A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Ten years later, Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick became possessed of this forest, 240 and 

 his family, in some branch or other, as the Nevilles and Abergavennys, have held the eastern part, 

 the neighbourhood of Eridge and Frant, ever since; George, Lord Abergavenny, dying in 1536 

 possessed of one moiety of Waterdown Forest and of lands called Eridge. 241 



The large amount of woodland in this district is evidenced by the fact that as late as the reign of 

 Charles II the rector of Rotherfield kept a woodward or keeper for the 366 acres of wood pertaining 

 to the rectorial manor, while of the residue of the parish a large proportion of its 14,344 acres was 

 heath, common, or wood. 242 Camden described Waterdown as one of the three great forests of 

 Sussex, and Aaron Hill said of this forest-land : ' There is a place called Eridge Park . . . and an 

 open old appropriate forest of the name of Waterdowne that butted on the park enclosure. The 

 park is an assemblage of all nature's beauties.' 24S To-day its acreage is 2,500, and it has large 

 tracts of heather and bracken, together with fine timber trees of oak and beech. The ' green rides ' 

 cut in its woods are said to total no less than 70 miles in length. This park contains 400 fallow and 

 100 red deer, and has several pieces of water. 



We now come to consider the last on our list of Sussex forests. 



DALLINGTON FOREST lay in the easternmost part of Sussex, in the centre of the Rape of 

 Hastings. It extended over the parishes of Dallington, Brightling and Burwash into Mountfield, 

 and by the first three of these names it was variously denominated. Its exact metes and bounds are 

 not known, and they may have included Penhurst and Ashburnham woodlands. Like several of 

 the other forests of Sussex, Dallington appears to owe that denomination to an original royal 

 ownership, for in the Saxon era much of this forest district was in the possession of Edward the 

 Confessor, as Brightling, Ninfield, and Ashburnham ; or of members of his family, as Goda his 

 sister, who held Mountfield and Netherfield. Other parts of the forest-land were held by 

 Earl Godwin or his heir Harold, as Whatlington, Crowhurst, and Sedlescombe. 



It is in connexion with Dallington that the sole use of the word ' Forest ' in the Domes- 

 day of Sussex occurs, where, under that manor, is the entry that ' the count holds half a 

 hide in the forest.' The only park mentioned in Domesday in this division of the county is 

 Wiltingham, but it does not appear to have had any relation to the forest, lying as it did beyond 

 its southern verge. 



After Domesday, the charters of Robertsbridge Abbey, which stood on the bank of the river 

 Rother, on the eastern margin of the forest, contain references to this woodland. To this 

 establishment Henry, count of Eu, granted pannage for their hogs in his woodland, and the vills 

 of ' Werth, with Cumba, near my forest of Bristlinga, with woods, -plains, and pastures.' All 

 these three place-names were at one time or another applied to the forest as alternative to 

 Dallington, albeit Werth and Combe were quite insignificant localities, to-day surviving as the 

 names of farms. From a succeeding count of Eu, Ralph de Issounden, the monks obtained free 

 pasturage for their bullocks, sheep, and hogs, in his ' forest of Werth.' From his wife, who 

 survived him, the abbey received, in 1225, right of pasturage for twenty oxen, twenty cows with 

 their calves, and twenty mares with their foals, in her ' forest of Burgherse.' The same convent 

 had also received from Ralph de Issounden grant of a forest-privilege which recalls the decision 

 given by the seventeenth-century commissioners who adjudicated upon tenants' rights in Ashdown 

 Forest and defined their right to wood-allowance as applicable only to beech, alder, and willow. 

 For the earl had given the monks the right to take ' dead wood in his forest of Werth,' viz. ' le boul, 

 le algneit, le fredne' birch, alder, and ash and another wood of doubtful identity, viz. 'le 

 curhive' (? hazel). 



Judging from the number of persons who obtained grants of ' free warren ' over various 

 parts of this forest-land it seems probable that this portion of the great Andredeswald became 

 subdivided, in course of time, in such a way that the chief mesne-lords exercised rights of hunting 

 over the forest-land in, and in the neighbourhood of, their particular manors ; for in the Middle 

 Ages a man might have ' free warren ' over the lands of another. 



As early as the reign of Henry I the St. Leger family are found holding Dallington and 

 Warding. William of that name obtained a grant of free warren in 1 244, 244 his son Walter 246 

 and his grandson John 246 receiving confirmations of the same in 1264 and 1301 respectively with 

 regard to that part of the forest within their lands, as Dallington. Walter de Echingham had 

 similar hunting rights conferred by Edward I 247 over the forest-land of Burwash, Brightling, and 

 Mountfield. These privileges the family retained for several generations, Thomas de Echingham 

 obtaining confirmation of them from Henry VI. 248 Doubtless one cause of so many co-existent 

 rights over coterminous lands was the forfeiture incurred by William, count of Eu, for adhering to 

 the king's enemies, whereby his estates came into the hands of King Henry III, who in 1248 



140 Pat. 12 Hen. IV. "' Inq. p.m. 27 Hen. VIII. MJ Terrier of 1675. 



141 Horsfield, Suss, i, 402. '" Chart. R. 28 Hen. Ill, m. 2. M6 Ibid. 49 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 



48 Ibid. 30 Edw. I, m. 50. '" Ibid. 21 Edw. I. "" Pat. 16 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 18. 



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