FORESTRY 





A 'HOUGH the woods of Gloucestershire, covering some 61,184 acres, are surpassed 

 in extent by those of at least five other counties, Yorkshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, 

 and Devon, yet in respect to forestry they yield in interest and importance to none. 

 Not only does Gloucestershire possess a climate admirably suited for the growth of 

 timber, but it contains in the Forest of Dean the largest block of crown woodlands 

 which has been consistently utilized during a long period for the production of timber on more or 

 less business-like principles. From the sixteenth century till the modern development of communi- 

 cation by land and water, the Forest of Dean formed the largest and most valuable oak-growing 

 tract l within the kingdom. To-day it is the centre of the scientific forest management lately 

 introduced by the State. 



The county of Gloucester naturally falls into three great divisions, which run in nearly 

 parallel lines from north-east to south-west, the rolling hills of the Cotswolds, the fertile valley 

 between them and the Severn, and on that river's western bank a district ' all shaded with woods ' 

 which finds its most complete expression in the Forest of Dean. 



As to the Cotswolds it is possible that at a remote period the range was clothed with beech 

 woods. Aboriginal tribes at first clung to the hills, but when in the process of time these primaeval 

 woods were cleared, the chalky soil would soon pass into a barren and treeless condition, incapable 

 of becoming re-wooded in the ordinary course of nature. The complete denudation of lime and 

 chalk hills can be performed in a very short space, while an attempt to reclothe them with timber 

 forms one of the most difficult tasks in forestry and requires a long period for accomplishment. 

 It is only here and there, as for instance on Earl Bathurst's estate near Cirencester, that remains 

 of these primaeval beech-woods would seem to be in existence. 



For the extent of woodland in the county in the pre-Conquest period we must largely depend 

 on inferences from the casual entries of Domesday, and the evidence of place-names. But on a 

 general view* it may be stated, with the proviso, however, that the central division was then far more 

 heavily wooded than at present, that in the eleventh century the woodland was generally densest in 

 the same parts of the shire as to-day. It may be convenient to collect here a few historical notes 

 as to the forests east of the Severn before dealing with what must form the centre-piece of even 

 the slightest discussion of the Gloucestershire woodlands that 



Queen of forests all that west of Severn lie * 

 the Forest of Dean. 



The Forest of Corse, 4 which lay within the Gloucestershire border, is generally considered 

 in connexion with Malvern Chase and need not detain us here, but it is necessary to mention 

 the woods in Kiftsgate hundred, at Sudeley, 1 Toddington, and Twyning,* which were of con- 

 siderable extent. Indeed it is worth notice that in the north, as in the south and west, great masses 

 of forest lay along the county boundary. 



A reference to the Pipe Roll' of 1130 brings to our notice a royal forest of slight 

 extent which brought in profits (centui) amounting to 40;. There styled the Forest of 

 Cirencester, it possibly included one if not both of the two woods entered in the great survey 



1 As Mr. Philip Baylis, His Majesty's Deputy Surveyor in the Forest of Dean, kindly points out, both the 

 diariits Evelyn and Pepys, who may be regarded as expert witnesses where timber is concerned, pay a high 

 tribute to that produced in the Forest; Evelyn, Diary (ed. Wheatley, 1879), ii, 154; Pepys, Diary (ed. 

 Wheatley, 1903), iii, 20. 



' For a particular discussion of the Domesday woodland and the inferences derivable from the pannage 

 entries see the Domesday article in Y. C. H. Gloiu. \. 



' Drayton, Pofyolbion, Song 7. 



4 The Forest of Corse or Cors, was apparently in the hands of the Clares at least as early as 1 247, as 

 appears from the inquisition held on the lands of Richard de Clare ; Cat. Itf.f. a. Hen. Ill, 156. Trespassers 

 against the venison seem to have been imprisoned in Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire men much resented 

 being thus haled across the border ; HunJ. R. \, 1 79. 



* Domesday mentions here a wood three leagues long by two broad. 



* Twyning at least was said to have been at one time a parcel of the great Worcestershire Forest. 



' (Ed. Hunter, 77.) Even in the Confessor's time, according to Domesday, part of the render at 

 Cirencester was food for the king's hounds. 



263 



