FORESTRY 



DOMESDAY SURVEY, as is well known, pays particular attention to the woods of the 

 various manors, as they were so invaluable for purposes of building, fencing, and fuel, 

 and more especially for the feeding of swine on the acorns and beech-mast. Wherever 

 a wood is entered, some indication of its size is also always set forth. Most of the 

 Domesday commissioners were content to give a rough estimate of the size of 

 the wood by stating the number of swine which it would sustain, or the number of swine 

 payable to the lord for pannage rights ; but in some counties, as is the case with Dorset, Derbyshire, 

 Lincolnshire, and Oxfordshire, the size of the wood is given in lineal measure. 



In the survey of Dorset the woodland is divided into three classes : — (i) silva, (2) silva modica, 

 and (3) silva minuta. By the first term all well-grown timber is indicated, by the second wood that 

 is less matured or where the timber trees are further apart, and by the third mere copse wood that is 

 frequently felled at periodical intervals. In one case, namely at Rentscombe, there were fifty acres 

 of silva infructuosay by which term is apparently meant a wood that bore no fruit for the swine 

 and was probably of ash. Mention is also twice made of mere scrub or brushwood {broca\ 

 namely on the manors of Canford and Lytchett ; in each of these cases there was a parcel of 

 120 acres of scrub. 



In Dorset there were vast areas of both silva and pastura, more particularly on the royal 

 demesnes. The wood of Wimborne, which was part of the ancient demesne of the crown, was 

 five leagues in length by one in breadth ; the wood of Dorchester four leagues by one ; and that of 

 Pimperne one league by half a league. The league [leuca) of Domesday was doubtless to some 

 extent a customary and somewhat variable term ; but it may generally be reckoned to correspond 

 broadly with a mile and a half of our measurement.* 



These measurements, and several others like them, probably signify the extreme length and 

 breadth of the woods, and do not take into account the exact shape of the wood ; * it must not, 

 therefore, be assumed that Wimborne wood was precisely five square leagues, or 7,200 acres in 

 extent. Eyton,' in his elaborate analysis of the Dorset Domesday, gives tables showing that the 

 then area of woodland of all kinds throughout the county amounted to 104,62 if acres, or about 

 one-sixth of the whole surface. If to this is added the 206,494 acres of pastura, or rough open 

 feeding ground as opposed to pratum^ the conclusion is reached that about half the county was 

 then of a wild or waste description and at least suitable to be considered forest. However this 

 may be, that Dorset was to an unusually large extent given up to game may be gathered from 

 other Domesday entries. Waleran the hunter {venator) held nine manors in Dorset, whilst 

 amongst the king's thegns of this county three others, Aluric, Godwin, and Uluric bear a 

 like title. 



The use of the term * forest ' as implying a great wood is a comparatively modern rendering, 

 which is false to its etymological origin. A forest, throughout Norman, Plantagenet and the earlier 

 Tudor times, meant a great district, mostly waste, reserved for royal sport and under special forest 

 laws. A certain amount of wood and underwood was necessary as covert for the game, but in 

 several forests, such as those of Dartmoor, Exmoor, and the High Peak, the woodlands formed but 

 a very small part of the whole area. The districts of Dorset that were technically forest included 

 no small quantity of moor, heather, and down.* 



The large amount of old royal demesne in this county, which was divided into six distinct 

 groups, doubtless served as forest hunting ground for the later Saxon kings. Under the early Norman 



' Eyton, Key to DomesJay, 25. * Ballard, Dom. Inquests (1906), p. 166. ' Key to Domesday. 



* In this necessarily brief summary of the story of the forests of Dorset, a certain knowledge of forest 

 law3 and customs has to be assumed, such as their local administration by swainmote courts, and the recurring 

 yisits of justices for holding Forest Pleas. The respective duties of foresters, verderers, woodwards, and 

 regarders, &c., are set forth in Turner, Select Pleas of the Forest (1902), or in a more popular form in Cox, 

 Royal Forests (1905). 



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