CHAPTER XXX 

 THE FOREST OF DARTMOOR 



WHILST far too little has hitherto been printed about 

 many of England's forests, the reverse is true with 

 regard to Dartmoor. The mere list of books and 

 publications relating to Dartmoor, its history, scenery, an- 

 tiquities, and convicts, covers twelve pages of the last edition 

 of Rowe's Perambulation. Much of this is, however, of an 

 ephemeral character, and the only two books that give serious 

 information as to the history of the forest or chase are 

 J. S. W. Page's Exploration of Dartmoor (1889), and the one 

 just named. The Perambulation of Dartmoor, by Samuel Rowe, 

 vicar of Crediton, a good antiquary of his day, was first 

 published in 1848; it was reprinted in 1856, and in 1896 

 brought out again in a much extended and corrected form by 

 J. Brooking Rowe, F.S.A. This last admirable volume gives 

 in extenso a variety of historical documents from a charter 

 of John in 1199 down to an interesting presentment of the 

 jurors of a court of survey in 1786. Nevertheless, a con- 

 tinuous history of this forest or chase yet remains to be 

 written. 



In the following brief remarks a mere bare outline of the 

 general run of such a history is all that is attempted ; whilst 

 the additional documentary evidence cited has, to the best 

 of our belief, never before been printed. 



The whole forest of Dartmoor lies within the old parish 

 of Lydford, by far the largest parish in all England. The wild 

 table-land of the forest in the centre of the shire, with its 

 adjacent common lands, hardly distinguishable from the forest 

 proper, covers some 100,000 acres, whilst the actual forest has, 



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