FORESTRY 



I 



authentic history of the woods of 

 Buckinghamshire ' may be said to 

 begin with the Domesday Survey, 

 in which the general distribution of 

 woods throughout the county is 

 strikingly manifested. In this county the com- 

 missioners estimated the extent of the woodlands 

 by certifying how many swine could be sus- 

 tained ori its acorns and beech mast, and it 

 is quite obvious from these returns that con- 

 siderable woods were to be found in every 

 direction. Taking the larger woods, which were 

 sufficiently extensive to support 500 swine or 

 upwards, we find they run as follows : Wen- 

 dover, 2,OOO ; Chesham, 1,600 ; Lillingstone, 

 1,200 ; Marlow and Princes Risborough, 1,000 

 each ; Oakley, 806 ; Marsworth and Iver, 800 

 each ; Taplow, 700 ; Chalfont St. Peter, Burn- 

 ham, Farnham, and Chalfont St. Giles, 600 each ; 

 and Wraysbury, High Wycombe, Stoke Poges, 

 Missenden, and Hampden, 500 each. These 

 places are to be found north, south, east, and 

 west, and in the centre of the county. The 

 swine-feeding powers of the woods throughout 

 Domesday are almost invariably expressed in round 

 numbers. There is however a curious exception 

 to the rule in this county. The woodland of 

 Akeley is said to have found sustenance for 806 

 swine (octingentis porch et vj) ; such an entry as 

 this is a corroboration of the theory that the 

 extant Domesday is a condensed summary of the 

 actual returns, and that the original detailed 

 return has in this case been accidentally retained. 

 There are two references to the royal forest of 

 Bernwood. Brill (Erunhelle\ on the confines of 

 Oxfordshire, is named as a manor of King 

 Edward's; under this manor jCi2 is entered as 

 the annual issue of the forest. Oakley was in 

 the same forest, and it is entered that the wood- 

 land would feed 200 swine, 'save that it is the 

 king's park in which it lies.' 



At Long Crendon, adjoining Oakley and 

 Brill, Walter Giffard had a park for beasts of 

 venery (parcus bestiarum silvaticarum\ which is a 

 truer forest translation than beasts of the chase. 



1 Camden considered that the very name Buckingham 

 meant the beechen village, owing to the number and 

 ize of its beech trees, from boccen or buecen, derived 

 from bat, a beech tree. Although this derivation has 

 been doubted by Lysons and Lipscombe, its accuracy 

 is still maintained by several modern etymologists. 



The four beasts of venery, the hart, wolf, wild 

 boar, and hare, were sy/vestres, that is, they spent 

 their days in the woods, and were taken by what 

 was considered true hunting, being tracked or 

 roused by the lymers and lymer hounds (corre- 

 sponding to the modern tufters of the Devon 

 and Somerset Staghounds), and afterwards pur- 

 sued by the pack. The beasts of the chase were 

 termed campestres, that is, they were found in the 

 open country by day and therefore required none 

 of the niceties of tracking and harbouring in 

 thicket and coverts, but were roused straight away 

 by the hounds ; these were the fallow and roe 

 deer, with the fox and martin.* 



So far as Buckinghamshire was concerned with 

 royal forests the position was distinctly peculiar. 

 The shire had no large forest of its own entirely 

 within its bounds, but it shared portions of four 

 distinct forests with adjacent counties, namely 

 Windsor, Whittlewood, Salcey, and Bernwood. 



The smallest of these shares was that of 

 Windsor in the south of the county. Parts of 

 the parishes of Datchet, Langley Marish, Slough, 

 and Eton, on the Bucks side of the Thames, 

 immediately opposite Windsor and the present 

 Home Park, were for many generations considered 

 part of Windsor Forest. At the present day 

 293 acres of meadow and other land in Datchet, 

 abutting on the Thames, are Crown lands, as well 

 as upwards of 2OO acres at Eton. 



The forest of Whittlewood lay chiefly in 

 Northamptonshire, but a considerable section 

 overlapped into the north-western district of 

 Buckinghamshire, including the parishes of Lil- 

 lingstone Lovell, Lillingstone Dayrell, and parts 

 of Biddlesden, Akeley, and Stowe. All that 

 remained of Whittlewood Forest in this county 

 in 1792 was 220 acres in Lillingstone Dayrell, 

 which was included in Wakefield Walk. It was 

 not until August 4, 1853, that the much-re- 

 stricted area of old Whittlewood Forest ceased 

 to exist. On that day An Act far Disafforesting 

 the Forest of JVhittltwood became law ; the deer 

 were destroyed or removed, and the forest officers 

 discharged. 



Salcey, another of the royal forests of North- 

 amptonshire, in the south-east of that county, 



1 Cox, Royal Foreiti, 613. ManwooJ, so continu- 

 ously cited by writers on old hunting, has strangely 

 blundered in his misleading lists as to legal beasts of 

 the forest and the chase. 



