FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



' In those days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer 

 Forest.' 1 With the trees and larger cover the red deer seem also to have 

 gone from Wolmer, ' for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is 

 wanting : I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this (i.e. 

 eighteenth) century amounted to about five hundred head, and made 

 a stately appearance. There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, 

 whose great-grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), 

 grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer 

 Forest in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures 

 me, that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was 

 journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer 

 beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great road at 

 Lippock, which is just by, and reposing herself on a bank smoothed for 

 that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer pond, and 

 still called Queen's Bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction 

 the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before 

 her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight this, worthy 

 the attention of the greatest sovereign ! ' 2 Deerstealing and the enormi- 

 ties committed by the ' Waltham blacks ' became, however, so bad that 

 the statute known as the ' Black Act ' had to be passed in 1722 

 (9 George I. cap. xxii) to remedy the evil. 



Contrasting Ayles Holt or Aisholt as is it called in ancient rolls, 

 though now known as Alice Holt with Wolmer, Gilbert White noted 

 the distinct differences in the soil and the results of this as regards growth 

 o f trees, when he remarked 3 that 'Though these two forests are only 

 parted by a narrow range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more 

 different ; for the Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, 

 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to be large 

 timber ; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, sandy, barren waste. 

 . . . One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old 

 well stocked with fallow deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more 

 than a common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of 

 Wolmer ; nor were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the 

 thickets or glades of the Holt.' Wolmer and Alice Holt were at that 

 time held by Lord Stawell for a term of years under grant from the 

 Crown ; and under this he claimed one-fifth of all timber felled, includ- 

 ing lop and top. When over 1,000 oaks were winter-felled early in 

 1784, the peasants also claimed the lop and top of the trees, and 

 removed it by force, one man, who kept a team, carrying away forty 

 stacks of wood for his share. This is also mentioned by the Com- 

 missioners who reported on the woods and forests, 4 ' the Offal Wood, 

 after having been made into Faggots, and a Day appointed for the Sale 

 of it, was openly carried off by the People of Frensham, to the number 

 of 6,365 Faggots, in One Day and Night.' 



The Commissioners of 1790" noted that 'In Woolmer there were 



i Letter viii. * Letter vi. * Letter ix. * Sixth Report, 1790, p. 13. 



6 Sixth Report, pp. 15, 66, appendix 20. 



453 



