154 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



There is a peculiarly interesting brass in Dronfield Church 

 to Thomas Gomfrey, rector, who died in 1389, and his brother, 

 Richard Gomfrey, rector of Tatershall. On the brass is a 

 forester's horn. Thomas was hereditary forester-of-fee ; he 

 was the great grandson of Adam Gomfrey, forester of Campana 

 at the eyre of 1286. 



The abundance of deer in this forest in Norman days seems 

 to have been something astonishing. Giraldus Cambrensis 

 tells us that in his days (iiostris dtedus), c. 1194, the number of 

 the deer was so great in the Peak district that they trampled 

 both dogs and men to death in the impetuosity of their 

 flight. 



In the extensive grant of lands and church at Glossop in 

 Longdendale by Henry II. to the Flintshire abbey of Basing- 

 werk, the king reserved to himself the venison, but allowed the 

 abbot's tenants to take hares, foxes, and wolves. 



The accounts rendered by Robert de Ashbourn, bailiff of the 

 forest and castle of the Peak, for the year 1235-6, are of much 

 interest. The receipts amounted to 201 2s. io^d., whilst the 

 expenses were 184 12s. yd. In this year the king visited 

 Peak Castle, when bailiff Ashbourn, as lord of the jurisdic- 

 tion, presented him with four wild boars and forty-two geese, 

 and charged 16^. 3\d. for the same in his accounts. The 

 castle that year underwent considerable repairs. 10 is. 8d. 

 from the pleas of the hundred or wapentake court were among 

 the receipts, and we suppose that the sums of 6 igs. ^d. and 

 ^"39 igs. 6d. from the respective itineraries through the 

 demesnes and forests, represent the fines, etc., accruing re- 

 spectively from the manorial and the swainmote courts. This 

 is the earliest known detailed document of the Peak juris- 

 diction. 



Forest pleas were expected to be held at least every seven 

 years, but the Peak Forest is one of the numerous cases in which 

 far longer intervals occurred. The forest justices held their 

 eyre for the Peak in 1216. This was followed by an interval of 

 thirty-five years, for the next pleas were not held until 1251. 

 Of these pleas, held before Geoffrey Langley and other jus- 

 tices, very full records are extant. 



The following were the bailiffs of the honor of the Peak 

 during the period covered by this eyre : William Ferrers, 



