45 



ground," clearly implying that the term, when in use elsewhere, has 

 taken its origin from its use in this district. 



Then, as to benefits, we find that the commoners have rights of 

 " estovers," and sometimes of pannage and lopping. " Estovers " is 

 a legal term signifying " necessaries or supplies allowed by law, as " 

 in the present sense, "of wood to a tenant for life," the "common 

 of Estovers," which is no doubt the more restricted sense in which it 

 should apply here, being " the liberty of taking necessary wood for 

 the use or furniture of a house or farm from off another's estate." 

 " Lopping " is the right to " cut off all the branches of a tree, except 

 the crop or main shoot"; while "pannage" means "the food of 

 swine in woods, as acorns, beech-nuts, etc." 



We thus get the accepted meaning of the word, and a definition 

 of the commoner's rights, but must look further for the reason why 

 these wooded common-lands are called " charts." It is perhaps not 

 an unnatural inference that "chart" is a contraction of the word 

 charter, and if it could be shown that the rights appertaining to 

 these particular lands were granted by some special charter we should 

 have no hesitation in accepting such a solution of the question with- 

 out further ado, but history does not appear to supply any such 

 direct information ; it does, however, contain many records which 

 by analogy point strongly to this conclusion. 



From the earliest records available it appears that the district we 

 now know as the Weald " in former times comprised an immense 

 tract of waste desert and wilderness, uninhabited, and like a forest 

 stored with deer and droves of swine." It was called by the Britons 

 Coit Afidred, from its immense extent, and by the Saxons " Weald," 

 signifying a woody country. Some attempt at colonising this wilder- 

 ness appears to have been made by the Saxons, but it does not 

 appear to have been parcelled out into parishes or manors until after 

 the Norman Conquest. The population of this part of the country 

 enjoyed certain privileges that did not apply to the holdings of their 

 neighbours in the adjacent districts, among them being " the non- 

 payment of tythes for wood to the parson ; the not being amenable 

 to the statute of woods ; neither has the lord waste within the Weald, 

 the timber growing thereon belonging to the tenant." 



As to the original extent of the Weald there appears to be some 

 controversy, but its western limits, the only portion that concerns us, 

 are, according to ancient records, fairly well defined, and are thus 

 described : "The Weald, to the west, bounds on Surrey; southward 

 on Sussex ; commencing, on the north, at Surrey ; the boundaries 

 are by the hill whereon Well Street stands ; thence to the summit of 

 Idehill, Riverhill, the hill above Fair lane, and thence to Herst hill." 

 Most of these places are not shown on maps of the present day, but 

 by older prints we find that Well Street was at the foot of the hill 

 below Limpsfield Chart ; Ide Hill stands in a dip between Toy's 

 Hill and Goathurst Common ; River Hill is some two miles to the 

 south of Sevenoaks, just below Knole Park ; while Fair Lane and 



