Manor Faring Braydou, Wilts. 379 



In the ' Archsoologia,' vol. xxxvii. p. 304, Mr. Ackerman 

 gives an interesting account, written in 1857, which states the 

 boundaries of the forest as laid down by the perambulations 

 which took place from time to time until the reign of Charles I., 

 when it was disafforested. From this work we purpose to make a 

 few extracts. We have no authentic information as to the precise 

 period at which the forest was formed. Of its great antiquity 

 we may judge from the fact that it is mentioned in a charter of 

 King Athelstane to the Abbey of Malmesbury under its former 

 name of Orwaldes Wood, To use the words of Mr. Ackerman, 

 '• It was possibly an escheat to the Crown in the days of the 

 Anglo-Saxon kings, which history has failed to chronicle. Pre- 

 vious to the Norman Conquest the southern limit included 

 Wooton Bassett, which, as shown by the charter of Eadwig, was 

 ' intra silvam quae vocatur Bradin.' It seems probable that the 

 southern boundary once extended as far as the high road running 

 from Wooton to Malmesbury, where the sterile soil known as 

 Braden land terminates, and is succeeded by some of the richest 

 pastures in the country. The forest was probably added to by 

 Canute, and also by the Norman kings, who paid little respect 

 to their subjects' lands when the same lay contiguous to their 

 own forests. 



Braydon, like many other of the royal forests, may have been 

 reduced in accordance with Charta di Fore.sta, one result of the 

 memorable meeting at Runnymede — " Imprimis all the Forest, 

 made by our Grandfather King Henry, shall be viewed by 

 honest and lawful men. And if he turned any other than his 

 own demesne woods into forests, to the damage of him whose 

 wood it was, it shall be forthwith laid out again and disaf- 

 forested." 



John Britton, F.S.A., in his 'Topographical and Historical 

 Description of the County of Wilts,' describes Braydon Forest as 

 situate on the northern skirts of the county, and probably the 

 most extensive of any of those which lay wholly within its 

 boundaries. It was anciently called Bredon Wood. According 

 to Brompton, Athelwold, in the year 905, " put to military 

 execution all Brithendum (that is, all the inhabitants of Braden 

 Forest) as far as Brandenstoke, or, as Higden more rightly 

 expresses it, ' Bradenstoke.' In the reign of Henry IV. Edmund 

 de Langton, Earl of Cambridge and Duke of York, was keeper 

 of this forest, and left it, with his other estates, to his son and 

 heir, Edward, Earl of Rutland. Almost all the trees, of which 

 there were many valuable ones here, are now cut down ; and the 

 grounds are either enclosed for cultivation, or lie, as already 

 hinted, in a waste or commonable condition. Whether the appli- 

 cation of this tract to agricultural purposes renders it more useful 



