A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



as belonging to the king's land in Cirencester hundred, 1 and was really an overlapping portion 

 of the Wiltshire forest of Braden detached as an adjunct to the royal demesne of Cirencester. 

 Its early status as a royal forest may also be gathered from a charter 2 of Henry I to the abbey of 

 Cirencester in which is mentioned ' a water-course and the wood called Acley (Oakley), with the 

 foresters and their land, and I retain nothing to myself out of the wood beside my hunting only, 

 and the abbot may not assart it ; ' while a further grant 3 or regrant of Richard I to the same house 

 excepts only ' the pleas of our Crown and our forest of Mynthy, which we have reserved to ourselves.' 

 This small forest is now represented by the fine woods on Earl Bathurst's estate already referred to. 



No certain evidence has been adduced that Woodchester Park 4 was ever forest in a technical 

 sense, even under the Angevins ; but the country between Huntingford and the Wood of 

 Furches, 5 or Furcis, near Bristol, was for the most part afforested after the coronation of Henry II 8 

 either by that king or his sons and doubtless for reasons of revenue. A nucleus for this afforestation 

 was however found in the ancient royal park of Alveston, which is specifically mentioned 7 in the Pipe 

 Roll of 1130, and which was excepted from the disafforestation of 1228. 8 Alveston Park was, how- 

 ever, in 1230 granted to Fulk FitzWarin, and a few years later stocked for his use with deer from 

 the royal forests of Braden and Chippenham. 9 Within the area above-mentioned, which was often 

 styled the Forest of Horwood, lay the manor of Pucklechurch, for which the bishop of Bath and 

 Wells took out a special certificate of disafforestment, while the inhabitants in and about the forest 

 paid a fine of 200 marks for the relinquishing of the royal rights. 10 In the Forest of Horwood the 

 clearance of the woodlands since the Domesday time is specially noticeable, and was no doubt 

 quickened in no ordinary degree by the forges of Iron Acton and its neighbourhood. 



On the southern fringe of Horwood Forest proper, along the border of the shire, and over- 

 lapping into Somerset, lay a wooded and furze-clothed tract appendant to the castle of Bristol, a 

 portion of it being known at an early time as the wood of Furches. For example, in 1224 the king 

 committed n the castle of Bristol ' cum bertona et foresta et chascia brullii de Kainesham et bosco de 

 Furches et omnibus aliis ad castrum illud pertinentibus ' to the custody during pleasure of Ralf of 

 Wilinton. This tract at least as early as the reign of Edward I became known as the Forest or 

 Chase of Kingswood, and frequent references to its keeper and other officers, or to trespasses against 

 the king's vert or venison therein, are found on record. 12 



For instance, in 1275 13 Bartholomew Le Jevene, constable of Bristol Castle, was ordered to 

 pay Hugh of Malvern, keeper, "]^d. daily for the maintenance of himself and of three foot 



1 C. S. Taylor, Dam. Surv. of G hue. 164. * Dugdale, Man. vi, 177. 



* Cat. Chart. R. i, 145 ; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 178. 



4 It is not unlikely however that Woodchester Park may have been afforested in the reigns of the 

 Conqueror's sons. 



6 In the account of the honour of Gloucester rendered by William de Faleisa and Master Swein we find 

 an entry on the Pipe R. 2 John, of ij it. i^et. for sales in the Wood of Furches. 



6 Close, 12 Hen. Ill, m. 10 d. ; and Cal. Chart. R. i, 75. The northern part of this region near 

 Kingswood Abbey was probably royal forest as early as the reign of Hen. II (Dugdale, Mon. v, 427), while 

 the Pipe R. I John shows that in the south the abbot of Glastonbury was fined 10 marks for old and 

 new waste at Pucklechurch. It is possible that the afforestation of Pucklechurch was first made before the 

 reign of Hen. II, since in his grandfather's time Theodric the miller of ' Popelicercha ' owed 1 5 marks of 

 silver to the king fro flacito ctrvi ; Pipe R. for 1 1 30. 



* ' In terra lucrabili que capta est infra Parcum de Aluestan Ixxij/ numero.' 



8 Cal. Chart. R. i, 75. ' Close, 1 8 Hen. Ill, m. 6. 



10 Cal. Chart. R. i, 75, 104 ; Fine R. 12 Hen. Ill, m. 5 ; Pipe R. 12 and 13 Hen. III. 



11 Pat. 8 Hen. Ill, m. 2. In regard to the question of the early afforestation of this land near Bristol it 

 is significant that in the reign of the Confessor ' Bertone ' made a render of food (fanes) for the king's 

 hounds. 



" Although the name Kingswood has occasionally been applied by modern writers to the whole area at 

 one time afforested between Huntingford and the Avon, yet in the Patent Rolls of Hen. Ill (e.g. a. 8 m. 10), 

 the Forest of Harewood (Horwood) and Alveston is apparently distinguished from the tract afterwards known 

 as Kingswood. It has also been most commonly assumed that Kingswood was disafforested by the charter 

 procured by the men of Horwood in 1228. If so it could only have been in part, as a large parcel of 

 Kingswood lay in Somersetshire. In this connexion it may further be suggested that the wording of this 

 instrument does not forbid the interpretation that the ' Wood of Furches ' is mentioned therein as a limit and 

 need no more be regarded as necessarily situate within the metes of Horwood than ' the water of Severn ' 

 similarly named as a boundary. However this may be, as late as the reign of Edw. I, the royal writs assumed 

 that there were verderers and regarders as well as foresters and agisters in Kingswood (Pat. 6 Edw. I, m. 19), 

 and in 1285 the commission to R. de Hengham and W. de Wymburn to take all pleas touching the king's 

 chase of Kingswood was coupled with a mandate to the sheriffs of Gloucestershire and Somersetshire apparently 

 couched in terms usual when the forest law was in force (Pat. 13 Edw. I, m. 28). Mr. A. Braine, who in his 

 interesting Hist, of Kingswood Forest, accepted the Horwood charter as referring to the Gloucester portion of 

 Kingswood, found it necessary to add (p. 30) : ' But it is certain that the mandate was ignored, if not altogether 

 set aside, by subsequent authorities.' 13 Cal. Close (1272-9), p. 202 (m. 8). 



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