THE TREES OF THE FOREST 71 



culata ? The old foresters could scarcely have failed to notice 

 the difference of their appearance, and particularly the decided 

 difference of texture in their timber. The word " roer," as an 

 English form of robur, occurs in the later forest accounts of 

 Clarendon and other south of England forests, and it will 

 therefore be adopted for subsequent use in these pages. 



The sweet chestnut (Castanea vesca) has given rise to con- 

 siderable and warm discussion as to its claim to be an indi- 

 genous tree. On the whole, the soundest opinion seems to be 

 that it is of foreign importation at an early date. The oft cited 

 supposed quotation from Fitzstephen, originated by Evelyn, 

 alleging that there was in his days a great forest of chestnuts 

 near to London, turns out to be an invention, for the chestnut 

 is not even mentioned in the particular passage. The idea 

 also, at one time so current and still confidently held by a few, 

 that chestnut wood forms the roofs of many of our oldest 

 churches and at Westminster Hall, proves on examination to 

 be a fable. In all these cases the wood is in reality the close- 

 grained oak of the sessiliflora variety. 



There was, however, at least one place in England where 

 chestnuts grew in abundance, and had attained considerable 

 size as early as the twelfth century. This was in the forest of 

 Dean. The tithe of chestnuts in that forest was granted by 

 Henry II. to the abbey of Flaxley. This chestnut wood was 

 evidently much prized and esteemed a great rarity. The old 

 name for Flaxley, as mentioned in the foundation charter, was 

 the valley of Castiard, a place-name probably derived from the 

 presence of the chestnut trees. In the regard of the forest of 

 Dean, taken in preparation for the eyre of 1280, it was pre- 

 sented that the wood of chestnuts had much deteriorated since 

 the last eyre through the bad custody of Ralph Abbenhale, the 

 forester-of-fee of the baily of Abbenhale. The regarders found 

 there thirty-four stumps of chestnuts that had recently been 

 felled, of which Robert de Clifford, the justice, had had two 

 for making tables. 



There is mention made in a New Forest account roll, temp. 

 Ed. III., of a chestnut wood (bosco de castaneariis}. 



The lime, or linden tree (Tilia Europcea), is considered by 

 some to be indigenous to England, whilst others regard it as 

 an introduction of the Romans. It obtains occasional and 



