THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



reckoned in four or five entries in hides, and in two others by the 

 number of swine for which it afforded feed. This would seem to point 

 to the two methods of reckoning being used indifferently. Indeed, at 

 Shalford, where Domesday records ' woodland for i oo swine,' it adds 

 that the manor is short of * 30 acres of woodland,' which the queen had 

 given out of it. 



The destruction of woodland between the years 1066 and 1086 is 

 a matter of more direct interest, and one on which it is possible to speak 

 with more confidence. It is in what we have found to be the most 

 densely wooded district in the county that this destruction is most 

 evident. At Elsenham it had been steadily progressive, for the entry 

 carefully informs us that the woodland had 'then' (1066) sufficed for 

 1,300 swine, but, when the manor was bestowed, for only 1,100, and 

 lastly, at the date of the Survey, for 1,000. St. Walery's manor at 

 Takeley, where the woodland had sufficed for 1,000 swine, had only 

 enough for 600 in 1086, while at Little Easton there was a decrease 

 of no less than half, the estimate dropping from 800 to 400 ! At 

 Clavering, to the north-west, the figures had fallen from 800 to 600, 

 at Ugley from 200 to 160, at Farnham, 1 to the west, from 200 to 150, 

 at Bigods in Dunmow, to the east, from 400 to 350, and at Thaxted, to 

 the north-east, from 1,000 to 800. In the north-west of the county 

 there is a decrease from 1,050 to 830 at Saffron Walden, 500 to 400 

 at Wimbish, 100 to 80 at Thunderley, 1 and 250 to 200 at Amberden l 

 (in Debden). The diminution at Stanstead (in Halstead) from 500 to 

 400, at Sible Hedingham from 600 to 500, and at Coggeshall also from 

 600 to 500, may possibly point to forest clearings to the south-west of 

 the Colne. Other manors where the decrease is noted are Notley (330 

 to 200), Great Saling * (250 to 200), Little Maplestead (60 to 16), and 

 Henny (60 to 30), four manors of John son of Waleram which follow 

 one another on fo. 84. We have also a decrease at White Notley from 

 200 to 100, at Great Easton from 200 to 150, and at Little Halling- 

 bury from 150 to 100. Of manors which only possessed woodland for 

 100 swine or less, Wickham (Bonhunt) shows a decrease from 100 

 to 60, as does one of the Layers (fo. 92^) ; East Tilbury 100 to 50 ; 

 another of the Layers, a manor in the Notleys, Hersham Hall in Bump- 

 stead, Birchanger, and Yardley in Thaxted all show decreases from 40 to 

 30. At Polhey in Pebmarsh there was a diminution from 60 to 40, at 

 ' Wickham ' from 40 to 20 (fo. 39), at Brandon from 20 to 6, at a manor 

 in Finchingfield from 20 to 5. With the cases of ' devastated wood- 

 land ' at Fanton and Bowers Gifford we have dealt above. 



No one district and no one fief can be associated in a definite 

 manner with this destruction of timber, which only, one imagines, the 

 convulsions of the Conquest could have made possible in twenty years. 

 What can have been its cause ? A local demand for timber cannot 

 account for it, and there were obviously no facilities for selling it at 

 a distance. The only suggestion one can make is that times of war or 



1 This decrease is specially recorded to have taken place under King William. 

 377 48 



