THE FOREST OF THE HIGH PEAK 153 



Wormhill held per servicium custodiendi pecci forestam. 

 Walter de Nevil, 34 Edward I., died seized of thirty acres 

 at Wormhill held per servicium custodiendi forestam. Nicholas 

 Foljambe, at his death, 13 Edward II., held a messuage and 

 thirty acres by the serjeanty of keeping the king's forest of 

 Campana, in the Peak, per corpus suum cum arcu et sagittis. 

 Thomas Foljambe, 17 Edward II., held fifteen acres at Worm- 

 hill, by the service of finding a footman with bow and arrows 

 to keep the Peak Forest. Maria Hansted, n Edward III., 

 held land at Blackbrook, Fairfield, Hope, etc. , per custodiendi 

 wardam de Hopedale in foresta de Pecco. 



On the numerous early incised slabs that are found in 

 Derbyshire churches in the neighbourhood or within the 

 bounds of Peak Forest, dating from the time of Henry II. to 

 Henry III., there are not a few symbols that betoken slabs 

 which are obviously memorials of forest ministers. The horn 

 of a forester appears at the base of an incised cross at Darley 

 Dale, which has a sword on the sinister side. At Wirksworth 

 is an earlier one, with a belted bugle horn on one side of the 

 cross, and a sword on the other. At Hope there is a third 

 early slab with a sword on one side and a belted bugle horn, 

 with an arrow below it, on the other. In each of these cases 

 the burial of a forester-of-fee is denoted, the sword (which had 

 no forest signification) probably denoting knightly rank. At 

 the unhappy and wholly unnecessary demolition of Hope 

 chancel another cross slab, with only a stringed bugle-horn on 

 the dexter side, was also brought to light. 



Among the large collection of early incised slabs at Bake- 

 well is one on which a bow is denoted by a curved line on the 

 sinister side of the cross-stem, the stem serving as the bow- 

 string ; a small arrow projects from the string. 



A square-headed axe laid athwart the cross-stem appears 

 on slabs at Chelmorton and Killamarsh, probably denoting a 

 verderer, or head woodward, or " axe-bearer." The ordinary 

 woodward, and in some forests the verderer, only bore a small 

 lopping axe or billhook, and not a felling axe. Such billhooks 

 appear on early incised slabs at Sutton-in-the-Dale and North 

 Wingfield. 



Examples of the Derbyshire incised slabs to forest ministers 

 have been illustrated in chapter iii. 



