Chapter 14

The deer of the Forest, and its timber, plants, birds, ferns, and early allusions to the Forest deer--The Court of Swainmote, by which they were preserved--Act of 1668 regarding them--Reports of the Chief Forester in Fee and Bowbearer, and Verderers, in 1788, respecting the deer--Mr. Machen's memoranda on the same subject--Their removal in 1849--The birds of the Forest--Unforestlike aspect of the Forest, now, compared with its former condition--Successive reductions of its timber--Its oldest existing trees described--Present appearance of the young woods--Table of the Timber Stock, from time to time, during the last 200 years--An account of the rarer plants and ferns.

The earliest allusion to deer in the Forest is, as might be expected, coeval with its being constituted a royal domain. William the Conqueror is said to have been hunting here when he first heard of the taking of York by the Danes in August, 1069. In Henry I.'s reign the deer were so numerous as to make the tithes of them worthy of being given as a royal present by that king to the Abbey of Gloucester, which city, says Geraldus, was supplied with venison from the Forest of Dean; and the frequent visits of King John to Flaxley Abbey and to the Castle of St. Briavel's during the latter years of his reign, arose probably from the abundant sport the neighbourhood afforded him.

The deer of the King's forests were preserved in ancient times with the greatest care by the execution of certain laws, administered by a Swainmote Court, which was regulated by officers called Verderers, Foresters, and Agisters, who disposed of all cases in which deer were killed without warrant: not that any man was to lose either life or limb, as formerly, for so doing; but he was to be heavily fined if he had property, or, if not, to be imprisoned a year and a day, and be then released, if he could find sufficient securities, or be abjured the realm. A curious exception existed, however, in the case of any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron summoned to the King, and by the way passing through a royal forest, when it was lawful for him to "take and kill one or two deer, by the view of the Forester, if he be present, or else shall cause one to blow an horne for him that he seem not to steal the deer." At the fawning season, or "fence-month," as it was called, commencing fifteen days before and ending fifteen days after Midsummer-day, the Forest officers attended within their own walks, and required all manner of dogs to be kept in at the peril of the owner, bringing before the verderers any persons found hunting or out of the highway with a bow or gun, or gathering rushes or bents, or driving swine or cattle, to the hurt or disquiet of the deer. They were also charged at all times with the preservation of the vert or underwood, on account of the shelter and food it afforded the deer.

[Picture: The Tomb of John de Yrall, Forester in Fee, in Newland Churchyard. Round the sides of the Tomb is this inscription, in old characters--"Here : lythe : Ion : Wyrall : Forster : of : Fee : the : whych : dysesyd : on : the : VIII : day : of : September : in : ye : yeare of oure Lorde : m.cccc.lviii. on : hys : Soule : God : have : Mercy : Amen."]

By the Act of 1668 it is provided, that, "should His Majesty think fit to restore the game of deer within the said Forrest, the same shall not exceed the number of 800 deer of all sorts at any one time;" intimating that during the Civil War, and the period of the Commonwealth, that kingly pastime had been discontinued. The same Act directs that "the owners, tenants, &c., of any of the several lands lying within the bounds of the Forest may keep any sort of dogs inexpediated to hunt and kill any beast of chase or other game," except during "the fence month," and "the time of the winter heyning, viz. from the 11th of November to the 23rd of April," when all rights of common were to be in abeyance.

Charles Edwin, Esq., "Chief Forester in Fee and Bowbearer," in 1787, stated to the Commissioners that he claimed by virtue of his office to be entitled to the right shoulder of all bucks and does killed within the Forest, and also to ten fee bucks and ten fee does, annually to be there killed and taken at his own free will and pleasure, with licence to hawk, hunt, fish, and fowl within the Forest." As bowbearer, it was his duty "to attend His Majesty with a bow and arrow, and six men clothed in green, whenever His Majesty shall be pleased to hunt within the said Forest." Edmund Probyn, Esq., one of the Verderers of the Forest, stated at the same time, that the number of bucks and does which it contained could not be ascertained; but it was much understocked, so that the warrants were sometimes sent back unexecuted." Until the deer were removed, each of the four verderers was entitled to a buck and a doe every year.

[Picture: The King's Bowbearer]

"When I first remember the Forest," Mr. Machen remarks, in his private papers, "now 65 years since, the deer were very numerous. I recollect my father taking me up to the Buckholt in an evening for the purpose of showing them to me, and we never failed of seeing several:" this was about 1790. "From that time for 20 years, in consequence of the decrease of the covert and the increase of poachers, they rapidly diminished, until in 1810, when I do not believe there were ten in the whole Forest. At this period the enclosures were made for the preservation of timber, and woodmen appointed to the care of them; the few deer that were left were protected, and as the young trees grew up so as to afford them shelter, they rapidly increased, and in thirty years, viz. in 1840, I should think there were not less than 800 or 1000 deer in the Forest."

"The red deer were introduced in 1842 by Mr. Herring, who brought down on 24th February, from Woburn, two stags and four hinds. They were in fine condition, and were turned loose in Russell's Enclosure, one mile from the Speech-house." Mr. Machen further notes as follows:

"October, 1842.--Two of the hinds have calves with them."

"October 20th.--One of the stags was hunted from Trippenkennet, in Herefordshire, and swam the Wye three times: the hounds brought him into Nag's Head Enclosure."

"July, 1844.--Two stags, three hinds, and a calf are now in Park Hill Enclosure, and are frequently seen in the meadow in front of Whitemead. One old stag is at Edge Hills. A hind is sometimes seen in the Highmeadow Woods, and it is known that one was killed there."

"October.--A young hind was sent down, and turned out in Haywood Enclosure."

"October, 1845.--The two old stags are wandering about, and seldom in the Forest."

"October 4.--Hunted the stag near Park End; ran four hours, but lost him, night coming on."

"September 20th, 1846.--The stag that was about Staunton and Newland was killed this day, after a run of three hours. He was found on the old hills near Newland, and killed in Coleford. This was a four years old deer, calved in the Forest; the hind and calf went to Staunton, and never returned: the hind was killed by poachers. The venison of the stag was excellent: the haunches were 45 lbs. each."

"October, 1847.--Another stag was killed after a good run. Two were found, and ran some time together before the hounds in Park Hill."

"October 6, 1848.--The last stag returned to the Forest, after having been in the woods, &c., near Chepstow almost a year. He was found in Oaken Hill, and killed, after a run of three hours, in Sallow Vallets. His haunches weighed 51 lbs., and the whole weight 307 lbs."

"The fallow deer of the Forest were reduced in number after the year 1850 by killing a large number of does. They were all fine animals, and when the enclosures protected them they got very fat, and the venison of fine flavour. They were generally hunted."

At the time of Lord Duncan's Committee in 1849 a general feeling prevailed against the deer, on the ground of their demoralising influence as an inducement to poaching, and all were ordered to be destroyed, there being at that time perhaps 150 bucks and 300 does.

The remarks "Going after the deer," or "You don't, may be, want to buy some meat?" are no doubt fresh in the recollection of many. Going about with guns, in numbers too formidable for the keepers to interfere, shooting the deer by day, and carrying them off at night, were by no means uncommon. Poachers of a poorer and more primitive stamp are said to have resorted to the expedient of dropping a heavy iron bar from where they had secreted themselves, on the projecting branch of an oak, so that it might fall across the neck of the deer which had come to browse beneath. Or they baited a large hook with an apple, and suspended it at a proper height by a stout cord over a path which the deer were observed to frequent. They also were known to set a number of nooses of iron wire in a row, skilfully fastened to a rope secured to a couple of trees, into which, aided by dogs, they drove the deer. With such kind of sport at command, we may be well assured of the truth of Mr. Nicholson's statement before Lord Duncan's Committee--"if once men begin to poach, we can never reckon upon their working afterwards." Ornamental to a forest as deer undoubtedly are, and disappointing as it may be to the stranger to find none in the Forest of Dean, we cannot regret that, in 1855, Mr. Machen records, "there is not now a deer left in the Forest, and only a few stragglers in the Highmeadow Woods."'

Besides deer inhabiting the Forest from the earliest times, no doubt it was also frequented by all such animals as used to be accounted "beasts of the forest," viz. the hare, boar, and wolf, in addition to the hart and hind.

Adverting to the feathered tribes which have been observed in this neighbourhood, Mr. Machen remarks--"The birds in the Forest do not differ much from those met with in other parts of the west of England. I have been struck with the contrast in the smaller number of large birds, mostly of the falcon kind, which are now seen, in comparison with those I remember fifty years ago. At that time you might often observe fifteen or twenty kites and hawks hovering over Church Hill and the Bicknor walks; but now it is not frequently the case that you see one. It appears to me also that there is a great diminution in the number of all kinds of birds, small as well as large, so that in some parts of the Forest and woods the stillness and absence of animals of every kind is surprising. Ravens too have become very scarce. A pair had a nest by Simmon's Rock this year (1857), but they are said to drive their young to a distance as soon as they can provide for themselves. The only kind of plover in the Forest is the green plover or lapwing, which were very numerous at one time in the wet greens. Woodcocks used to be thought never to breed in this country, but they certainly do so now. In this Forest and in other places I have frequently seen them during the summer, and have observed their nests, made on the ground, of slight construction. One above Whitemead had only two eggs. When the plantations were first made, they became, even in the centre of them, well stocked with partridges; but as the woods grew up they all disappeared. Pheasants were turned out by me at Whitemead, and soon spread over the whole Forest. At one time there was a good stock, but lately they are much reduced. There are a great variety of woodpeckers, which do not, I think, hurt sound trees, but rather those which they find already decaying. Fieldfares and redwings come in great numbers. Nightingales are not numerous in the Forest, although they abound in the neighbourhood. They do not like its depths, or large trees hollow below; but prefer a thick close cover, and the vicinity of a road or path where the bushes are low and thick: but I never heard one in the middle of the Forest. Although a country like this seems unsuited to the wheatear, as preferring the Downs of Sussex, &c., still they come here in the spring, and are generally seen by the roads, or on stone walls in which they build their nests, and even in the heaps of stones, as also in the rails of bark. I remember that beautiful bird, the kingfisher, by the Forest brooks, but now you never see one. Flocks of rooks sometimes come into the neighbourhood when the oaks are much blighted, to feed on the grubs, and in such quantities that the trees are quite black with them. They come from a distance, as they are not seen at other times, and never breed in the Forest."

Mr. Gee, speaking of the birds which he has observed on the north-east side of the Forest, states--"The raven is seen more frequently in the neighbourhood than in most parts of England: his croak over head is not at all an uncommon sound. A pair of buzzards will occasionally circle aloft for a considerable time. The snipe is found very early on the Forest, so much so that I have known in the month of July six killed in a day. The jack snipe particularly abounds about 'the Dam Pool.' The bittern has been twice shot near the same spot within the last twenty years. The seagull skims over occasionally from the Severn side. The water-ousel is frequently met with on the Forest brooks. The cross-bill comes sometimes into the neighbourhood. The turtle-dove particularly abounds, so that in early summer our woods are in a charm with their soft purring. The fern owls are very numerous. I once came on a considerable flock of the rare bird, the siskin. The titmouse tribe are abundant; but we never see the rarer species, the bearded or the crested tit. The chats and the wheatear are of course common. The woodpeckers are very common: even the two pied species might be obtained here with very little trouble. We are all over willow wrens in the spring. On the whole, I should say that it is a neighbourhood unfavourable for the observation of birds; and yet, were an observant naturalist to come among us, he would soon astonish us by what he would discover."

THE TIMBER.

Most strangers visiting the Forest do so in the expectation of seeing groves of stately timber covering the ground in every direction, and are much disappointed when they find the greater part to consist of oaks, barely fifty years old, comprised in enclosures, and the remainder of the surface disfigured by furnaces, collieries, and groups of inferior buildings. The Forest as it existed in the days of the Norman and Plantagenet kings, William I. and John, who resorted to it for the pleasures of the chase, when its dark recesses often concealed noble fugitives, or disposed its population to habits of violence and plunder, or at a still later period, when its stately trees had become objects of apprehension or jealousy to the Spaniards, was widely different from what it is at present. Few of the trees of those days have survived the fellings, spoliations, and storms of succeeding ages. According to Mr. Pepys, "a great fall" in Edward III.'s reign left only those which in his time were called "forbid trees," to be further reduced by the requirements of seventy-two iron forges, which then lit up the district, or the yet more voracious furnaces by which they were succeeded. One storm alone, viz. that of the 18th of February, 1662, prostrated in one night 1,000 oaks, and as many beech, whilst only 200 were, it is said, left standing after the wholesale fellings perpetrated by Sir John Winter. Of these select few, the venerable "Jack of the Yat," near the Coleford and Mitcheldean Road on the top of "The Long Hill," appears to be one.

[Picture: "Jack of the Yat"]

Mr. Machen thinks it the most ancient tree in the Forest, and probably four or five hundred years old. It is of the Quercus robur kind, or old English oak, the stalks of its acorns being long, with rarely more than one acorn on a stalk, and the stalks of its leaves short. A few years back it was struck by lightning, which has left a deep groove on its trunk. In 1830 it measured, at 6 feet from the ground, 17 feet 8.75 inches; and in 1846 upwards of 18 feet 3.5 inches: but it has long since passed its prime. {208} Two other oaks, similar in form, and fully as large in girth, yet exist, but in a decaying state, on Shapridge.

[Picture: The "Newland Oak."]

There are other trees approaching in age to the above, viz. an oak in Sallow Vallets Enclosure near the Drive, of the Quercus sessiliflora kind, its leaves growing on long stalks, and the acorns clustering together on short stalks, and perhaps 200 years old, being 13 feet round at 6 feet from the ground, and still in a very flourishing condition. Another oak-tree, near York Lodge, measuring 21 feet round, formed apparently of two trees which grew together for ages, but not long since threatened to fall asunder, necessitating their being cramped up across the head by a transverse iron bar. At the Brookhall Ditches also there is an oak entirely variegated, containing 100 feet of timber; besides several other fine trees near. There are five very large beech-trees growing about two miles from Coleford on the road to Mitcheldean, and others likewise, almost as large, on the Blaize Bailey, besides several more near Danby Lodge; but the finest of all the beeches in the Forest is near the entrance to Whitemead Park, near York Lodge, measuring 17 feet at 6 feet from the ground. Most of the lesser oaks which have become timber, and have not been removed by the recent "falls," are probably the remains of the plantations made in 1670, such as the various flourishing oaks which may be noticed near the Speech House, on the Lea Bailey, the Lining Wood, and in a few other places. Many of the old hollies seem to belong to the same date, being either indigenous, or planted about this time to serve as food for the deer. One of the largest of those growing near the Speech House measures 9 feet in girth at 4 feet from the ground.

[Picture: An Oak, near York Lodge]

During the earlier half of the last century the devastations were so rapid as to necessitate re-enclosing and re-planting various parts, about the year 1760; but the effort to restock the whole of the Forest as it now appears was reserved to 1810 and the thirty subsequent years. Its present aspect, with very few exceptions, is such as to afford the best hopes that by the close of the present century a large proportion of the woods will be yielding profitable timber, provided the crops be duly protected from injury, which otherwise the rapidly increasing population of the neighbourhood will too surely occasion. Nine-tenths of the present stock are oaks; the rest are Spanish chesnuts, Scotch fir, larch, spruce, beech, and a few elms, sycamores, and horse-chesnuts; birch grows spontaneously in most parts of the Forest.

The following Table exhibits the quantity of timber growing at different times in the Forest within the last two hundred years.

A.D. Tons. Cords. Loads fit for the Navy. 1635 61,928 153,209 14,350 The trees generally decayed; about 500 past their full growth. 1662 25,929 Oak 121,500 11,335 4,204 Beech ------- 30,133 (30,000 old trees.) 1764 27,302 1783 90,382 Oak 95,043 17,982 Beech ------- 108,364 1788 48,000 1808 22,882 1857 10,000 About 5,000 trees, 7,500 having been felled since 1845.

With respect to the rarer plants found in the neighbourhood, it may be observed that the walk by the side of the Wye from Ross to Chepstow is said to be the most productive in objects of botanical interest of any part of England. The following list, kindly furnished by Mr. Gee, applies chiefly to the north-east section of the Forest and its vicinity:--

_Toothwort_ (Lathraea squamaria), at the Scowles above the Lining Wood. _Bog Asphodel_ (Narthecium ossifragum), in the Mitcheldean Meand Enclosure. _Gentian_ (Gentiana amarella), Limestone Quarry near Silverstone, at the Hawthorns. _Winter Green_ (Payrola media), Hare Church Hill. _Bog Pimpernel_ (Anagallis tenella), Purlieu Road. _Sundews_ (Drosera rotundifolia and longifolia), Mitcheldean Meand. _Little Sallow_ (Salix repens), Mitcheldean Meand. _Viola lactea_, Mitcheldean Meand. _Cotton Grass_ (Eriophorum angustifolium), Mitcheldean Meand. _Petty Whin_ (Genista Anglica), the waste between the Dampool and the Speech House. _Gromwell_ (Lithospermum officinale), throughout the Forest. _Bee Orchis_ (Ophrys apifera), road to Bishopswood. _Services_ (Pyrus pinnatifida and aria), Bicknor Rocks. _Barberry_ (Berberis vulgaris), Bicknor Rocks. _Cotyledon umbilicus_, Purlieu Road. _Narcissus biflorus_, Hope Mansel. _Mentha piperita_, Bishopswood.

Mr. Bird has been so good as to supply the accompanying list of Forest Ferns:--

Scolopendrium ceterach, and S. vulgare. Polypodium vulgare. Blechnum boreale. ,, phegopteris. Pteris aquilina. ,, dryopteris. Aspidium lobatum, and Filix mas and spinulosum, dilatatum, Ruta muraria, Trichomanes, Adiantum nigrum, Filix foemina.

To which may be added the Polypodium calcareum, noticed by Mr. Anderson, of the Bailey Lodge, who further states that the Daphne Mezereon shrub, as well as the wood laurel, are indigenous in the Forest, especially in the coppices on the limestone.