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CHAPTER VIL. 
PLuMstEaD anpd Tootinc Commons. 
In the following year, 1871, decisions were arrived at 
in the Courts with respect to two other Commons, 
where inclosure had been effected shortly after the 
Committee of 1865. The Plumstead Commons, though 
little known as compared with Hampstead and others, 
are of great importance to London, by reason of their 
propinguity to the great working population of Wool- 
wich and Deptford. They consist of three open spaces 
—Plumstead Common, of 110 acres; Bostall Heath, of 
55 acres; and Shoulder of Mutton Green, of 5 acres. 
They are all parts of the waste of the Manor of 
Plumstead, and had existed in their present condition, 
little reduced in area, from the earliest times. Bostall 
Heath is a specially beautiful spot. It forms part of 
the brow of high table-land which overlooks the Thames 
Marshes below Plumstead. Its elevation gives it 
command of a very extensive prospect of the valley 
and shipping of the Thames, from Woolwich to Erith. 
The summit is a bare flat of dry gravelly soil, high 
and breezy. The surface soil had been nearly all 
carried off, and what remained was a pebbly gravel, 
covered with furze or stunted heath. 
The Manor is mentioned in Domesday Book as 
belonging in part to the Monastery of St. Augustine, 
