FORESTRY 



1 



"^HE chief interest pertaining to the forest lore of this county is in connection with 

 the ancient and wild royal forest of the Peak, and the more fertile and smaller 

 duchy forest of Duffield. 1 



But there was much rich woodland in the shire apart from the districts 

 under forest law, particularly in the south. Parks of old times, as well as of the 

 present day, are generally associated with fine timber or well-wooded glades. Lysons drew up 

 a list, based on Quo Warranto rolls and early records, by which he claimed that this 

 comparatively small county had ' fifty-four deer parks ' in the early part of the fourteenth 

 century ; 2 but leave to impark did not necessarily imply the presence of deer within the 

 park. Several in this list were of small extent, and others only had an ephemeral existence. 



THE FOREST OF THE HIGH PEAK 



The king's forest of the High Peak was a wild district that formed part of the patrimony 

 of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and was royal demesne at the time of the great survey. The parish 

 of Hope and other adjacent lands were granted by the Conqueror in 1068 to William Peverel, 

 in conjunction with numerous lordships in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and other counties 

 which were known as the honour of Peverel. On Peverel's death in 1 1 14, his vast possessions 

 passed to his son, but in 1155 a younger Peverel was disinherited for poisoning the earl of 

 Chester, and all his estates were forfeited to the crown. From that time until 1372, the 

 castle and forest of the Peak were in the hands of the crown, when they were transferred to 

 the Duchy of Lancaster, and thence returned to the crown by absorption in the following 

 century. 



At the beginning of the twelfth century the forest of the Peak included the whole of 

 the north-west corner of the county. The Hope district embraced the seven berewicks of 

 Aston, Edale ' Muckedswell,' half of Offerton, Shatton, Stoke, and Tideswell ; whilst 

 Longdendale included the whole of the wide-spreading parish of Glossop, and much that was 

 extra parochial. According to somewhat later parochial divisions, the forest comprised the 

 whole of the parishes of Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Castleton, and Hope, with most of 

 Tideswell, considerable portions of Bakewell, and part of Hathersage. It formed altogether 

 an area of 40^ square miles. 



From the time when Longdendale was added to the honor of Peverel, in the days of 

 Henry I., the Peak forest was divided into three districts, each having its own set of foresters, but 

 all under one chief official. These three districts were known as Campana (i.e. the Champagne 

 or open country) on the south and south-west, Longdendale on the north and north-west, and 

 Hopedale on the east. It is hardly necessary to mention that the old term ' forest ' had 

 nothing in itself to do with trees or woodlands, but merely implied etymologically a 

 waste, and was used historically for an open district reserved by the king for the purposes of 

 sport. 



The bounds of the forest as set forth in the Forest Pleas held in 1286 were (translated 

 into English) as follows : ' The metes and bounds of the forest of the Peak begin on the 

 south at the new place of Goyt, and thence by the river Goyt as far as the river Etherow ; and so 

 by the river Etherow to Langley Croft at Longdenhead ; thence by a certain footpath to the head of 

 Derwent ; and from the head of Derwent to a place called Mythomstede Bridge ; and from 



1 The amount of unused material illustrative of the history of these two forests is very great. 

 These stores are chiefly to be found at the Public Record Office and British Museum, but there is a 

 fair amount in private hands, and certain gleanings at Lambeth Palace Library and the College of Arms. 

 All that can now be attempted is to give a few of the hitherto unchronicled features of the forests. 



* Lysons, Derbyshire (1817), clxix. 



397 



