A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Dicker ' in Pevensey rape (both names and places in existence to-day), ' Petley Wood ' and 

 ' Darum ' or ' Darvel ' in the rape of Hastings. 



Other parks are found mentioned in various mediaeval documents, such as Hayley, in West- 

 meston ; Plottesbridge, between Lewes and Little Horsted, called ' the ancient park ' in a document 

 of the reign of Richard II ; and Clares or Cleres Chace in the same neighbourhood. Of some we 

 are ignorant even of their approximate locality, as those we read of in the will of William Reade, 

 bishop of Chichester (who died in 1385), who left 500 marks for the works at Amberley on the con- 

 dition that his executors might have sufficient timber in inter alia 'Pubhurst' and ' Pelock's 

 Wood.' 40 Possibly the latter wood was an acquisition for the see by SefFrid I, bishop of Chichester, 

 who died in 1150, and so-called from his nick-name 'Polokin' or ' Pelockin.' 41 Equally uncertain 

 are the woods of ' Ulvehola ' and ' la Hamoda,' which Robert de Dene and Sibella his wife gave to the 

 priory of Lewes. They were, in all probability, portions of the great woodlands of Ashdown 

 Forest, though the latter may have been ' Homewood ' already referred to. Such is an approximate 

 enumeration of the parks of Sussex at that period when they were probably most abundant, namely, the 

 reign of Henry VIII ; an enumeration which, according to those marked in Saxton's, Speed's, and Mor- 

 den's maps, amounts to sixty parks, seven forests, and eight uninclosed woods numbers which may 

 be raised by counting other parks and woods named in various documents, etc., to approximately one 

 hundred parks and at least twenty woods. 



As the times became more utilitarian these conditions underwent great change, and in the reign 

 of the last Tudor, though she herself was almost as great a huntress as Diana, many parks were dis- 

 parked and numbers of landowners made ' their deere leape over the pale to give the bullock 

 place.' 42 



The period of the war between king and Parliament was one of considerable destruction of the 

 woodlands of Sussex. Thus Sir William Ford, of Up Park, Harting, complained that 2,OOO cord 

 of timber had been cut down ' for satisfaction of wrongs done to certain countrey people thereabout 

 by some parties of horse of Colonel Ford,' Sir William's son. This park was, however, replenished 

 with such abundance of trees that, when Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh in the beginning of the next 

 century bought the estate for 19,000, the wood alone was said to be worth the purchase money. 43 

 Other royalists were obliged to make particular application that their woods might be released from 

 sequestration not having been included in the ' particulars,' as being held for pleasure and of no 

 profit. Such was Lord Lumley, who petitioned that a value might be set upon the woods growing 

 in Stanstead Forest and warren, so that the sequestration might be discharged, in order that he 

 might have wood ' for fuell and reparacions ' for the dwelling house there. 44 Many parks were 

 entirely disparked at this period, such as the abbot of Battle's, 300 acres being described in 1651 

 as part only of the great park of Battle Abbey lately disparked. 45 



During the Commonwealth many surveys of Sussex woodlands were made of which the 

 reports are extant. 46 From these we may gather that 'much spoyle and destrucon' had indeed been 

 made, for that phrase is often repeated, and details are given of many instances of deliberate waste of 

 woods and thieving of timber. The commissioners had various suggestions to make as to the disposal 

 of these Sussex woodlands ; some portions, they ' conceived ' should be sold, others farmed out ; one 

 should be turned into a ' shepewalk,' another ploughed and sown. 



In spite of the continual demands made upon the woodlands of Sussex by the iron and ship- 

 building industries they still contained a great amount of timber. A petition 47 of the ironfounders 

 in favour of the protection by tariff of their industry, in the reign of Charles II, states that there is 

 ' greate plenty of woods and iron mine in ye County of Sussex,' and estimates that these woods ' by 

 computacion amount to 200,000 acres.' 



The oaks of this county still served to build great numbers of England's ships. Defoe, speaking 

 of his journey from Tunbridge Wells to Lewes, says 



the timber I saw here was prodigious, as well in quantity as in bigness, and seemed in some places to 

 be suffered to grow only because it was so far from any navigation that it was not worth cutting down and 

 carrying away . . . and sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call in Sussex a tug, 

 drawn by twenty-two oxen, and even then it is carried so little a way and thrown down and left for 

 other tugs to take up and carry on, that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets 

 to Chatham. 48 



Under this continuous consumption of timber, Sussex woodlands were now diminished to a 

 degree that called forth the laments of contemporary observers. Nor was the greatly extended 

 cultivation of hops in the eighteenth century without effect, the wide demand for hop-poles leading 



40 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 50. 41 Ibid. 17. " Carew, Survey of Cornwall. 



43 Shoberl, Suss. 68. " Royalist Comp. Papers (znd Ser.), vol. 14, 870. 



44 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 33. " Parl. Surv. P.R.O. 



47 MS. in Suss. Arch. Soc. Library. w Tour. (ed. 1753), 187. 



298 



