FORESTRY 



SUFFOLK is one of the eight English counties of which there is no record of any royal 

 forest within its confines. But though Suffolk thus escaped the penalties of being under 

 forest law, it need not be concluded that it was at all lacking in woodland or timber. 

 Contrariwise, it probably possessed considerably more woodland in Norman, Plantagem t, and 

 even Tudor days, than did Essex or some of the great counties of the west that were cele- 

 brated for their extensive royal forest lands. For the mediaeval ' forest,' it should ever be remem- 

 bered, did not imply, etymologically or otherwise, any great extent of wood, but merely a vast 

 district, much of which was never wooded, reserved for royal hunting and sport : the deer, indeed, 

 either red or fallow, could not live unless the forest contained much open space and pasturage 

 ground. 



The Domesday Survey affords clear evidence of the very considerable area of the county that 

 was then covered with wood. Particularly was this the case with the great Liberty of St. Edmund, 

 which included, by the gift of the Confessor, the eight hundreds of Thingoe, Thedwastre, 

 Blackburne, Bradbourne, Bradmere, Lackford, Risbridge, and Babergh, and the half hundred of 

 Cosford, forming the western portion of the county and more than a third of the whole area. The 

 value of woodland in those days consisted not only in its value for building and fencing purposes, 

 and for fuel, but in the limited rough pasturage or agistment for horses and horned cattle, and more 

 especially in the pannage for the swine. The sustenance afforded for the pigs by the acorns and 

 beechmast was all-important to the poorer classes, whose chief food supply came from the swine. 

 The survey was compiled by different sets of commissioners. It is only natural to find that varying 

 methods of computation were adopted ; this is especially the case with regard to woodlands. In 

 some counties the amount of wood was calculated by lineal measure (miles and furlongs), as in 

 Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, and Worcestershire, or by square measure (acres), as in Lincolnshire; 

 but the more usual plan was to give a rough estimate according to the number of swine that could 

 be supported by the acorns and mast. The estimating by the pigs admitted of a two-fold method. 

 One plan, which was adopted in the case of Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex, was the stating 

 of the number of swine due as tribute to the lord for the privilege of pannage, which was usually 

 one in seven. The other plan, which was adopted in the case of Suffolk, and which also prevailed 

 in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire, was to enter the full approximate number of 

 swine for which the particular wood could find pannage. 



Of the various Suffolk manors pertaining to the great abbey of St. Edmunds at the time 

 of the survey, upwards of sixty are entered as having silvae worth so many pigs. Mendham had 

 the largest timbered area, for it could feed 360 swine ; as the whole acreage was under 3,000 

 acres, probably two-thirds was then woodland. The woodland of Chepenhall could feed 1 60 

 swine; another manor of doubtful identification I2O; Worlingworth, Pakenham and another 

 IOO each; Ingham 80 ; and Long Melford and several others 60 each. 



At the abbot's manor of Melford was an old grandly wooded deer park of ancient foundation 

 called Elmsett, or magnus boscus dominl in early charters. The abbot had also a grange and place 

 of occasional residence at Elmswell in another part of the county. One of the most delightful! 

 stories told of Abbot Samson's shrewdness, by his biographer, Jocelin of Brakelond, concerns these 

 two places. Told succinctly, it runs as follows. Geoffrey Riddell, bishop of Ely (1174-89), 

 desiring timber for a great manor-house, asked the abbot personally for the same, and the abbot 

 unwillingly granted the request, not liking to offend the bishop. Soon after, when the abbot was 

 at Melford, the bishop sent a clerk asking that the promised timber might be taken at Elmswell, 

 mistaking the word and saying Elmswell when he meant Elmsett. Meanwhile the abbot's forester 

 at Melford informed his master that the bishop, in the previous week, had sent his carpenter 

 secretly to the wood of Elmsett, putting marks on the desired trees. Samson, though well aware 

 that there was no good timber at Elmswell and detecting the blunder, sent off the bishop's messenger 

 with a ready compliance with his request. So soon as the messenger had departed, the abbot went 

 into Elmsett wood with his carpenter, and caused not only the trees privately marked by the bishop, 

 but a hundred more of the best for timber to be branded with his mark, and felled as speedily as 



403 



