FORESTRY 



With regard to Seymour's tenure of St. Leonard's Forest documents at Magdalen College 

 state that 



There is communication that the Lorde Admirall aforesaid will buylde a toune w th in the Forest of 

 St. Leonardo, wher increase of tythes may growe to the College . . . wheras now we have but 3/. 

 for the herbage of the foreste and 8/. for the parke of Bewbushe sometyme parcell of ye foreste. 



During Queen Mary's reign St. Leonard's Forest was once more in the possession of the Norfolk 

 line, the duke spending much time at Chesworth. A certain John Beard was the chief official of 

 the forest during this period, according to a herald's visitation, which says he ' had lands at Cuffold 

 and served the Duke of Norfolk when his grace lived at Chesworth in Sussex, and was Ranger of 

 St. Leonard's Forest in the tyme of Queen Mary, and lyeth buryed in the parish church of Cuffold 

 under a fayre marble.' 12 In Elizabeth's reign the forest was still in the hands of the duke. 



Apparently his actual resources by no means corresponded to the extent of his possessions, 

 for in 1561 he was constrained to offer to mortgage to the queen the manors of Sedgewick, Ches- 

 worth, Baybush, Shelley, and the forest of St. Leonard. ' In them is plenty of woods for fortifica- 

 tions or ships.' m 



The duke's troubles, however, pecuniary and otherwise, were brought to an abrupt termination 

 by his execution for treason in 1572, when the queen by his attainder came into possession of the 

 Sussex parks and forest which had been otherwise offered to her. In the event the forest of St. 

 Leonard was leased to various persons, Sir John Caryll ultimately acquiring the greater part of it, 

 such as Sedgewick and Chesworth. 122 The family of Ford had a sub-lease of a portion of this 

 territory, since in 1642 Sir William Ford leased with the consent of Sir John Caryll 324 acres 

 of pasture and woody ground, parcel of the park of Sedgewick, to John Gratwick, gent. The over- 

 lord, Caryll, reserved the right for himself and heirs ' to meet and bring convenient companies to 

 hawk or hunt, fish or fowle, upon the same and to carry the game away.' The great timber was 

 reserved by Sir William Ford, but Gratwick had the usual allowances of wood for reparations, viz. 

 hedge-bote, stake-bote, wain-bete, and plough-bote. A state paper of about the year 1636 places 

 the rents received by the crown from St. Leonard's Forest leases, Sedgewick, Chesworth, &c. at 

 725 i6s. 8J., 'from which being deducted the king's rent 227 14?. 6d. there remains a saleable 

 value of 498 2s. 2d.' 123 



Some idea of the enormous destruction of wood in the forest at this time may be gathered 

 from the fact that Sir Thomas Sherley in 1578 obtained leave to take 2,OOO cords (a cord being 

 125 cubic feet) of beech, birch, and oak yearly, and next year had licence for a further 2,000 cords ; 

 under which licences he had taken by 1597 as much as 75,016^ cords, while another lessee, 

 Edward Caryll, had taken 8,580 cords. 121 The total destruction for these twenty years was 

 therefore well over a million cubic feet, and would be represented by a stack of wood rather more 

 than a hundred feet in height, length, and breadth. 



In 1650 commissioners were appointed to perambulate and report on this district and the 

 ' Survey ' they made affords many details relative to this portion of the forest of St. Leonard, namely 

 of ' lands sometime called Sedgwicke Parke ancently disparked . . . containing by admeasuremt 

 one thowsand therty three acres and twenty five pches.' The part containing Sedgewick Lodge and 

 its circumjacent park-land comprised more than 372 acres, 'the timber trees and young oakes being 

 in number eight hundred, besides other young trees and Beeches ' growing there, being valued 

 at j200. 



The extent to which this and the remainder of the ^033 acres still retained its park and forest- 

 like character is shown by the fact that upon the eleven farms into which it was cut up stood no less 

 than 1,857 trees, 'timber trees, young oakes, Beeches, tillers, together with many great Beeches' 

 (i.e. not included in this enumeration), whose grand total amounted to 2,657 trees besides the great 

 beeches, valued at 490. 125 



From another 'Survey,' of 1650, we gather that the disparked park of Chesworth was cut 

 up into farms, ten in number, mostly of small acreage, the largest consisting of but sixty-three 

 acres more or less. A portion of one of these holdings bore the remarkable sobriquet of ' Jenny 

 Bare-leggs Close.' 



Another portion of the estate was in the tenure of Sir Thomas Ersfield, and containing a 

 ' conny-warren,' arable, pasture, and woody lands, was called ' The warren and ould parke.' 

 Richard Waller, of Horsham, held 1 6 acres at a rent of eleven pounds, with a covenant to ' plant 

 or graft six crab stockes or perrye stockes yerely ' ; a covenant which it is much to be desired could be 

 introduced elsewhere nowadays when circumstances permit. There seems to have been but little 



180 Herald's Visitation of 1634, quoted by Horsfield, Hist, of Sussex, \, 243. 



121 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. n, No. 56. '" Pat. 44 Eliz. 



115 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 339, No. 16. " 4 Exch. Spec. Com. 2123. 



115 Parly. Surv. Sussex, No. 48. 



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