[ 1^5 ] 
nerable book of Doomfday, we have an account of a 
quantityof woodland in this parifh, fufficient for the 
feeding of 1200 hogs, which fliews us that this 
conliderable tradt of wood was of fuch fort, as to 
afford plenty of good food for fwine; as it certainly 
muft be to afford pannage for fo large a number ; 
and that thefe woods were chefnuts, may in all pro- 
bability be prefumed from the above circumflances. 
The fame venerable record llkewife mentions the 
village of Box, alias Boxbury, in Hertfordiliire ; 
which, the learned Serjeant tells us, was fo called 
from a large wood, which retains the name to this 
day ; and I have now before me the names of more 
than a dozen parifhes and places, which have taken 
their names from the box tree, and retain it to this 
time. The fir, no doubt, from every evidence that 
can be had of former times, and by the evidence 
of our own eyes, from the numbers of them which 
have been dug up in almoft every part of Britain, 
was an indigenous tree of this county; notwith- 
flanding Caefar’s affertion to the contrary, who ap- 
pears to have been but little acquainted with it, 
when he tells us, “ this ifland had every kind of 
“ tree the fame as Gaul, except the fir and the 
“ beech both of which were in the greateft plenty 
here at that very time ; the latter was particularly 
fo within the county of Kent, the only fpot he 
might be faid to be acquainted with : and yet, after 
this, no one fure will affert that either of thefe trees 
are not indigenous ; though the former of them is 
entirely extirpated (as the produdlion of nature) from 
the Southern part of Britain, which the chefhut is 
not; though it is made ufe of as an argument againft 
its 
