FORESTRY 



ALTHOUGH there is no evidence of the presence at an early time of a true royal forest, 

 under forest law, within the bounds of Hertfordshire, there is no doubt that the greatei 

 part of the district abounded in timber and underwood from the earliest days of which 

 there is any record. Indeed, the place-names of the county bear particular witness to the 

 great extent of woods and woodland. Frith, the old name for a forest or woody place, is found 

 in Frithsden, to the north of Hemel Hempstead, and also at Great Berkhampstead, Welwyn and 

 other places. There is no doubt that the greater portion of western Hertfordshire, which lay in 

 the Chiltern region, was at one time densely wooded. As late as 1064, the thickness of the 

 Aldenham Woods ^ rendered the road to London dangerous for travellers. The gradual and 

 deUberate clearing of the great manor of Wheathampstead can be traced in the charters and 

 grants of the abbey of Westminster.^ 



The Domesday Survey proves that this was a county abounding in timber to an exceptional 

 extent at the time of the Norman Conquest. It is but rarely that the Survey gives the extent 

 of the woods or underwood of the manors by acres or by miles and furlongs as in Lincolnshire 

 and Derbyshire. The chief value of the woods consisted in affording acorns and beechmast for 

 the swine. Hence it came about that the woods were usually set down by the commissioners 

 in accordance with the number of hogs they were capable of fattening. In some counties the 

 woodland estimate was formed from the tale of pigs that it yielded to the lord in return for 

 pannage licence, but in Hertfordshire the estimate was formed from the number of pigs that it 

 sufficed to feed. The numbers of the swine afford a rough estimate of the size of the woods ; but 

 it is, of course, idle to attempt to form any scale of their area, as their swine-feeding capacity 

 would depend not only on the density of the woodland area, but also on the nature of the 

 trees. The oak and beech no doubt very largely predominated, but there were also other trees. 

 Thus at Lilley, a large manor of nine plough-lands on the Bedfordshire border in Hitchin 

 Hundred, in the midst of other manors furnishing provision for hundreds of pigs, the Survey 

 states that it only supported six swine. It would be quite rash, however, to assume that the 

 woodland area of Lilley was in consequence very small. The group of manors in the north-west 

 of the county, which belonged to the king, were well supplied with pannage woods. Walden 

 Regis supported 800 swine and Hitchin 600. The total of swine in the king's woods was 3,155, 

 or an average somewhat less than 300 a manor. The lands of the abbey of St. Albans were 

 chiefly around the monastery in the south-west of the county, where the manors were of great 

 extent. The woodlands of Rickmansworth supported 1,200 swine and those of St. Albans, 

 Hemel Hempstead and Cassiobury 1,000 each. The total in the abbey woods amounted to 

 6,710 ; the average per manor was over 400, but Shephall had only 10, and the two manors of 

 Newnham and Norton, in the extreme north of the county, none. By far the greatest lay 

 tenant of Domesday manors was Eustace Count of Boulogne ; his comparatively small manors 

 lay in a group to the north-east of the county, save for Tring at the extreme west and 

 Hoddesdon at the south. Tring had woodland to feed 1,000 swine ; but the woodland of the 

 other twelve manors was apparently quite small, for they only averaged 17 swine apiece.' 



Mention is made in the Survey of three parks in this county — namely, at St. Albans, 

 Benington and Ware.* In each case the descriptive term is parens bestiarum syhaticarum, 

 which may be best rendered 'a park for beasts of venery.' The four beasts of venery were the 

 hart, wolf, wild boar and hare, which were all termed sylvestres ; they spent their days in the 

 woods and coppices, and were taken by what was considered true hunting, being roused by 

 lymer hounds or tufters, and afterwards pursued by the pack. Contrariwise, the beasts of the 

 chase were campestres, or found by the day in open ground, and therefore required none of the 

 niceties of tracking and harbouring, but were roused straight away by the pack ; these beasts 

 of the chase were also four in number — namely, the fallow and roe deer and the fox and 

 marten.* 



' y.C.H. Herts, ii, 149. " Ibid. 298. ' See Domesday map, F.C.H. Herts. 1, 300. 



* Thirty-one of these deer parks are mentioned in Domesday. 

 ' Cox, Royal Forests, 6z, 63 and cap. iv. 



