CHAPTER XII 

 THE FORESTS OF CHESHIRE 



THE history of the royal forest of Wirral, as well as of 

 other Cheshire forests, yet remains to be written. There 

 are two large histories of the hundred of Wirral 

 (Mortimer, 1847 ; and Sulley, 1889), but neither of them give 

 more than a sentence or two to the story of its forest. There 

 are citations from and references to various documents per- 

 taining to this forest in Helsley's fine edition of Ormerod's 

 Cheshire (1882); but there is much information to be gleaned 

 that has not been touched. 



On nth September, 1275, the Crown instructed Gaucelin de 

 Badelesmere, justice of Chester, to permit Roger Lestrange 

 to take two stags in the forest of Wirral for the king's use, and 

 to cause them to be salted and brought with other venison to 

 the king at Westminster by Michaelmas. 



In August, 1279, the same justice was ordered to cause the 

 abbot of St. Werburgh's, Chester, to have a hart in Wirral 

 forest for the feast of that saint. 



Licence was granted, in 1283, to the lepers of the house of 

 Bebington, within the forest, to enclose five acres of their 

 waste and bring it into cultivation ; but the dyke was to be 

 a small one and the hedge low, so that the deer if they desired 

 could leap it. In 1303 a hind that was found dead in the 

 forest, with an arrow in its side, was given to these lepers 

 according to the forest assize, but the arrow was the perquisite 

 of the forester. 



By an ordinance of 1284 it was provided that a hart was to 

 be given annually to the abbey of Chester on the feast of 

 St. Werburgh, and also the tithe of the venison yearly, in aid 



