168 ASHDOWN FOREST. 



Sheffield, Lord Henniker, Sir John Shelley, Lord 

 Colchester, Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson,* Mr. Freshfield, 

 and others. These gentlemen and others formed a Com- 

 mittee to resist the aggression, and finally, in 1867, the 

 dispute culminated in a suit by Lord De la Warr 

 against Mr. Bernard Hale, one of the Commoners, to 

 restrain them from cutting heath and brake in the 

 Forest for use as litter, and subsequently as manure 

 on their farms j and in a cross suit, by Mr. Hale 

 and others, on behalf of the Commoners, praying for 

 a declaration of their rights, and for an injunction 

 against Lord De la Warr to restrain him from inter- 

 fering with their rights and inclosing any part of 

 the Forest. The case turned mainly on the right to 

 cut litter from the Forest, and in support of this, 

 several ancient surveys were relied upon, and evidence 

 was given of user in the past by numerous witnesses 

 of great age. 



The case came on before Vice- Chancellor Eacon in 

 1880, and was argued for the Plaintiff by Sir Henry 

 Jackson and Mr. Elton, and for the Defendants, the 

 Commoners, by Mr. Joshua Williams, Sir William 

 Harcourt, and Mr. (now Sir) E. E. Webster. The 

 Vice- Chancellor ultimately decided in favour of Lord 

 De la Warr. "At no j>eriod of the history of the 

 Forest," he said, " is there to be found a trace of 



* It is to be observed that Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson, who was 

 so ready to inclose at Hampstead, where he was Lord of the Manor, 

 had in his time been a Commoner of Ashdown Forest, and his nephew 

 took an active part in preserving it. 



