FORESTRY 



two-thirds for the commoners and freeholders. Both crown and inhabitants were well 

 pleased with the result. The commons were measured, and surveys made that divided the 

 lands into three sorts, Best, Middle, and Worst, and the king's share was staked, and maps 

 showing the results were drafted. The surveys were not completed until 1640, and all the 

 preliminaries having been adjusted the king caused all the deer to be destroyed or removed, and 

 since that date the report expressly states that there were never any deer whatever within the 

 High Peak forest. The extirpation of the deer was almost immediately followed by the 

 beginning of ' the troublous times ' that preceded the actual outbreak of the Civil War, and 

 hence further proceedings came for a time to an end. 



Throughout the Commonwealth, though it had lost its deer, and though the forest laws 

 were upset, the Peak Forest remained as hitherto, and no inclosures were carried out. 



It was not until 1674 that the project for disafforesting the Peak Forest and enclosing the 

 cultivatable or good pasturing portions was completed. The commissioners appointed for the 

 purpose were Sir John Gassy, Sir John Cell, and fifteen others, including such well-known 

 Peak names as Bagshaw, Eyre, and Shalcross. They reported, inter a/ia, that there were 

 733 Ia> 3 r - J 6P' of barren and waste land. 



It must have been a great assistance to their labours to find that the maps of 

 1 6 Charles L, showing the exact measurements and the three sorts of land had escaped the 

 various destructions of the troublous times ; and it is of no small interest to know that 

 these maps, rude as compared with later surveying, but remarkably good of their kind for 

 that date, are still to be seen at the Record Office. 1 In several of them the ' Forest Wall ' is 

 marked, which encircled the chase of Campana or Champion, and which was so constructed 

 that it would keep cattle off the great tract specially reserved for the deer, whilst the deer 

 themselves could leap it, to wander at their pleasure, over the rest of the forest and its 

 purlieus. This wall can still be traced throughout most of its circuit. The whole circuit was 

 surveyed in 1 9045 by the writer of this article. There are small rudely drawn and coloured 

 pictures of churches and houses on most of these maps. Occasionally they are sufficient to 

 give some notion of the building, as in the gabled three-storied late Tudor house of Ridge Hall. 

 The upstanding boundary and other crosses are of frequent occurrence, and various remarkable 

 stones or groups of stones are also shown, and many can still be traced.* 



DUFFIELD FRITH 



Duffield Frith, or forest, was the name of a considerable expanse of land a few miles to 

 the north of the county town. Though one of the smaller of the royal forests, it had a circuit 

 of somewhat over thirty miles even in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when it had undergone 

 considerable reduction. This forest took its name from Duffield, which formed the centre of 

 the great territory of the Ferrers property in the Midlands ; but though two of the four 

 wards of this forest, Duffield (afterwards called Chevin) and Belper, were wholly in the 

 extensive parish of that name, much of Hulland ward was in Muggmton parish, and almost all 

 of Colebrook ward was in the parish of Wirksworth. 



Henry de Ferrers, one of the chief favourites of the Conqueror, held no fewer than 

 114 manors or lordships in Derbyshire at the time of the Domesday Survey, as well as many 

 others on the borders of the shire. Duffield, on the Derwent, at the entrance of the valley 

 that gave access to the lead mines of Wirksworth, made an admirable centre for the con- 

 trolling government of the great Norman baron. Here, on a site formerly used both by 

 Romans and Saxons, he erected a most massive fortress. The story of the successive occupation 

 of Duffield Castle by several generations of the Ferrers, and of its demolition in the time 

 of Henry VIII., in consequence of the rebellion of Robert Earl Ferrers, will be told else- 

 where ; 8 suffice it here to say that from the time when the forfeited Ferrers estates were 

 conferred by the crown on Edmund earl of Lancaster, Duffield and Duffield Frith became part 



1 Duchy of Lane. Maps and Plans, No. 10. The following are the maps of 1 6 Charles I. or 

 thereabouts : 13, Teddington and Priestcliffe ; 14, 17, 22, and 72, Bowden Middlecale, etc. ; 15, 

 Castleton Commons ; 18, Wormhill Commons ; 19 and 107, Bradwell ; 20, Mellor Moor and Com- 

 mons ; 23 and 79, Bowden Chapel; 38, Fairfield ; 39, Hope ; 40, Monvash ; and 89, Flagg and 

 Chelmorton. There are also three of Charles II. date, viz.: 1 6, Wastes and Commons of Hope; 

 75, Taddington ; and 83, Bowden Middlecale. 



3 See Athentfum, 9 July, 1904, and 24 June, 1905. 



8 The foundations of the immense keep of Duffield Castle were uncovered in 1886-7. See Derb. 

 Arch. Journ. ix. 118-178, ' Duffield Castle and the Ferrers,' by Dr. Cox. 



413 



