349 



The practice of extensive pasturage may be collected from the no- 

 tice in the Speculum Regale, {ante, p. 299,) and other evidence could 

 be adduced if necessary to the same point. That a considerable part 

 of the country, however, had relapsed into woods and forests, is 

 evinced by the well-known embassy from William Rufus to the before- 

 mentioned Turlough, to request " he might be furnished with a suffi- 

 cient quantity of Irish oak for the roof of Westminster Hall, that was 

 then building, and his request was gratified."* Tradition has named 

 the very district from which this supply was drawn, as the wood of 

 Shillelah, (County Wexford,) but Hanmer refers it to the neighbour- 

 hood of Dublin. " The fair green or common now called Ostman- 

 town Green was all wood, and he that diggeth at this day to any depth 

 shall find the ground full of great roots. From thence A. D. 1098, 

 king William Rufus, by license of Murchard, had that frame which 

 made up the roof of Westminster Hall, where (adds the doctor bit- 

 terly) no English spider webbeth or breedeth to this day.""!- Tasso 

 likewise, as we have seen, makes mention as of his day " dall* alte 

 selve " of Ireland, 



On the subject of roads, &;c. the Annals of the Four Masters 

 record the making of the road of Athleague in 1000, and Turlough 

 O'Conor is said to have erected bridges at Athleague, Athlone, and 

 Killaloe; they seem, however, to have been only of wood put together 

 in a very slender and perishable manner. It has been stated, |: that 

 the bridge and citadel of Athlone were destroyed by Murrough 



the Second, tlius speaks of the pastures about London. — "On the north side are fields for pas. 

 tare and meadows very pleasant, among which the river waters do flow, and the wheels of tlie 

 mills are turned about with a delightful noise." 



• Warner, vol. ii. p. 234. 



•|- Various other Enfflish abbeys and public edifices were roofed with the same material. 



t Ante, p. 266. 



