190 EEV. CANON GEE — WINDSOR POEEST 



Forests, became the landlords on behalf of the people. The 

 Sovereign accepted a yearly sum, a civil list as we call it, in lieu 

 of the old hereditary domains. I spare you the figures of the 

 account in the transfer. It will be enough to specify that 1990 

 acres of land were then actually sold to pay compensations and 

 expenses, and that £25,000 worth of timber was cut down and 

 sold for the same purpose, that a certain area was reserved for the 

 use of the Sovereign, and some 3000 acres were planted as timber- 

 nurseries for the use of the nation, particularly as regards the 

 navy. The forest then included eleven whole parishes and entered 

 into six others. A modern history of Berkshire recites that the 

 forest as Crown property still consists of 60,000 acres. This, if 

 correct in any sense, must take in all the area through which the 

 inclosures are scattered. We now reckon that the Little or Home 

 Park consists of 500 acres, and the Great Park of 3,000 acres, and 

 all enclosures of forest and park equal 14,000. Truly this is still 

 a royal domain. An annalist of Windsor, however, thinks the 

 arrangement of 1813-19 was the extinction of the forest. Seem- 

 ingly an enclosed area ceases with him to be a forest. The forest 

 of Windsor, therefore, he says, ceased to exist, though for con- 

 venience sake the name is given to the district south of the castle. 

 So far as I have seen every portion of the forest is marked out now 

 by some earth-mound and ditch if not by other fence, and if such 

 demarcation destroy a forest, it must be confessed that the tourist 

 will see little if any portion standing out wild and uninclosed ; but 

 there is no derivation of the word forest, whether from foris or 

 foresta, which makes inclosure fatal to the idea. Professor Skeat, 

 however, gives a quotation from Mediaeval documents, showing 

 that in those days the distinction between forest and park was 

 understood to be that the one was uninclosed and the other 

 inclosed. 



I do not attempt to consider the tract geologically. It may be 

 sufiicient to say that it is not favoured as regards its soil. Large 

 sums have every year to be spent on drainage, which scarcely 

 appears to be remunerative. The greater portion of the forest is 

 situated on the Loudon Clay, a considerable area on the south is 

 on the Bagshot Sand, while on the north a narrow strip of the 

 clays and sands of the Reading Beds divides the London Clay from 

 the Chalk on which the Castle stands. Where the clay predomi- 

 nates, the ground is very wet. 



I could give many more topographical particulars if I thought 

 that they would be useful and acceptable or even intelligible to 

 those who are not acquainted with the locality. It may be more 

 practical to inform an occasional visitor, such as I may suppose any 

 of you to become next summer, how to find the forest or how to 

 approach its nearest points. You would come to Windsor I suppose 

 by either the Great Western or the South-Western Railway. If by 

 the former you would see nothing with which I have to do until you 

 stepped out into the High Street. If you came by the latter 

 railway (the S.W.R.), you would skirt Datchet Mead, which now 



