FORESTS OF SOMERSETSHIRE 335 



1270, when the verderers of Somerton warren again presented, 

 before the justices at Ilchester, several delinquents for hare 

 trespass. 



More careful attention is given to forest history in Collinson's 

 History of Somerset (three vols., 1791) than in any of our other 

 old county histories. He cites in full from the Wells registers 

 the perambulations undertaken of all the forests of the county 

 in 1289, in order to reduce them to their ancient and lawful 

 bounds, in pursuance of the ratification of the forest charter 

 granted that year. With respect to the forest of Roche or 

 Neroche, the commissioners reported in favour of the disaf- 

 foresting of various villages, lands, and woods, which had 

 been afforested by King John to the great detriment of the 

 tenants. Almost equally great reductions of hunting-ground, 

 which had been illegally made forest by Henry II., Richard I., 

 and John in the other Somerset forests, were at the same time 

 condemned and declared disafforested. 



The master forestership or general keepership of all the 

 county forests passed from the Peche family, in the reign of 

 Edward III., to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, in whose 

 descendants, earls of March, and in their heirs the dukes 

 of York, it continued until the time of Edward VI., when it 

 became united to the Crown. Collinson sets forth the period 

 of the respective disafforesting of North Petherton, Mendip, 

 Neroche, and Selwood ; but space prevents us giving particular 

 attention to any Somersetshire forest save that of Exmoor, to 

 which a few pages ought to be devoted. 



The printed information about Exmoor Forest is exceptionally 

 full. In addition to that which can be gleaned from Collinson's 

 county history, and from Savage's History of Carhampton 

 Hundred (1830), Mr. Rawle, in his Annals of the Ancient 

 Royal Forest of Exmoor (1893), has published most of the infor- 

 mation that can be gained from the original forest documents at 

 the Public Record Office, or from MSS. at the British Museum. 



Exmoor, exclusive of the part pertaining to Devonshire, was 

 the largest and by far the wildest of the Somersetshire forests. 

 This great expanse of hilly, open country, constituting for 

 the most part a bleak tableland of moor, surrounded by a fringe 

 of well-wooded combes, was bounded on the north by the 

 Bristol Channel, extended some twelve or thirteen miles 



