By the Bev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.J. 



Of the reduction of the Wiltshire forest to its original small 

 dimensions, when, and by whom effected, I have no account : nor 

 can I say exactly when this part so reduced was finally disafforested , 

 but it seems to have been in the beginning* of the reign of James I.: 

 for in some legal evidence about forest rights taken about the year 

 1640, an old man remembered the king's deer still running about 

 Dartford Woods, Chapmanslade, and as far as Brook House, and 

 they were, he said, so tame that they would hardly get out of his 

 way. 



The proper size of Somersetshire Selwood is described in a 

 perambulation deed of A.D. 1297/ and of the final breaking up of 

 this we have some account. In 1683, King Charles I., wanting 

 money, resolved to raise a little by selling his royal rights. The 

 Earl of Pembroke was at that time chief forester, and Sir Thomas 

 Thynne, grandson of the founder of Longleat, was his deputy for 

 the upper part about Frome. Sir Thomas received an order from 

 the Crown to make a survey and return of the lands within that 

 part. For some time he did not move in the matter, as the business 

 was not at all to his liking. It would deprive him of certain in- 

 fluence and dignity, as the King's representative, and he was rather 

 disposed to let the matter drop, but sundry peremptory reminders- 

 were sent to him, and so it went forward. The tract to which the 

 papers I have seen refer was what are now called the East and 

 West Woodlands, with part of Marstou. The arrangement was to 

 divide the whole into three parts. One part was to go to the 

 Crown, in consideration of giving up all rights ; one part to Sir 

 Thomas Thynne and other landowners ; and the third to sundry 

 commoners who had certain privileges of turning cattle in to feed 

 on the open part of the forest. The King then sold the one-third 

 assigned to him, and so got the money he required. The other part 

 ultimately came by purchase to be merged in the Longleat estate : 

 and there was the end of Selwood Forest. Among the landowners 

 was the Lord Arundell, of Wardour, who was then the owner of 



1 Printed in Collinson's " Somerset," vol. ii., 195, and vol. iii., 56. Also in 

 Phelps's " Somerset," i., 147. 



