216 FORESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 
conditions to the adjoining catchment areas of the Leicester 
Corporation. 
Leicester obtains its water supply in part from three 
gathering grounds, each with a storage reservoir, in the 
Charnwood Forest district: (1) Thornton, 2860 acres; 
(2) Bradgate Park, 4400 acres; and (3) Swithland, 3500 
acres; in all, 10,760 acres, over red marl and clay. The 
average elevation is 400 feet, the highest point in the 
district being Bardon Hill, 902 feet above sea-level. The 
land consists of small woods, poor pasture, arable land, and 
rocks; and the Council only own the sites of the reservoirs 
and a small margin around them. About two hundred 
years ago, the timber in this district, mostly oak, was all 
cleared, and the land remained bare till the Enclosure of 
1812, when the high price of corn encouraged tillage. 
Numerous small woods, mostly oak and larch, were planted 
later. The rocks are Cambrian syenite, slate and trap, very 
hard but overlaid in the valleys with boulder clay and other 
glacial detritus. Mr. L. Fosbrooke of Ravenstone Hall, 
Leicester, who is well acquainted with the neighbourhood, 
is of opinion that these gathering grounds would be suitable 
for the creation of a coniferous forest, exceeding 10,000 
acres in extent. Such a forest would prove remunerative 
within a short term of years on account of the demand for 
pitwood by the collieries on the western boundary of the 
district. Sir J. Rolleston, however, at the Board of Agri- 
culture Conference on Afforestation, in 1907, gave his 
opinion as follows: “Those Corporations like Liverpool, 
which have bought their watersheds and have large tracts 
of land of no value for pasture or agriculture, can produce 
these schemes; but other towns which have not the land 
would not be able to do so. For instance, a town like 
Leicester, situated in the midst of the best grazing districts 
of the country, would hardly be likely to find lands suitable 
for any extensive scheme of afforestation.” 
Melton Mowbray Urban District Council obtains its water 
supply from a gathering ground of 300 acres at Scalford, 
