Ye THE FORESTS OP ENGLAIJD. 



as ' a wilderness thick set with trees.' Previous to that 

 time the whole country from the hills to the Severn must 

 have been a waste tract, fit only for the lair of wolves, and 

 other savage animals ; and in places not covered by trees 

 or underwood, except where a few bare eminences like the 

 Wold Hills contrasted with the gloomy forest scene, was a 

 flat marshy expanse with difficulty explorable by day, and 

 a dangerous extent of immeasurable gloom at night. This 

 tract of land west of the Severn was included in the 

 country of the Silures, but it was probably only visited on 

 hunting forays, for no traces have been discovered of any 

 permanent occupation, and scarcely a single British imple- 

 ment has been anywhere exhumed, nor are memorial 

 stones or sepulchral barrows to be found. Very few Celtic 

 names remain in the district, and with the exception of 

 Malvern, and perhaps Pendock, all the names of parishes 

 are evidently of Saxon origin. Nor did the Romans mark 

 their presence visibly in the flat country between the 

 Malvern Hills and the Severn, for no decided Roman road 

 crosses the Chase, nor have any Roman remains (a few 

 coins excepted) been found in it except near Upton, where 

 there seems to have been a camp, or secondary station, 

 probably to guard the ford across the Severn ; and another 

 Roman or rather auxiliary camp existed at Kempsey, four 

 miles below Worcester, but this was on the eastern bank 

 of the river. The Saxons do not appear to have entirely 

 conquered the country between the Severn and the Wye 

 before the reign of Athelstan, and whether they did much 

 more than divide the Chase into parishes does not clearly 

 appear. Some grants of land were probably made by 

 Saxon kings, and Edward the Confessor exercised that 

 right ; but the greater part of the Chase must have been 

 unappropriated, and as forest ground was therefore seized 

 upon by the Norman sovereigns. 



" Tanner, alluding to the hermitage here in Edward the 

 Confessor's reign, says it was ' in the wild forest ;' and the 

 hills and the country around their bases for many miles 

 were generally termed a wildernessj and are so called by 



