H4 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



twenty-five counties, of which we find mention made as 

 having adorned the several counties at no distant period, 

 but of which then very few still existed. There are named 

 in all twenty-seven. Amongst them are Enfield Forest, 

 St John's Wood, Highbury Wood, and the large and noble 

 forest on the north of London, mentioned by Fitz -Stephen, 

 but of which, like the others, no trace appears ; Brecknock 

 Forest, with an area of 40,000 acres / which had shortly be- 

 fore been sold by auction, and was a forest no more ; 

 Wineal Forest, which had occupied the whole peninsula 

 between the Mersey and the Dee, but which also then was 

 gone ; Purbeck Forest, which covered the whole island of 

 Purbeck, as it is called, in Dorsetshire. Most of these are 

 described as ' gone,' or as ' mostly gone,' ' nearly gone,' ' all 

 gone,' ' very few trees, if any about the middle not a 

 vestige ' a large wood no more ; ' and he goes on 

 to say : 



" All these have been woods or forests of considerable 

 extent at no very remote period. If we go back as far as 

 Doomsday Book, no less than 1033 woods and forests are 

 there mentioned as existing in five counties alone ; those 

 of Derby, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and York. I have not 

 selected these counties on the supposition that they had 

 been better wooded than others, but wholly because this 

 part of the Book of Doomsday was more accessible to me 

 than that which relates to the other counties. It is, how- 

 ever, difficult to ascertain the extent of many of these 

 woods, on account of their being estimated in many coun- 

 ties by the number of hogs they could feed, and not by the 

 quantity of ground they covered, or the value of the timber 

 they contained ; and those woods which did not bear mast 

 and berries, not being in consequence taken notice of gen- 

 erally, I shall only mention a few of the most particular, in 

 the greater part of which there is not now a tree standing, 

 and in many not a shrub." 



The counties then mentioned were not included in the 

 preceding list. Of forests in Derbyshire he gives the names 

 of 30," varying in size from 1 mile in length and 1 in breadth, 



