A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



possible for the use of the steeple of the great tower and other parts of the building of St. Edmunds. 

 When the bishop's messenger reached Ely with the abbot's consent to obtain wood at Elmswell, 

 the bishop gave him many hard words and ordered him instantly to return and say Elmsett not 

 Elmswell. But by the time he got back to Melford all the good timber of the great park 

 had been felled for the use of the abbey, and Samson could only express his inability to oblige 

 the bishop. 1 



In the record of Abbot Samson's reforms and business energy, we are informed by his 

 biographer that soon after his election in 1 182, 'he enclosed many parks, which he replenished with 

 beasts of chase, keeping a huntsman with dogs ; and upon the visit of any person of quality sat with 

 his monks in some walk of the wood, and sometimes saw the coursing of the dogs ; but I never 

 saw him take part in the sport.' 2 



A survey of the important manor of Melford, taken in 1287, shows that there were then 360 

 acres of wood, against 800 acres of arable, 24 of meadow, and 53 of pasture. A more particular 

 survey of Melford in 1386, given in Abbot Tim worth's register, shows an apparently larger area of 

 woodland, namely about 490 acres, but it seems that other parts of the parks were included in this 

 estimate. The wood called Lemynge was of 90 acres, and it is represented as producing 

 £2 12s. 6d. a year from 15 acres, at 31. 6d. an acre. This means that it was the practice to cut 

 down all the undergrowth in lots, a sixth part each year ; and that, after the cost of fencing to 

 protect the new cleared part from the deer that it might grow strong again, the profit averaged 

 3*. 6d. an acre. To cut coppices every sixth year was unusually frequent ; but it was a rich soil. 

 The wood called Le Speltue was of 80 acres, and after the same fashion produced £2 Js. a year ; 

 and Le Small Park, of 60 acres, 30J. The Great Wood or Park of Elmsett was then of 260 acres; 

 from it there were cut 600 faggots a year, valued at Sd. the half hundred ; there was also a receipt 

 of £2 for agistment of stock. The general wood receipts of the year also included 1 2d. for a 

 cutting of thorns, and 6s. Sd. for depasturing swine. 



An exact survey in 1442 of these Melford woodlands, given in acres, roods, and poles in 

 Abbot Curteys' register, makes the total acreage of the woodland and parks 504 acres. 3 



The considerable prevalence of woodland in mediaeval Suffolk can also be gathered from 

 another source of information. Many of the manor court rolls of the county, of which there are 

 a large number at the Public Record Office, contain a great and most unusual variety of references 

 to offences committed against the woodland and timber rights of the district. One instance of this 

 must suffice ; it is but a sample of many others. The records of a manor court of Westwood, 

 including Blythburgh and Walberswick, held in 1323 on the Monday after the feast of St. Edmund, 

 show that twenty-seven offenders were charged with wood trespass ('dampnorum fact' in bosc' dm'), 

 and were in each case fined 3^. Three years later, at a court of the same manor held on 

 9 September, nine offenders were fined 2d. each for damage done by their beasts in the lord's 

 woods. 4 The ancient woods of this manor have long ago disappeared, though their former 

 presence is attested by various place and field names, and particularly by the frequent occurrence 

 of the term 'Walk' throughout the district, which was the old name for a division of a forest or 

 woodland. 6 



In the reign of Edward III the accounts of various Suffolk properties that were temporarily 

 or permanently in the hands of the crown also bear witness to the extent of woodland by such 

 entries as De pannagio porcorum. 6 



The best timbered parts of the county, next to the many woodland manors of the Liberty of 

 St. Edmund, were to be found in the hundred of Blything on the eastern coast. The grants made 

 to the Cistercian Abbey of Sibton and to the Premonstratensian Abbey of Leiston, immediately 

 around their respective sites, bear strong witness to this fact. 7 



In the two chief parks of this hundred, Huntingfield with Heveningham (300 acres), and 

 Henham (1,000 acres), there are traces of ancient oaks. Huntingfield, whose woods were 

 worth 150 swine at the Domesday Survey, was visited by Queen Elizabeth at the beginning of 

 her reign, and the remains of a noble old tree called ' the Queen's Oak ' are still pointed out, 

 whence she is said to have shot a buck with her own hand. 8 Close to Henham Hall are several 



1 Jocelin, Chron. (ed. Clarke), 106-7. ' M>id. 43. 



* Parkin, Hist, of Melford, 229, 240, &c. * Court R. (P.R.O.), %°J. 



'The older name for a forest division, under the charge of a particular forester or keeper, was bailiwick ; 

 but 'walk' became the more usual term in the sixteenth century. See Fisher's Forest of Essex, 145-6; 

 Cox's Royal Forests, passim. 



6 Mins. Accts. (P.R.O.), !fp, 7 to 17 Edw. Ill, &c. 



7 See subsequent accounts of these houses. The general confirmation of Hen. II to Sibton Abbey, of 

 lands in Sibton, Peasenhall, and elsewhere, put the woodlands first — ' quam in bosco tarn in piano.' Dugdale, 

 Mon. (ed. 1), i, 886. 



"A beautiful etching of this celebrated oak is given in Strutt's Silva Britannica (1824), and there is 

 an engraving in Shirley's Deer and Deer Parks (1867) from a photograph taken in 1866. 



404 



