110 ME FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



reconnoissance previous to the autumn manoeuvres of 

 1873, stated in a letter to the Gardeners Chronicle that 

 there is, high up the valley of the Erme, another small 

 wood of scrubby oak bushes named Piles wode, from the 

 stakes or piles by which each tree was surrounded for its 

 protection. Pileswode was evidently a planted wood, as 

 shown in an ancient map of Dartmoor of the year 1241. 

 Captain Oliver believes that Wistman's Wood was also a 

 planted wood, and attributes the planting to the Scandin- 

 avian miners who visited this part of England a thousand 

 years before the Conquest, and even previous to the 

 destruction of Tyre by Alexander, at a period when the 

 ancient ports of Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Falmouth 

 were frequented by Phoenician traders." 



B. Charnwood. 



Another interesting wood is Charnwood, a rough open 

 tract in the north-west part of Leicestershire. It sometimes 

 is called Charley Forest, and sometimes Charnwood Forest ; 

 but I have not met with any record of its having been 

 constituted a Forest. It comprises a district ten miles in 

 length and six in breadth, and is generally considered to 

 have formed part of the Forest of Arden. It has been 

 alleged that arden is the British word for Forest, and that 

 that forest, there can be little doubt, extended right across 

 England, including what we now call the Forest of Dean, 

 Sherwood, &c. The so-called Forest of Charnwood claims 

 an antiquity higher than authentic history will carry us. 

 It comprises a district ten miles in length and six in 

 breadth. That it was frequented by the Britons, and 

 that the peaks of ite picturesque hills were the resort 

 of the Druids, is proved by many Celtic remains. Crom- 

 lechs and barrows are of frequent occurrence ; and in 

 one part of the forest a curiously -formed seat, excavated 

 in the solid rock, and with a kind of rude canopy, may be 

 seen, from whence, possibly, the arch-Druid addressed the 

 surrounding mutitude.l There are traces also of the Roman 



