A FRAGMENT OF THE GREAT FOREST.
IT is difficult to realise that vast Forest the memory of which is handed down to us in the Wealds of our Southern Home Counties. Stretching from the edge of Romney Marsh to the border of Hampshire, the Andreds- wald, or Forest of Anderida, occupied nearly the whole space between the North and South Downs, covering about a third of Kent, nearly the whole of Sussex except the sea-board, and a considerable slice of Surrey. So densely wooded was this district, that the great Roman roads avoided it, the way from Chichester to London, for instance, passing through Southamp- ton. Devoted, so far as it was used at all, to the rearing of large herds of swine, who fattened on its acorns and beech- mast, it was frequented only by those who attended them, and remained for centuries after the adjoining parts had become subject to Roman civilisation, a terra incognita to both rulers and ruled. Throughout Saxon times but very slight inroads were made upon it, and it would appear that so late as the Conquest very little of it had been brought under cultivation or appropriated to particular owners, since few places situate wholly within the Weald are mentioned in the Domesday Survey.
Compare this condition of the country with that now existing, and the contrast is remarkable. So far from the Weald of Kent being now noted for wild and waste, it is exceptionally free from them. No large commons are to be found, villages abound, and axe of exceptional size, and the whole face of the country is in individual ownership, and in great part under high cultivation. Though Sussex contains more wood, and is parti- cularly favourable to the growth of oak, yet it is, on the whole, an inclosed county, and does not, like Surrey, for example, abound in heaths and open land. Three fragments of the ancient Forest, bearing traces of their descent even in their names, have, how- ever, survived to modern times,—the Forests of St Leonard's, Waterdown, and Ashdown. Of these, Ashdown Forest is pecu- liarly well defined, owing to its having been for some centuries surrounded by a pale. It is a district of triangular form, its base approaching the branch line of railway from East Grin- stead, to Tunbridge Wells, and its apex lying due south, some three or four miles from Lickfield. About seven miles from Tunbridge Wells and four from the small town of East Grin- stead, it thus lies in the heart of the county, a district com- paratively little frequented. Hence most Londoners would probably be surprised to learn that within forty miles of the metropolis there exists a second ancient Royal Forest, com- prising at the present moment a slightly larger area of open waste land than the famous Forest of Epping. To speak with accuracy, indeed, Ashdown is no longer a forest, in the legal sense of the term. Originally owned by the Crown, it was granted as a free chase to John of Gaunt, in the fourteenth century, and remained henceforth annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster, until the time of Charles IL, when it was formally disforested, and found its way into the hands of some of those speculators in waste land who seem to have sought their fortune in over- reaching the inhabitants of rural districts, under colour of the Royal permission and wishes. Popularly, however, its more digni- fied title has survived, and Ashdown Forest is the only name by which the district is known at the present time. From an early date the Forest became the seat of iron-works, and to this fact are no doubt mainly to be attributed the disastrous inroads made from time to time upon its sylvan beauties. In the time of the Tudors, Commission after Commission was issued to inquire into the waste and destruction of the Forest, with always the same result,—trees had been felled to make " coals " for the iron-mills. Even the officers of the Forest, the keepers them- selves, were generally found to be guilty of this offence, and it may well be imagined that while themselves committing so flagrant a breach of trust, they would not be astute to detect other offenders. In the time of the Commonwealth, that most business-like Government carefully surveyed the Forest, and determined to make allotments to the large body of persons who enjoyed rights of common over it, and thus buying out their interest, to reduce the residue of the tract to the several and complete ownership of the State. A Commission was issued, which actually set out the allotments to be enjoyed by the several parishes extending into the Forest, and even went so far as to determine in what proportions the several inhabitants of each parish should enjoy their allotment. Whether any inclosures were actually made is doubtful. The Forest is scored by banks and ditches in all directions, and it is possible that the allotments of the Parliamentary Commis- sioners may have been thus defined, and even that indi- viduals here and there may have attempted a complete appro- priation. However, the Restoration intervened before any general inclosure could be consummated, and the elaborate preparations for cutting up the Forest came to naught. They do not appear to have been popular with the inhabitants, for we find no attempt on their part to hold inclosures, nor any petition or memorial to the Crown to give effect to what had been projected. But Charles II. wanted money, and there were not lacking (as we have said) speculative persons who were ready to pay considerable sums, and to take all the expense and trouble of legitimate proceedings for an inclosure off the hands of the Crown, if they could obtain a grant of the Royal interest in the Forest, and an expression of the Royal wish that the Forest should, as it was called, be " improved." Their procedure was marked by the utmost simplicity. They inclosed large tracts, buying off one or two of the principal landowners of the district by giving them a share in the plunder ; and if remonstrance or resistance were made, complained that the inhabitants were frowardly conspiring together to.thwart the wishes of the Sovereign to benefit his country by making its wastes productive. The same process took place elsewhere, notably in the case of Malvern Chase. The Commoners, however, were not easily over-ridden. They resorted to the equally simple and strictly constitutional step of levelling the inclosures as fast as they were made. Squabbles and litigation ensued, and finally, in the case of Ashdown Forest, matters were settled in 1693 by a Decree of the Court of Exchequer, which gave the persons who had then become owners of the soil undisputed enjoyment of about 7,000 acres of the Forest land, and declared the Commoners to be entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of ex- tensive rights over the remainder. By this arrangement, the area of open Forest was reduced from nearly 14,000 acres to 6,400.
The tract of open land thus left does not lie in one block in the centre of the ancient Forest. On the contrary, the lands reserved for the Commoners were set out as far as possible on the outside edge, and in the neighbourhood of the villages where the Commoners resided. The consequence is that open and enclosed lands are intermixed over the whole area of the ancient Forest, —and the line of the ancient pale is still practically, in most parts, the boundary of the district. This combination of enclosure and waste is not without its advantages. The most ardent lover of heath and moorland cannot object to the variety caused by well-wooded enclosures breaking up the open expanse now and again, and in Ashdown Forest there is this special benefit, —that whereas at the time of the division the Forest had been nearly stripped of trees, the couple of cen- turies which have since passed have served to raise a handsome crop of fine beech and birch, where they have been protected by enclosures; while on the open wastes very few trees have survived their infancy, and over wide tracts there is hardly a bush to be seen above the level of the heather and bracken.
Indeed, were it not for the inclosures, the greater part of Ashdown Forest, as it now exists, would present few features of incongruity if transferred to the Yorkshire moors. Long ridges of heather, visited by the sea-breezes which have only brushed the tops of the South Downs, stretch in every direction, afford- ing wide views over a wild and broken country. Moorland streams rising in the bottoms cut their way through the gravel and soft stone of the district, often running between steep banks, in which the yellow sandstone, with its ruddier iron veining, forms a delightful background to fern and moss and creeping plant. Here and there, it is true, the Forest redeems its pristine character, and protests against classification with moorland pure and simple. Beech and oak scrub occasionally dot the heather ; that most lovely of young trees, the birch, rises here and there in quaint groupings and fantastic wreath- ings and bendings of its slender branches ; while again and again those faithful denizens of every English forest, the holly and the yew, throw in their dark shading to other leafage, or break the surface of the open heath. In one corner, indeed, there is a genuine oak wood, not of great age, but yet not desti- tute of those sturdy and rugged beauties which mark the species, and just suggesting what the Forest must have been before its mineral wealth caused the destruction of its natural vesture. Still the prevailing characteristic of the open forest are heath- clad hill and wide-stretching moor, and hence the presence of the masses of foliage which have sprung up on the large inclo- sures sanctioned in the seventeenth century is by no means an unmixed evil. The smaller inclosures which are dotted about the Forest, in some places very thickly, and many of which originated in nothing but encroachments, or to use the more ex- pressive term, " squattings," often add to the landscape a charm of their own, the garden well stocked with fruit-trees, and the bright green meadow, with its thick hedge-row, pleasantly vary- ing the slope of the hill, or nestling in the hollow by the side of the stream. And even the cottages, which, like most buildings erected under such circumstances, are crude and hap-hazard enough in their construction, when time has toned down the harshness of their outlines and the staring red of their tiles, are not out of harmony with their surroundings.
Various attempts to plant the open Forest have from time to time been made by the owners of the soil, but hitherto they have been stoutly resisted by the Commoners, and very wisely ; for planting meant simply the temporary abstraction of so ranch of their open common, with great risk of its permanent appropria- tion. They were not indeed unreasonable in their opposition, but allowed clumps to be left where they were obviously planted for ornament, and not for profit; and the consequence is, that many of the long ridges are broken at their highest points by knolls of beech or pine, imparting that indescribable sense of solitude which is associated with single trees or groups of trees in a wild open country. Recently, the ubiquitous Scotch fir has here and there gained a footing on the moors, and with a little encouragement would doubtless soon over-run them. Fortunately, its movements are carefully watched, for ex- perience in the New Forest has shown how disastrously it dis- figures woodland scenery when grown in large masses, while the consequences entailed upon the herbage have been found to be equally ruinous. But in a soil which once produced an oak and beech forest, some planting, carried out with discretion, might doubtless be introduced without incongruity or the destruction of the natural features of the Forest ; and it is to be hoped that by aid of the facilities offered by recent legislation, and under the guidance of that love of open spaces as such, which has arisen of late years, as one of the results of our crowding in towns, and the hurry of our lives, some mode of protecting and enhancing the beauty of the district, with due regard to all legal rights, may be discovered. In the meantime, if a tired and smoke-
dried citizen wishes for a few days' ramble in a wild, hilly, and open country, accompanied by copious draughts of the freshest possible breezes, he cannot do better than pay a visit to Ash- down Forest.
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