THE FORESTS OF HAMPSHIRE 305 



In Hampshire, as elsewhere, the Saxon kings reserved 

 large tracts of country, well supplied as a rule with woods 

 and thickets, for the purpose of sport and hunting, whilst 

 at the same time they realised the importance of preserving 

 the woodlands for the pannage of the swine. Under the 

 Conqueror, the New Forest increased in area, and had its 

 special bounds assigned ; but stories set on foot by early 

 chroniclers as to William's reckless cruelty in destroying 

 scores of churches and burning out villages for the sake 

 of hunting, can readily be shown to be gross and absurd 

 exaggerations. The later story of this forest, as set forth 

 by Messrs. Wise, Lascelles, and Hutchinson, is a tale of 

 continued aggression by private owners and by squatters, of 

 grievous jobbery by forest officials, of Crown mortgages, 

 of much destruction of timber and deer, and finally of various 

 parliamentary inquiries in 1831, 1850, 1875, and at yet more 

 recent dates. The forest is at present governed by the Act 

 of 1877. Scotch firs and pines that now abound were first 

 planted here in 1776. 



The red deer, the fallow deer, and the roe deer are all still 

 present in the New Forest, but in very much reduced numbers; 

 the last-named are strays that first found their way here from 

 Milton, Dorset, in 1870. In the days when Gilpin wrote his 

 delightful volumes on Forest Scenery (1790) there was a semi- 

 wild breed of bristly pigs in parts of the forest, which were 

 supposed to be hybrid descendants of the wild boar (Plate VIL). 



Although there has been so much good writing on the 

 history of the New Forest, there are sources of further in- 

 teresting and original history at the Public Record Office 

 which no one has hitherto tapped. Space can be found for 

 only a few instances of such information. 



The accounts of John Randolf, keeper of the forest, for 1306, 

 show that there was much of pasturage in various parts of the 

 forest, irrespective of general rights of agistment. There was, 

 for instance, considerable sale of corn and hay from the manor 

 of Lyndhurst in the centre of the forest ; eight oxen of that 

 manor were sold for 56^. Iron used in repair of the farm carts 

 of the manor cost 2s. lod. , two iron plough-shoes (for tipping the 

 wooden shares) cost 8^., and the shoeing of two cart-horses i8d. 

 The full accounts for this year are beautifully written and in 



