CHAPTER XVIII 

 THE FORESTS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND 



CHARNWOOD FOREST, a hilly district to the north- 

 west of Leicester, about ten miles in length and six in 

 breadth, of much natural beauty, at once occurs to 

 everyone, who knows anything of the Midlands, as the most 

 attractive part of Leicestershire. But so far as forests techni- 

 cally termed are concerned that is, districts subject to 

 forest laws Charnwood has little claim to our attention. 

 Although it so long remained a rough, open tract, there is 

 no reference to it among the extant forest pleas. From what 

 is told us in Nichols' county history of Leicester a wonderful 

 work for the time (1799) in which it was produced and by the 

 more elaborate accounts given in Potter's Charmvood Forest 

 (1842), it is clear that this district was never in Norman days in 

 royal hands for the purposes of the chase ; but its privileges 

 were granted to the Earls of Chester and Leicester and Win- 

 chester, etc., and their successors, and to the various religious 

 houses, within its bounds, such as Ulverscroft, Garendon, 

 and Gracedieu. 



On three manors of Charnwood Forest, namely, Whitwick, 

 Groby, and Sheepshed, swainmote courts were regularly sum- 

 moned until the beginning of the seventeenth century, a 

 survival of pre-Norman jurisdiction ; they continued to be 

 somewhat fitfully held by the owners of these lordships until 

 about a century ago. The fact of swainmote courts being 

 found at Charnwood and a few other places in England, which 

 were not royal forests in historic times, may be taken as a 

 proof that such districts were royal hunting-grounds in Saxon 

 days. 



The document cited by Burton in his Description of Leices- 



231 



