direction were made by Mr. W. S. Ellis in his _Parks and Forests of Sussex_, published in 1885.

St. Leonards Forest lies north-east of Horsham, and forms part of the great parish of Beeching. It would be more correct to speak of St. Leonards Chace; the whole body of the forest law never prevailed here, as it was granted in early days by the Crown to the Braose family. An entry in the Patent Rolls of 1st September, 1295, relative to a raid in this district on deer, hares, rabbits, pheasants, herons, and fish, when the owner was absent on the king’s service in Wales, styles it the free chace of William Braose, called the forest of St. Leonards (_liberam chaciam Willelmi de Brewosa que vocatur foresta sancti Leonardi_). Four years later a like entry on the same rolls relative to deer poaching describes it as the free chace of William Braose at St. Leonards.

The forest of Arundel, though of limited extent, was well stocked, and formed an important adjunct of the honor of Arundel. The forest pertained to the earls of Arundel, as is stated in the Close Rolls of 1206, but during a long minority in the time of Henry III., and again in the time of Edward I., came under the control of the Crown. The chief point of interest in its history is the disputes that arose as to the deer between the earls and the archbishops of Canterbury, who claimed the hunting. There was an appeal to Rome on the subject in 1238, and it was not until 1258 that the renewed disputes were finally settled by an agreement that the archbishop might, on giving notice to the forest ministers, hunt once a year when going to or returning from his manor of Slindon, with six greyhounds, but with no other kind of dogs, nor with bows; and that if more than one beast was taken by the party, the remainder were to be handed over to the earl. It was also stipulated that the earl and his heirs should annually deliver thirteen bucks and thirteen does to the archbishop at the proper season.