LIMITS OF WOLMER FOREST. 
19 
particular to say, and one called Bin's, or Bean's pond, which is 
worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being 
crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the carex 
cespitosa* it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild 
ducks, teals, snipes, &c., that they breed there. In the winter 
this covert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes by phea- 
sants ; and the bogs produce many curious plants. [For which 
consult letter XLII. to Mr. Barrington.] 
By a perambulation of Wolmer-forest and the Holt, made 
in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First (which 
now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former 
are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of the further 
side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on 
this side in old times came into Binswood, and extended to 
the ditch of Ward-le-ham-park, in which stands the curious 
mount called King John's-hill, and Lodge-hill, and to the verge 
of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit-hatch, comprehending also 
Short-heath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods, a large district, now 
private property, though once belonging to the royal domain. 
It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned 
in this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the peram- 
bulation, a rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which 
were considerable, growing at that time in the district of the 
Holt ; and enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, of those 
joint forests, for the time being, and their ostensible fees and 
perquisites. In those days, as at present, there were hardly any 
trees in Wolmer-forest. 
Within the present hmits of the forest are three considerable 
lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer ; all of which are stocked 
with carp, tench, eels, and perch : but the fish do not thrive 
well, because the water is hungry and the bottoms are a naked 
sand. 
A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means 
peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence, and that is, that 
instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, 
calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water during the hotter 
hours, where, being more exempt from flies, and inhaling the 
coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only to mid- 
* I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the foresters torrets : a corrup- 
tion, I suppose, of turrets. 
Note, In the beginning of the summer 1/87 the royal forests of Wolmer and Holt were mea- 
sured by persons sent down by government. 
C 2 
