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the so-called Commonwealth 40,000 trees were cut down by order of the House 

 of Commons; while after this Pejjys mentions that "We have letters from the 

 Forest of Dean that above a thousand oaks and as many beeches are blown down 

 in one walk there." Such was the devastation made by this fearful gale that 

 Fosbrooke has recorded from some authority that the roads were impassable till the 

 trees blown down had been cut away, while in some great orchards it was possible 

 to go from one end to the other without touching the ground. As if windy 

 outrage was not enough to destroy all sylvan scenery and leafy covert, a grant of the 

 timber in the Forest was made on certain conditions by the unthrifty Charles II. 

 to Sir John Winter, mentioned by Pepys as " a man of fine parts," and these he 

 made use of by proceeding under his patent to cut up the Forest almost entirely. 

 The spoil he was making of the timber, however, gave such dissatisfaction to the 

 neighbourhood that the people's complaints reached the House of Commons, 

 and Sir Charles Harford reported to the House " that Sir John Winter had 500 

 cutters of wood employed in the Dean Forest, and that all the timber would be 

 destroyed if care should not be speedily taken to prevent it." A later report affirmed 

 that out of 30,233 trees in a part of the Forest where the said Sir John Winter had 

 been allowed control he had only left 200 trees standing. An Act of Parliament 

 (20th of Charles II.) was therefore passed for replanting the forest, and 11,000 

 acres were enclosed accordingly, but so remiss were the forest officials, and 

 spoliators so numerous and disregarded, that Christopher Bond, appointed 

 conservator and supervisor of the Forest, had to report to the Treasury in 1736 

 that "The reg^ular Courts had been discontinued and offenders left unpunished; 

 the officers of inheritance had grown remiss and negligent, so that some enclosures 

 and those of only a few acres of the 11,000 had been kept up, and these not 

 carefully repaired ; a great number of cottages were erected upon the borders of 

 the forest, the inhabitants whereof lived by rapine and theft ; that there were 

 besides many other offences committed — trespasses in the fence month and winter 

 training, and in the enclosures ; keeping hogs, sheep, goats, and geese, being 

 uncommendable animals, in the Forest ; cutting and burning the nether vert, 

 furze and fern ; gathering and taking away the crabs, acorns and mast, and other 

 purprestures and offences ; carrying away such timber trees as were covertly cut 

 down in the night time, by which practice several hundred fine oaks were yearly 

 destroyed, and the growths of others prevented ; and that it was feared that some 

 of the inferior officers of the Forest finding offenders to go in with impunity were 

 not only grown negligent, but also connived at, if not partook in, the spoil daily 

 committed. " 



This is a pretty picture of the state of a royal forest, and it accounts for the 

 absence of many fine or remarkable trees ; indeed, except a few grand but battered 

 beeches, and some hollies not likely to be disturbed, and unquestionably of gi'eat 

 age, near the Speech House, I only know two oaks that may be deemed remark- 

 able for their size and age. 



One of these on the top of the Long HiU, near the Coleford and Mitcheldean 

 road, is called, "Jack of the Yat," and is more than 18 feet in girth ; but the great 



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