150 Cranborne Chase. 



is no account of the time when or the persons by whom this great 

 addition was allowed to be done. When it had thus, by degrees,reached 

 the full size, it was bounded for the greater part, very distinctly, by 

 rivers. Beginning near Shaftesbury, by a stream down towards 

 Child Ockford, where that stream falls into the Stour : then along 

 the Stour past Blandford to "Wimborne Minster. There it took a 

 course northward, by another stream towards Cranborne : then 

 across country to Ringwood : up the Avon to Salisbury : and from 

 Salisbury along the Nadder back to Shaftesbury. This took in a 

 considerable part of South Wilts. The whole range was about 

 twenty to twenty-five miles from east to west : and about fifteen 

 to twenty miles from north to south : including the lands of seventy- 

 two parishes, and some portions of the very city of Salisbury itself, 

 and of the towns of Shaftesbury, Blandford, Wimborne, Ringwood, 

 Fordingbridge, and Downton. 



Geologically, the eastern side consisted of the gravelly, heathery, 

 and not very productive soil, known about the New Forest : the 

 larger central part was on the chalk : and the next lower strata of 

 the green sand occupy the vale of the Nadder. 



In attempting to give an outline of the history of the Chase it 

 is necessary to omit a vast amount of various small changes of 

 ownership of this or that part, as well as all the details of the many 

 controversies and suits-at-law of which, in reality, the history con- 

 sists. Such details might be interesting to individuals, but not to 

 a general company. I will, therefore, only mention such leading 

 events as ax'e necessary to understand its origin, its career, and its 

 extinction. 



Whether the Chase was at the full size you see on the map in 

 the reign of Williana Rufus, or not, is not known. But whatever may 

 then have been the extent, William Rufus gave the Honour of 

 Gloucester, including Cranborne Manor and Forest, with all rights 

 — and among them the right of hunting over other people's lands— 

 to a Norman lord, his nephew, one Fitz Hamon. Fitz Hamon had 

 no sons. Of his daughters one married Robert, a natural son of 

 King Henry I. Robert was created, in right of his wife, Earl of 

 Gloucester. Sons again failing, another heiress brought the Honour 



