By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jachon, F.S.A. 



41 



Sudden Park, the Red Deer Park, and others; commons, all now 

 taken in, as at Bedwyn, Stock, Knowl, Chisbury, Clench, Pewsey, 

 and Tidcomb ; also downs ; in short all, of all sorts, that lay between 

 Workaway Hill on the west, and nearly to Kintbury, beyond Hunger- 

 ford, on the east; and from north to south all from Marlborough to be- 

 yond the Collingbournes, and round to Buttermere corner. "Within 

 this large district certain licenses were granted by the Crown to differ- 

 ent proprietors ; a few of which I would just name, as illustration of 

 the forest history that has been given. Matthew de Columbars of 

 Chisbury (of one of the oldest Wilts families), was privileged to have 

 the hounds within his manor, exempt from expeditation. The 

 churchmen of those days, being very powerful, obtained grants in 

 favour of their tenants. The Prior of Marlborough had rights of 

 feeding in the Forest, for oxen and cows. The Abbot of Hyde, 

 near Winchester, the same. The Bishop of Salisbury had a chace 

 for wolves and hares at Stitchcomb. The Prior of Ogbourn another. 

 But complaints were made, against the two last named, that they 

 were occasionally encroaching, to the damage of the King. 



The map enables me to explain another matter. When we speak 

 of those parts of our great metropolis that are occupied by the not 

 best conducted sort of society, resorts of thieves and outcasts of all 

 kinds, we are apt to call them purlieus ; as the haunts of all that is 

 bad. It is a curious misuse of the word, being directly the contrary 

 of what it originally meant. In the time of Edward I., when the 

 overgrown forests were reduced to the original size of what in early 

 days had been simply the King's private demesne, all that remained 

 outside of the original forest obtained the name of "pur-lien" The 

 word is said to be derived from the French pur— clean, and lie?i=^[ace : 

 meaning that part which henceforth became clear and exempt from 

 the rigorous forest law, to which it had been subject. The real 

 purlieus of London are not its dens of filth and iniquity, but just 

 the very opposite, those open spaces outside the crowded city, such 

 as the parks. These are comparatively exempt from the rigorous 

 laws and inconveniencies of the streets : just as the purlieu of the 

 forest meant those parts which lay outside the original forest, 

 and were no longer subject to the tyranny of its regulations. 



