ASHDOWN FOREST. 129 



moners, however, were not easily over-ridden. They 

 resorted to the equally simple and strictly constitutional 

 step of levelling the enclosures as fast as they were made. 

 SquaBbles and litigation ensued, and finally, in the case of 

 Ashdown Forest, matters were settled in 1693 by a decree 

 of the Court of Exchequer, which gave the persons who 

 had then become owners of the soil undisputed enjoyment 

 of about 7,000 acres of the forest land, and declared the 

 commoners to be entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of 

 extensive rights over the remainder. By this arrange- 

 ment, the area of open forest was reduced from nearly 

 14,000 acres to 6,400. 



"The tract of open land thus left does not lie in one 

 block in the centre of the ancient forest. On the con- 

 trary, the lan.ds reserved for the commoners were set out as 

 far as possible at the outside edge, and in the neighbourhood 

 of the villages where the commoners resided. The con- 

 sequence is that open and enclosed lands are intermixed 

 over the whole area of the ancient forest, and the line of 

 the ancient pale is still practically, in most parts, the 

 boundary of the district. This combination of enclosure 

 and waste is not without its advantages. The most ardent 

 lover of heath and moorland cannot object to the variety 

 caused by well-wooded enclosures breaking up the open 

 expanse now and again, and in Ashdown Forest there is 

 this special benefit, that whereas at the time of the divi- 

 sion the forest had been nearly stripped of trees, the 

 couple of centuries which have since passed have served to 

 raise a handsome crop of fine beech and birch, where they 

 have been protected by enclosures; while on the open 

 wastes very few trees have survived their infancy, and over 

 wide tracts there is hardly a bush to be seen above the 

 level of the heather and the bracken. 



" Indeed, were it not for the enclosures, the greater 

 part of Ashdown Forest, as it now exists, would present 

 few features of incongruity if transferred to the Yorkshire 

 moors. Long ridges of heather, visited by the sea-breezes 

 which have only brushed the tops of the South Downs, 



K 



