Chapter IX: The Forests of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham

NORTHUMBERLAND

Nearly in the centre of the county of Northumberland stands the picturesque little town of Rothbury, “almost startling, from the beauty of its situation.” The parish, which is over thirty miles in circuit, was once all forest land; by far the greater part of it is much as it was in the days of mediæval England, consisting chiefly of wild, uncultivated moorland.

The maps still mark the tracts above and below the town as North Forest and South Forest. Many a writer on Northumberland, even some well-informed ones of recent times, have tried to realise how different this district must have looked when “clothed with trees and underwood.” But, for the most part, this never was and never could have been the case with Rothbury forest of historic days. Nevertheless, the actual valley of the Coquet was, beyond doubt, far more closely wooded in early days than it is at the present time; indeed, etymologists tell us that the very meaning of Rothbury is “the town in the clearing.”

Some twelve miles north-east of Rothbury lies the celebrated little town of Alnwick, on the Alne, which was also surrounded by a tract of country under forest law in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The rolls of an eyre held at Newcastle in 1286, show that there were three bailiwicks in the forest of Northumberland; one to the south of Rothbury and the Coquet, another to the north of Rothbury between the Coquet and the Alne, and a third immediately to the north of the Alne. There were four verderers to each bailiwick.

The forest of Northumberland is repeatedly mentioned in the Patent and Close Rolls of Henry III., at times when there were general directions as to the forests at large. Thus in 1222, when orders were given to the sheriffs, verderers, and foresters throughout England as to the woodfall after the great storm, Daniel de Newcastle received particular instructions as warden of the forest of Northumberland.

When forest perambulations were being undertaken in 1225, the duty of surveying the Northumberland forest was assigned to Roger de Morlay and Roger Bertram, with Nicholas de Hudham as clerk. In January, 1229, the sheriff, foresters, and regarders were instructed to make a regard before the end of the octave of the ensuing Easter, preparatory to the holding of an eyre by the justices.

In 1281 a scheme for the disafforesting of Northumberland was drawn up. The inhabitants of the forest district were to pay an annual rental of 40 marks to the Crown for this privilege, in proportion to the value of their lands; 23 marks were to be paid by those north of the Coquet, and the remaining 17 marks by those to the south of the same river.

In February, 1286, William de Vesey, Thomas de Normanville, and Richard de Crepping were nominated as justices to hold an eyre of the forest of Northumberland, to cover the period from the holding of the last eyre in the reign of Henry III. up to the date of the disafforesting.

The barony of Alnwick was held during most of Edward I.’s reign by that great palatinate bishop, Anthony Bek, of Durham. In 1299, a special commission was held to inquire into the breaking of the bishop’s parks and chase at Alnwick, where his deer had been hunted and carried away, and arrows drawn upon his parkers, some of whom were wounded. But as the parks and chases of this district ceased to be under forest law from 1281, their history must not be pursued any further.

Henry Algernon Percy, the sixth Earl of Northumberland, died without issue in 1537. The family of his brother, through the attainder of their father, who had been executed for his support of the Pilgrimage of Grace, were incapable of succession. The earldom, therefore, became extinct, and the chief part of the estates passed to the Crown, and thus continued for twenty years.

(See pp. 66-7.)]

Although the forest district, with its parks and warrens, did not come under forest law by this reversion to the Crown, nevertheless a word or two are admissible as to its governance under Henry VIII. A survey that was taken in August, 1539, of Rothbury and its members, gives Sir Cuthbert Ratcliffe as master of the game in the forests, chases, parks, and warrens of Alnwick, and John Heeson as bow-bearer, with many other masters and keepers of different parks. Cuthbert Carnabie, master of the game in Warkworth park, was also constable of Alnwick Castle, as well as master of the game. Among his privileges, Carnabie was entitled to as many salmon taken in the Coquet as would serve him for keeping his house; but he had to pay 6_d._ for each salmon, and 2_d._ for each “gylse” or young salmon.

A perambulation of Rothbury forest shows that the master of game received £7 a year; whilst each of the three keepers or foresters received a 1_d._ a day, in addition to blownwood, and firewood, together with “one stag in summer and one hind in winter for the makyng of the houndes.” The keepers of all the Alnwick parks received £3 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, together with two horse-gates, a buck in summer and a doe in winter.

It may here, too, be mentioned that an account of the Earl of Northumberland’s parks and games in this county, taken early in the reign of Henry VIII., shows that there were in Holn Park 879 deer; in Cawledge (or College) Park, 586; in Warkworth Park, 150; and in Acklington Park, 144. All of these were fallow deer, but outside the parks, in the unenclosed parts of Rothbury forest, were 153 red deer. In his other parks in Cumberland and Yorkshire, the earl had 3,659 head of fallow and red deer. Holn Park, on the west side of the castle with the Alne running through it, was at this time enclosed within a stone wall, said to be twenty miles in compass; Cawledge Park, to the south of the castle, was six miles in compass.

Queen Mary restored the barony and its estates, in 1557, to Thomas Percy, reviving the earldom, and the old forest of Northumberland passed again into a subject’s hands.

CUMBERLAND

At the time of the Norman invasion, the great forest of Inglewood stretched from Penrith, on the south confines of the county, to Carlisle, about twenty miles to the north. It is described in the _Chronicle of Lanercost_ as having been “a goodly great forest, full of woods, red deer and fallow, wild swine, and all manner of wild beasts.”

Reginald Lacy obtained a grant from King John in 1203 for himself and Ada, his wife, daughter and co-heir of Hugh de Morvill, of the forestership of Cumberland. In the following year he paid the considerable sum of 900 marks, as well as five palfreys, to have livery of the property of the said Ada, and to enjoy the keepership of the forests of the county in as ample a way as Hugh de Morvill had held it. Reginald died in 1214, and Ada, his widow, gave a fine of 500 marks for livery of her inheritance including the forestership. The widow married Thomas de Multon, who paid £100 fine and one palfrey to the Crown, soon after the accession of Henry III., to hold the office of forestkeeper in right of his wife. Thomas de Multon, who was frequently sheriff of Cumberland, died in 1240, and is named as forest keeper in various documents, such as that generally issued after the great storm of 1222. In 1229 Thomas de Multon received orders to supply Roger de Quincy with two stags out of the Cumberland Forest as a gift from the king. Two years later Multon was instructed to prohibit the foresters from entertaining or affording hospitality to those passing through the county forest.

Several manors within the forest were granted, in 1242, to the kings of Scotland in satisfaction of their claims on the northern counties of England, but they were resumed at a later period by Edward I.

At an eyre, held in the reign of Henry III., Robert, Bishop of Carlisle, was fined the heavy sum of £69 6_s._ for depredation of the herbage of Cumberland Forest; but this sum was forgiven to his executors in the next reign.

With the beginning of Edward I.’s reign, the term Forest of Cumberland gave way, for the most part, to the title of Inglewood Forest; but the latter title had a more restricted signification, as the older county forest included several manors between the river Eden and the parish of Alston.

In 1274 Edward I. ordered an inquest to be held whether or no Alexander, King of Scotland, and his men of Penrith and Salkeld ought to have, and have been accustomed to have, common of pasture in any part of the park of Plumpton, which was enclosed in the time of Henry III., and, if so, within what bounds; and also to make like inquiry as to the King of Scotland and his men having any claim to housebote and heybote in any part of Inglewood Forest. Plumpton Park was disafforested in the time of Henry VIII.

Richard le Escat, one of the Inglewood foresters, killed William, son of Elias de Grenerigg, in the forest in 1280; but he obtained a royal pardon, as it was proved that William was caught in the act of venison trespass, and that he was slain on refusal to be arrested.

An eyre was held in 1285. The roll show that the forest was divided into three bailiwicks, with twelve regarders for each. There were twelve verderers for the whole forest. One of the more noteworthy presentments at this eyre, cited in full by Mr. Turner in _Forest Pleas_, was the charge that Isabel de Clifford, who held the park of Whinfell in Westmoreland, had two deer-leaps which were nuisances to the forest, one of them being only a league from Inglewood Forest, and the other only a league and a half. The justices for this eyre were William de Vesey, Thomas de Normanville and Richard de Crepping.

William de Vesey, whilst justice of the forest beyond Trent, took to the king’s use in 1289 a hundred bucks, which he delivered to Peter de Chaumpvent, steward of the household; fifty of these bucks came from Inglewood Forest. He received a formal quittance for taking them in September, 1290, when his son, John de Vesey, succeeded him as justice of the forest.

Attachment courts were held in this forest, as was customary, every forty-second day. There is an Inglewood attachment roll extant of the year 1293.

A commission was issued in 1298 to inquire, by the oath of foresters and verderers of Inglewood, in the presence of Robert de Clifford, justice of that forest, whether the abbot of Holmcoltram had sufficient pasture without the forest launds for his stud, draught oxen, and swine, or not. The abbot asserted that he had chartered rights of common for these purposes in all places in the forest between the rivers Caldew and Alne. Certain of these launds had recently been enclosed, for the king’s profit, by Geoffrey de Nevill and William de Vesey, heretofore justices of that forest.

Pardon was granted in January, 1300, to John, Bishop of Carlisle, and his men for taking a buck in this forest. In the same month, power was granted by the Crown to Robert de Clifford, forest justice, and two others, to divide up the king’s wastes in the wood of Allerdale, within the forest bounds, into numbers of acres to be held by tenants at yearly rental to the Exchequer; also to sell wood, green or dry, by view of the foresters and other officials.

Among the various details pertinent to this forest on the Patent Rolls of Edward II., the following may be mentioned. John de Harbela, king’s yeoman, obtained a grant, in 1312, of the bailiwick in the forest of Inglewood, which Thomas de Multon held, and which on account of a forfeiture he had incurred, was in the king’s hands. Two years later Thomas de Verdon was appointed forester in the place of Harbela. In 1315 William de Dacra was appointed steward of this forest by the Crown during pleasure. In the same year a commission was issued to inquire into the carrying away of certain of the king’s falcons from the eyrie in the forest of Inglewood. Henry de Panetria, at the request of Queen Isabella, was granted for life, in 1316, the bailiwick of the forestership of “Gaytsheles,” in this forest. Grant was made, in 1317, of pasture for their beasts in Inglewood Forest to the nuns of Ermynthwait, in consequence of the severe loss that had been inflicted on them by the king’s enemies. John de Crumbwell was warden of Inglewood in 1318, when acquittance was granted to Robert de Tymparon, an agister within the forest, for £4 10_s._ 9¾_d._ for pannage from the date of his being an agister in the time of Edward I., which sum had been paid into the hands of Robert de Barton, late keeper of the king’s victuals in the park of Carlisle. In the same year, John de Rithre, king’s yeoman, was appointed steward of the forest during pleasure.

The Exchequer accounts of this reign give the expenses incurred by Robert, the squire, for a summer hunt for the king in Inglewood Forest, which lasted for four days. His servant was paid 12_d._ a day, whilst an allowance of ½_d._ a day each was made for ten greyhounds and for three bercelets, or hounds that hunted by scent.

When the reign of Edward III. is reached, the record entries relative to the forest of Inglewood, its records of Gaystall or Gatesgill, and Penrith, and its launds of Plumpton, Hesket, Braithwait, Ivetanfield, and Middlescough, etc., become so frequent that a considerable and interesting volume on its annals might readily be compiled. Here there is only space for a few brief extracts from the less known and uncalendered rolls.

An Exchequer Roll of 1335-6, when Richard de Nevill was keeper, shows that the laund of Plumpton, of which Roger de Wastedale was the agister, charged 6_d._ a head for horses, 4_d._ for draught oxen, 3_d._ for cattle, and 2_d._ for stirks. Sheep were only allowed on two or three of the launds, and were charged at 4_d._ a score. The agistments of the year produced £26 15_s._ 4_d._ The letting of the lodges of the forest brought in 29_s._ 8_d._ The ward of Penrith commuted the fence month fines by a payment of 16_s._ 8_d._ from six townships, and the ward of Gaystall by a payment of 23_s._ 8_d._ from fourteen townships. The pannage money was but small, indicating a decided paucity of woods; only 9½_d._ from Penrith ward, and 6_s._ 5½_d._ from Gaystall ward. Among the attachments of Gaystall were 6_d._ for a horse, 2_d._ for two stirks, and 12_d._ for pigs.

There is another very full agistment and attachment roll of 1375-6, wherein there are various fines, from 1_d._ to 12_d._, for vert offences.

The accounts of Richard, Earl of Salisbury, for this forest, in the reign of Henry VI., are of a good deal of interest. The returns of the frequent attachment courts are confined to vert offences; the fine for a cartload of wood was usually 2_d._, and for a wagon 4_d._ The fence month fine money in Gaystall ward was 20_s._, contributed by twelve townships, far the heaviest share being 6_s._ 8_d._ from the city of Carlisle. The like fine for Penrith ward amounted to 13_s._ 8_d._, of which Penrith itself paid 6_s._ 8_d._ The dead wood of Gaystall ward produced 11_s._, and that of Penrith 20_s._ The small amount of actual wood within this wide sweep of forest is again shown by the lowness of the pannage fees, which only amounted to 6_s._ 0½_d._ in the two wards. References in forest accounts to churches or chapels (save in the matter of tithes) are quite exceptional; but in these rolls certain rents of lands at Grueythwaite (Greenthwaite) are assigned to a chapel there, which had recently been rebuilt.

A survey of Inglewood Forest, taken on 8th August, 1539, mentions Sir Henry Wharton as master of game, and William Hoton, Esquire, as bow-bearer. The officers in the sub-forests of Ashdale and Wastedalehead were Sir Thomas Wharton, master of game, Richard Vikars and Thomas Nycholson, foresters of Ashdale, and William Fletcher and Nicholas Hunter, foresters of Wastedalehead. The sub-forest of Westwood had the same master of game, and Micah Avon bow-bearer, with Richard Dykes and Thomas Wilson keepers. The sub-forest of Nicholl had Sir William Musgrave as master of game. The keepers of Wastedale had a hart in summer and a hind in winter, equally divided between them.

An expense roll of this forest for the first year of Elizabeth is chiefly occupied with the details of repairs done to the “court houses” of Penrith, Sowerby, and Gaystall. Repairs were also done to the leads, and the glass and iron of the windows of Kidkirk chancel at a charge of £3 6_s._ 8_d._

Charles II., on his marriage with Katharine of Braganza, settled on her, as part of the royal dower, the forest of Inglewood.

In 1696, the forest of Inglewood was granted by the Crown to William Bentinck, first Earl of Portsmouth, as an appurtenance of the honor of Penrith.

In Jefferson’s _Cumberland_, published in 1840, it is stated that the forest or swainmote courts for the seigniory of Hesket were still held annually on June 11th in the open air, on the great north road to Carlisle, the place being marked by a stone table placed before a thorn called Court Thorn; at this court a variety of annual dues were paid to the lord of the forest.

On Wragmire Moss, in the same parish, a well-known ancient oak, spoken of as the last tree of Inglewood Forest, fell “from sheer old age” on June 13th, 1823.

WESTMORELAND

A considerable tract of wild land in this county was rendered subject to the fierce rule of the early forest laws in the time of Henry II. and John; but all this was disafforested by the Forest Charter, 1217, which only recognised as forests those tracts of country which had been in that condition when Henry II. came to the throne. In 1225, grave complaint was lodged by the knights and proved men of Westmoreland that certain magnates of the county were continuing to treat the disafforested demesne as though still subject to forest fines and penalties, to the great injury of the inhabitants. Thereupon letters patent was issued by the Crown sternly reprobating such action, addressed in the first place to William de Lancaster, Baron of Kendal, with duplicates to Robert de Vezpont, sheriff of Westmoreland, to Earl Warren for the wood of Incelemor, and to Matilda de Lascy for the wood of Pippin.

It was doubtless in consequence of this royal reminder that John de Vezpont, when he succeeded his father three years later, granted to the lords of the manor of Warcop, Sandford, Burton, and Hilton, in this county, freedom from foresters’ puture, and from all things that might be demanded of that nature.

DURHAM

There is no mention of any forest of the county of Durham in the lists of royal forests _temp._ Henry III., and there was certainly no district under forest laws throughout by far the greater part of Durham. The forest of Teesdale is, however, occasionally named in the latter part of the fifteenth and in the first half of the sixteenth century. The number of fallow and red deer in this forest in 1538-9 has already been cited.

In the western angle of the county, where it is separated from Yorkshire on the south by the river Tees, and where it reaches out to both Cumberland and Westmoreland, Durham was in contiguity with forest districts of other counties, and forest laws probably there prevailed over a small area. An extensive township of the old widespread parish of Middleton-in-Teesdale still bears the reduplicated name of Forest-and-Frith; it begins 4½ miles north-west from Middleton, and ends on the borders of Westmoreland, near the sources of the Tees. At the furthest extremity of the wild district of Forest-and-Frith is Harwood, the very name denoting a tract of ancient woodland. Various of the smaller place-names and field names have reference to deer, and a few to the former presence of wolf and boar.

The large parish of Stanhope, immediately to the north of Middleton, has a western division termed Forest Quarter extending to the borders of Cumberland, just above Harwood, and including Weardale. Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIII., said: “There resorte many rede dere, stragelers, to the mountaines of Weredale.” The forest of Weardale was held by the Bishops of Durham; the _Boldon Book_, of the twelfth century, affords many interesting particulars as to the hunting regulations of the district, but as it was not royal forest it would be foreign to our purpose to cite them.

Whatever small portion of Durham may at some time have been under forest law could only have attained that position through the overlap of some forest at its western extremity, whose administration pertained to another county.

In the crypt of Durham Cathedral is an unusually fine memorial slab of the latter half of the thirteenth century, which must have marked the interment of some chief forester or warden of a northern forest. On the sinister side of the cross is a sheathed sword with the sword belt twisted round it. On the dexter is a long bow-string, with the arrow fitted in the notch and the head showing on the further side of the sword. On the bow rests what appears to be the distinctive cap of the master of the forest, whilst in the angle above, between the bow and the string, is a small paddle-shaped implement, which may possibly indicate water or fishing rights.

DURHAM CRYPT]