FORESTRY 



SUSSEX is still, as of old, the most thickly wooded of English counties ; so that even 

 to-day, whether we stand upon the summit of some high Southdown and look northward, 

 or from the Forest Ridge gaze southwards, the intervening country seems a sea of verdure. 

 Striking as this view is, what a panorama might we see could we go back to those 

 prehistoric days when gigantic beasts, now long extinct, inhabited this wide tract 

 of country. 1 Even in parts not now associated with woods there is evidence of former forests. For 

 eastwards at Pevensey, in the marshes around it, and at low water in the sea beyond it, are signs of 

 forests, subterranean and submerged. Further west, trees grew where the sea conceals Selsey ; 

 while Bede described Bosham as ' surrounded by woods and the sea.' All these woods were fringes 

 of the great forest which filled Sussex with its foliage and overflowed east and west into Kent and 

 Hampshire ; the forest which the Saxons called Andredeswald, or weald ; whence the modern word, 

 the Weald. 



This immense tract of forest-land exhibited a variety of surface and of vegetation. On the 

 clays and loam oak-trees flourished strongly, on the sandstone grew firs and birch, while on the 

 marls of the southern slopes of the Downs, and along their northern bases, beeches spread out their 

 smooth grey branches. 



To this forest-land the Britons had entry by the rivers and by well-worn tracks. Caesar 

 narrates how the Britons, after defeat, would withdraw to the woods, and, anon, issue therefrom 

 with their chariots ' by all the well-known roads,' 2 and describes their strongholds (oppida) in the 

 forests, whither they were wont to resort in time of danger. 



Evidence that the Britons frequented the great woodland of Sussex is found in the numerous 

 coins of undoubted British origin discovered at various parts of the forest-land throughout the county. 3 

 Other British remains have been found in the woodland parts, the most remarkable of which was 

 the find in 1862 at Mountfield, on the verge of Dallington Forest, of a hoard of ancient British 

 gold. 4 Still more remarkable evidences of British penetration of the great forest are furnished by the 

 remains of ancient boats formed out of single trees disinterred at North Stoke on the Arun ; 6 and 

 at Maresfield, in Ashdown Forest. 6 



With the Roman occupation further opening up of the great woodland took place, not only in 

 road-building, but also in developing the iron industry at various centres in the depths of the great 

 woodlands. 7 



Caesar speaks of the Britons as living chiefly on venison ; and Strabo writes of the celebrity of 

 their hunting-dogs. One contemporary illustration may be mentioned as pertaining to Sussex, its 

 deer and its dogs. This is a little vase of earthenware, quite British in style, even if of the Romano- 

 British period, found near West Tarring, which exhibits most graphically in relief the wild deer 

 fleeing before the swift gazehounds. 8 



When Saxon fought with Briton in fierce exterminatory war, the Sussex woodlands played no 

 unimportant part as points d'appui for attack, and as refuges from defeat. Thus, in 477, 



JElh and his three sons, Cymen, Cissa, and Wlencing, came to the island of Britain in three 

 ships, at a place which is called Cymenes-ora, 9 and there slew many Welsh, and some they drove 

 in flight into the wood which is called Andredes-leagh. 



Fourteen years later came the siege of ' Andredesceaster,' usually identified with Pevensey, during 

 which, we read that the besieging Saxons were much annoyed by attacks made upon their rear by 

 Britons, who issued from the circumjacent woods and retreated to them again when the Saxons 

 turned upon them. 



A great penetration and opening-up of the forest then took place, as may be judged from the vast 

 proportion of place-names in Sussex having a derivation from the woodlands, more especially 



1 Dixon, Geology of Suss. * Caesar, De Bella GalRco, Bk. v. 



* Willett on Ancient British Coins in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, xxx. 



* Suss. Arch. Coll. xv, 238. 4 Archaeologia, xxvi, 257. 

 6 Suss. Arch. Coll. xv, 161. 7 See ' Industrie.' 



8 Dixon, Geology of Suss. 



9 ' Cymenes-ora,' variously supposed to be West Wittering, Keymer, Selsey, or Shoreham. 



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