A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



It therefore follows that the woods in Middlesex at this date pro- 

 vided autumn feeding for a vast herd of upwards of 20,000 swine. 



On four manors mention is made of wood sufficient for hedging 

 purposes (nemus ad sepes faciendas), namely Harlesden, Cranford, St. 

 Pancras, and part of Ossulstone. At Enfield mention is made of a park 

 belonging to Geoffrey de Mandeville, and at Ruislip there was a park 

 for wild game (ferarum sifoaticarum}. 



Throughout the Domesday Survey vineyards are mentioned in 

 thirty-eight places ; six of these occur in Middlesex, namely at Kensing- 

 ton, Holborn, Staines, Kempton, Colham, and Harmondsworth. 



In the often-cited account of ' the most noble city of London,' 

 written in the reign of Henry II by William Fitz Stephen, a monk of 

 Canterbury, occurs the following passage : ' On the north side, too, are 

 fields for pasture, and a delightful plain of meadow-land, interspersed 

 with flowing streams, on which stand mills whose clack is very pleasing 

 to the ear. Close by lies an immense forest, in which are densely 

 wooded thickets, the coverts of game, red and fallow deer, boars and 

 wild bulls.' 1 



A blunder in statement, as well as in date, made by Stow in his 

 Survey of London as first printed in 1598, and repeated in all subsequent 

 editions, has led many a writer on Middlesex and London astray. 

 Stow's statement is to the effect that : ' The ad. of King Henry III 

 the forest in Middlesex and the warren of Staines were disafforested ; 

 since the which time the suburbs about London hath been also 

 mightily increased with buildings.' 3 



There is, on the contrary, no proof whatever of there ever having 

 been a royal forest in Middlesex, at all events in Norman days. The 

 crown lands were very small, and two of the great wooded districts of 

 the county, Enfield with its park, and Harrow, were in the respective 

 hands of Geoffrey de Mandeville and the archbishop of Canterbury. 



There was, however, a royal warren extant as early as the reign 

 of Henry II at Staines, 3 to which certain forest rights pertained ; it 

 extended from Staines to Hounslow. 4 On 28 March, 1227, a charter 

 was granted to the prior and brethren of St. John of Jerusalem, per- 

 mitting them to have unlawed dogs to guard their house in Hamtonet, 

 which was within the king's warren of Staines wherein the sisters of 

 the order dwelt and also to have unlawed dogs to guard their sheep- 

 folds at the same place, and this without any interference from the 

 foresters or warreners of Staines. 6 Close letters to this effect were 

 dispatched on 10 April.' 



The value, however, of such a grant was but of short duration, 

 for on 1 8 August of the same year the king granted a charter, addressed 

 to all the men of Middlesex, to the effect that the warren of Staines 

 was to be no more a warren (dewarrenata), and was to be disafforested 



1 Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), Hi, 3. ' Stow, Surv. ofLond. (ed. 1 876), 156. 



1 Pipe R. 4 Hen. II. 'Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough), ii, 3. 



* Chart R. 1 1 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. 1 1. 'Close, 1 1 Hen. Ill, m. 13. 



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