MORFE FOREST. 25 



confirmed tlie great charter of liberties of the 

 forest. 



Yarious official reports of this Chace, drawn up 

 from time to time, show how the great forest of 

 Morfe gradually diminished, as the vills of Wor- 

 field and Claverley, and other settlements, extended 

 within its limits, causing waste and destruc- 

 tion at various times of timber. During the 

 Barons' War the bosc of Clayerley was further 

 damaged, it was said, *' by many goats frequenting 

 the cover;" it suffered also from waste by the Earl 

 of Chester, who sold from it 1,700 oak trees. Other 

 wastes are recorded, as those caused by cutting 

 down timber "for the Castle of Bridgnorth," and 

 " for enclosing the yill before it was fortified by a 

 wall." The report further states that " there were 

 few beasts," because "they were destroyed in the 

 time of war, and in the time when the liberty of the 

 forest was conceded." By degrees, from one cause 

 or another, and by one means or another, this, the 

 " favourite chace of English kings and Norman 

 earls, which, so late as 1808, consisted of upwards of 

 3,820 acres, disappeared, leaving about the names of 

 places it once enclosed an air of quaint antiquity, 

 the very mention of some of which may be inte- 



