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 "Descriptio nobilissimce civi- 

 tatis Londoniw" 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- 



B 2 



