NATURAL HISTORY OF STTNNINGHILL. 



BY 0. S. BOUND, ESQ. /&jT > ttr'HM, 



(Continued from page 271.) I Y^(i'Y^;r£\< 



Chapter VIII. \^^2f^4 



Before I proceed again into detail I may as well conduct my reaTters 

 from the scenes which I have attempted to describe, to those changes 

 which time effects in a wild and open country, such as this was. And 

 now that the glorious panoply of armed hosts had deserted these quiet 

 scenes, no more to resound with the hoarse voice of the trumpet or the 

 shrill neigh of the charger; now that the gallant throng of mounted 

 Nimrods, led by their fine old monarch, with his burly presence and son- 

 orous voice, from which the ample and laced coat, the cocked hat and 

 wig, detracted nothing, had ceased to sweep the plain to the clear music 

 of the hound or the cheering cry of the huntsman, a change came o'er 

 the scene, and that free air of liberty and wild unrestraint which had so 

 long marked the region for its own, was doomed to be for ever banished. 

 An act was passed for inclosing the royal forests, and as these plains 

 were considered within the limits of that of Windsor, they were included 

 in its operation. Several wealthy individuals became large purchasers of 

 the crown lands, and to one in particular, who possessed already a park, 

 situated between that portion called "Beggar's Bush" and that designated 

 "Cheapside," nearly a thousand acres of the waste was allotted. My 

 grandfather, among the rest, obtained a grant in respect of his cottage 

 residence and clump of beeches. Some allotments were made to St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, and the Bagshot Estate, and government allotments 

 monopolised the rest of the open ground, the morasses, which I have 

 particularly spoken of, being reserved to the parish of Sunninghill, for the 

 use of the poor, and to remain unappropriated for ever. 



These proceedings were a sad blow to many of the lower class of 

 inhabitants, who had hitherto lived, it must be admitted, in a very 

 lawless manner, little better in their ideas of right and wrong than the 

 merest savages; they had roamed at will over the whole expanse of 

 moor; shot, for being free forest it could scarcely be called poaching; 

 hunted, cut turf or heath, or, in fact, did whatever they listed without 

 being in any way called to account for their actions, and therefore 

 when an ownership was exercised over it, and they could no longer enjoy 

 their accustomed immunities, they felt it deeply. Nor did they succumb 

 without a struggle, indeed it was long before the law being put in force, 

 could convert them into civilized subjects. Time, however, has now 

 worked its way, and although up to a late period there was a sad set of 



VOL. VIII. 2 Q 



