INTRODUCTION. 5 
early Norman times. Even in the less hilly districts 
more than half the country was one vast forest, and 
in the north at least these forests flanked the moun- 
tain ranges, extending their wild influence, and at 
the same time rendering them more inaccessible and 
wilder still. 
Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, great 
forests came up almost to the gates of London. In 
a curious tract entitled “Deseriptio nobilissime civi- 
tatis Londoniev,” written by Fitz-Stephen, a monk of 
Canterbury, in 1174, it is stated that there were 
open meadows of pasture lands on the north of the 
City, and that beyond these was a great forest, in 
whose woody coverts lurked the stag, the hind, the 
wild-boar, and the bull. 
Two-thirds, or nearly, of the county of Stafford 
was, even in relatively modern times, either moorland 
or woodland. The northern part, going nearly up to 
Buxton, was moorland ; the central and eastern part 
forest. Harwood, in his edition of Erdeswick’s 
“ Survey of Staffordshire,” quoting Sir Simon Degge, 
says: ‘‘The moorlands are the more northerly 
mountainous part of the country lying betwixt Dove 
and Trent; the woodlands are the more southerly 
level part of the country. Between the aforesaid 
rivers, including Needwood Forest, with all its 
parks, are also the parks of Wichnor, Chartley, Hore- 
cross, Bagots, Loxley, and Paynesley, which anciently 
were all but as one wood, that gave it the name 
of woodlands.” Leland, about 1536, though he 
speaks of the woods being then much reduced, con- 
B2 
