CHAPTER XVII 



THE FORESTS OF SHROPSHIRE, WORCESTER, 

 WARWICK, AND HEREFORD 



SHROPSHIRE 



ONE of the earliest references to a technical forest in Salop 

 is of the year 1204, when King John issued his charter 

 to certify that he " had altogether disafforested his forest 

 of Brewood in all respects partaining to a forest or foresters ; 

 wherefore the said forest and the men who dwelt therein and 

 their heirs were to be disafforested for ever, and quit of the 

 king and his heirs in all those same respects." This district 

 and forest of Brewood was partly in Shropshire and partly 

 in Staffordshire. Notwithstanding, however, the particularly 

 precise terms of the charter of 1204, the inhabitants of 

 Brewood were by no means quit of their fickle and lawless 

 king, for at the forest pleas of 1209, cited by Eyton, the 

 knights and men of Salop and Stafford living in Brewood 

 gave the king 100 marks to be for ever disafforested, so 

 that they of Salop who had hunted or taken beasts in the 

 Salop park of Brewood might bear their share with those of 

 Stafford. From this latter date Brewood seems to have 

 genuinely ceased to be under forest jurisdiction. 



But there are other more interesting records in the time 

 of John as to Salop forests. The chief forest district of this 

 jtime was that long known as Morf Forest. It took its name 

 from the Staffordshire village of Morf, where the break 

 began between that forest and the forest of Kinver. Its 

 northern boundary, afterwards maintained, was determined by 

 the river Worf (passing through Worfield) for several miles 

 before it falls into the Severn a little above Bridgnorth, 

 and from there it stretched south to its name-village. For 



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