172 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



or with eager pace and flushes of expectation on 

 the morning of the hunt. Lyndhurst was in fact 

 a royal manor and has mention, as such, in 

 Domesday; for William of Normandy retained it in 

 his own hands. There was doubtless good reason 

 for his retention of this particular manor, be- 

 cause in his day it occupied a central and very 

 important position in the forest, being in fact 

 4 the capital' of the forestal district. The hall where 

 the courts of attachment the c wood motes ' 

 a remnant of the machinery of the ancient forest 

 laws, were held, still stands in the village. Though 

 Lyndhurst at one time, as we have seen, when 

 the New Forest extended its boundaries from the 

 Avon in the west to the Southampton Water in 

 the east and rolled away southwards to the Solent, 

 was nearly central, it no longer occupies that 

 position. Yet it is surrounded still by forest and 

 by much of sylvan loveliness. The approach to 

 it from the Lyndhurst Road Station of the South 

 Western Railway is by a road cut for two miles 

 through the forest, having glades and woods on 

 either hand and entering the village from the 

 north-east. Then, from the village itself, south- 



