544 
NATURAL HISTORY 
was printed February^ 1790; though never published^ but 
distributed among the members of the House of Commons, 
from some of whom you may borrow it, as I have done. 
This curious survey will inform you, from the best authority, 
of all the circumstances respecting the advantages, usages, 
abuses, &c. of our Forest of Alice Holt and Wolmer. Here 
you will see, that the Forest now consists of 8,694 acres, 
107 of which are in ponds ; that the present timber is esti- 
mated at £60,000,^ that it is almost all of a size, and about 
100 years old ; that it is shamefully abused by the neighbour- 
ing poor, who lop it and top it as they please ; that there is 
no succession because all the bushes are destroyed by the 
commoners around;^ that your old favourite oak, the Grind- 
stone Oak, is estimated at twenty-seven loads of timber ; ^ 
that the peat cut in Wolmer is prodigious ; in the year 
1788 in one walk 942 loads, and in another walk the same 
year 423 loads, besides heath and fern ; and in the same 
year 935,000 turves; &c. &c. &c. Lord Stawell is the 
Lieutenant or Grantee; whose lease expires in 1811, as I have 
said in my book."^ That nobleman did me the honour to call 
on me a morning or two ago, and sat with me two hours : 
he brought me a white woodcock, milk white all over except 
a few spots. 
My friend at Bramshot Place, where I measured the great 
' This survey and valuation was made in 1787. Wolmer, with but 
two enclosures within its precincts, then extended over 5,949 acres ; the 
royal forest of the Holt, with its enclosures, was found to comprehend 2,744 
acres. The timber of the Holt was valued at £61,000. See Letter VHI. 
to Pennant, p. 27. — Ed. 
^ The wrong-doers in this case were the poor of the parishes of Bin- 
stead and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, who laid claim to "the 
lop and top " in opposition to Lord Stawell, the grantee. " Forty-five 
of these people his lordship served with actions." See Letter IX. to 
Pennant, p. 32. — Ed. 
^ See antea, p. 357. — Ed. 
'* Letter IX. to Pennant, p. 30. On the expiration of the grant to 
Lord StaweU, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests resumed posses- 
sion of the Holt. All the lands held by him, and two-thirds of the former 
open forest were subsequently enclosed and planted. — Ed. 
