CHAPTER IX 



THE FORESTS OF NORTHUMBERLAND, CUMBERLAND, 

 WESTMORELAND, AND DURHAM 



NORTHUMBERLAND 



NEARLY in the centre of the county of Northumberland 

 stands the picturesque little town of Rothbury, "almost 

 startling, from the beauty of its situation." The parish, 

 which is over thirty miles in circuit, was once all forest land ; 

 by far the greater part of it is much as it was in the days of 

 mediaeval England, consisting chiefly of wild, uncultivated 

 moorland. 



The maps still mark the tracts above and below the town 

 as North Forest and South Forest. Many a writer on North- 

 umberland, even some well-informed ones of recent times, have 

 tried to realise how different this district must have looked 

 when "clothed with trees and underwood." But, for the 

 most part, this never was and never could have been the case 

 with Rothbury forest of historic days. Nevertheless, the 

 actual valley of the Coquet was, beyond doubt, far more 

 closely wooded in early days than it is at the present time ; 

 indeed, etymologists tell us that the very meaning of Rothbury 

 is "the town in the clearing." 



Some twelve miles north-east of Rothbury lies the celebrated 

 little town of Alnwick, on the Alne, which was also surrounded 

 by a tract of country under forest law in the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries. The rolls of an eyre held at Newcastle 

 in 1286, show that there were three bailiwicks in the forest 

 of Northumberland ; one to the south of Rothbury and 

 the Coquet, another to the north of Rothbury between the 

 Coquet and the Alne, and a third immediately to the north of 

 the Alne. There were four verderers to each bailiwick. 



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