NORTH DURHAM AND BERWICKSHIRE. 315 



we read the existence and sites of woods are numerous ; and in 

 the regal grants and chartularies which have been preserved, 

 there is frequent mention of them. MALCOLM IV. of Scotland, 

 who began his reign in 1153, granted to the Prior of Coldingham 

 all the woods (bosca) within the bounds of that famed monastery* ; 

 and in a subsequent and similar grant of WILLIAM, the immediate 

 successor of MALCOLM, we have these woods (nemora) distinctly 

 specified, and the limits of the monastery accurately defined. 

 The woods were Grenewde, Ristuna, Broccheholewde, Akesside, 

 Kirchedeneswde, Harewde, Denewde, Swinewde, and Hundewde, 

 all of which were situated within a line extending from the di- 

 vision between Berwick and Lamberton to Billie, thence to Drie- 

 forde, thence by Mereburn to Crachoctre, thence to Eiforde, and 

 thence to the rivulet which flows into the sea by Aldchambpethe. 

 It may now be difficult to trace this line very exactly, but it 

 seems to have bounded the district occupied by the modern pa- 

 rishes of Mordington, Foulden, Chirnside, Ayton, Coldingham, 

 and Coldbrandspathj a district which is indebted to the planter 

 for almost all the wood it now possesses, although, in the two lat- 

 ter parishes, there are considerable remnants of its ancient groves. 

 It forms the north and east division of Berwickshire ; and it seems 

 unnecessary to specify what the woods of the west were, as, in 

 fact, that part appears to have been nearly one continuous forest, 

 except only where interrupted by morasses, or cleared away by 

 man in the vicinity of his dwellings. Even the Lammermuirs, 

 now rich only in u morishe evill ground of little valore," was in 

 those early, or rather in earlier periods, wooded with trees of 

 great size, as we are assured from the circumstance of the trunks 

 of them having been dug up out of mosses in that range of the 

 most bleak and profitless aspect. 



The application of this wood to buildings and to fuel, its de- 

 struction in war, the extension of agriculture, and natural de- 

 cay, were the causes of the gradual diminution of these forests, 

 which, in the 16th century, had almost disappeared. At that 

 time, and for two hundred subsequent years, North Durham and 

 Berwickshire had a most uninviting appearance. The landscape 

 was naked, and deformed with marshes, which had increased 

 greatly in extent, and in autumn breathed forth an annual pes- 



* See RAINE'S Durham, App. p. 7> No. xxx. 



02 



