CHAPTER XXVIII 

 THE FORESTS OF DORSETSHIRE 



GILLINGHAM 



THE county of Dorset had three royal forests at the time 

 of the granting of the Forest Charter of Henry III. 

 Gillingham, Blackmore, and Poorstock. 



Gillingham was the most important of the three, in the 

 extreme north of the county ; it was originally one of the 

 divisions of the great Somersetshire forest of Selwood. Leland 

 gives its dimensions, in the time of Henry VIII., as four miles 

 long by one broad. Material for the history of this and the 

 other forests of the county is abundant. In the third edition 

 of Hutchins' History of Dorset, the boundaries of several 

 perambulations of Gillingham forest, from Henry III. to 

 Elizabeth, are set forth, as well as abstracts of the proceedings 

 relative to its disafforestation (ii. 620-4, 649). It was dis- 

 afforested and the deer removed in 1625. 



The wood sale accounts of Richard Cressebien and Mathew 

 Vynyng of the forest of Gillingham for 1402-3 are extant, 

 still enclosed in the leather pouch in which they were for- 

 warded to London. Mention is made in these accounts of the 

 sale of many Brothers," varying in price from 8s. to i6d.; 

 this term was a variant for roers or robora. Many details are 

 given of the expenses occurred in repairing lodges. 



Pleas of the forest of Gillingham were held at Shaftesbury 

 on 2nd September, 1490, before Sir Reginald Gray, Edward 

 Chaderton, clerk, and Richard Empson, as justices of the forest 

 of Elizabeth, Queen of England, on both sides the Trent. 

 Those appearing were Sir John Luttrell, sheriff of the 

 county ; William Twynyho, esquire, lieutenant of the forest ; 

 William Goodwyn, ranger ; Gilbert Thomson, forester-of-fee ; 



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