Chapter XXIX: The Forests of Somersetshire

The county of Somerset was possessed of five considerable forests, namely, Mendip, Selwood, North Petherton, Neroche, and Exmoor, the last of which stretched a little distance into the county of Devon. Though these forests lay wide apart from one another, more than fifty miles as the crow flies separating Exmoor in the north-west of the county from Mendip in the north-east, the whole of the Somersetshire forests were under the general control of one chief warden or keeper. William du Plessis was hereditary keeper or master forester of the five Somerset forests in the middle of the thirteenth century, and Sabine Pecche, his descendant, in 1300.

The forest pleas that were held for this county in 1257 show a remarkable exception as to the beasts of the forest in the case of the warren of Somerton. Within the bounds of this warren the king preserved the hare as a beast of the forest. At that eyre Philip the Knight and Robert Sinclair, the two verderers, presented, before William le Breton and his fellow-justices, that, on 7th December, 1255, Richard le Rus and his fellows, whose names were unknown, took four hares in Somerton warren. The verderers further presented that in Christmas week, 1256, a certain hare was found dead. An inquisition was therefore made by the four townships of Somerton, Kingston, Pitney, and Wearne, who returned that the hare died of murrain. There is no like record affecting the hare in any other known forest proceedings throughout the kingdom, and it was probably peculiar to this comparatively small warren. To compel the four adjacent townships to hold an inquest on every hare found dead or wounded—in accordance with the laws pertaining to beasts of the forest—throughout the length and breadth of the vast area under forest law in the thirteenth century would have been impossible to execute and absurd to attempt.

Another interesting point about the Somerset eyre of 1257 is the presentment of the woodwards of wood owners. It appears that at that period the presentment of such officials before the justices was obligatory. Thus John Syward, the woodward of the Bishop of Bath and Wells for the wood of Cheddar, had been presented by the bishop’s steward to William de Plessis, the hereditary keeper, but not before the forest justice; whereupon the bishop was declared in mercy and the wood taken into the king’s hands. Before, however, the eyre closed, the bishop’s steward appeared, made fine for the wood, and presented Syward to the justices, who took the necessary oaths. Thereupon the wood was restored to the bishop. Like procedure was taken with regard to another of the bishop’s woodwards, as well as a woodward of the abbot of St. Augustine’s, Bristol. At the same pleas, the abbess of Shaftesbury and two laymen duly presented their respective woodwards.

Pleas of the forest were again held for Somerset in May, 1270, when the verderers of Somerton warren again presented, before the justices at Ilchester, several delinquents for hare trespass.

More careful attention is given to forest history in Collinson’s _History of Somerset_ (three vols., 1791) than in any of our other old county histories. He cites in full from the Wells registers the perambulations undertaken of all the forests of the county in 1289, in order to reduce them to their ancient and lawful bounds, in pursuance of the ratification of the forest charter granted that year. With respect to the forest of Roche or Neroche, the commissioners reported in favour of the disafforesting of various villages, lands, and woods, which had been afforested by King John to the great detriment of the tenants. Almost equally great reductions of hunting-ground, which had been illegally made forest by Henry II., Richard I., and John in the other Somerset forests, were at the same time condemned and declared disafforested.

The master forestership or general keepership of all the county forests passed from the Peche family, in the reign of Edward III., to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, in whose descendants, earls of March, and in their heirs the dukes of York, it continued until the time of Edward VI., when it became united to the Crown. Collinson sets forth the period of the respective disafforesting of North Petherton, Mendip, Neroche, and Selwood; but space prevents us giving particular attention to any Somersetshire forest save that of Exmoor, to which a few pages ought to be devoted.

The printed information about Exmoor Forest is exceptionally full. In addition to that which can be gleaned from Collinson’s county history, and from Savage’s _History of Carhampton Hundred_ (1830), Mr. Rawle, in his _Annals of the Ancient Royal Forest of Exmoor_ (1893), has published most of the information that can be gained from the original forest documents at the Public Record Office, or from MSS. at the British Museum.

Exmoor, exclusive of the part pertaining to Devonshire, was the largest and by far the wildest of the Somersetshire forests. This great expanse of hilly, open country, constituting for the most part a bleak table-land of moor, surrounded by a fringe of well-wooded combes, was bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, extended some twelve or thirteen miles inland, and was about twenty-five miles in length from east to west. That Exmoor was a hunting-ground before the Conquest is made manifest by the fact that Withypool, according to the Domesday Survey, was held by three foresters in the days of Edward the Confessor. Whatever may have been the area of Exmoor forest in the time of the Conqueror—Mr. Rawle believes it to have been above 60,000 acres—it was considerably increased by the encroachments of later Norman kings, particularly of John.

A perambulation of 1279, at the Public Record Office, gives a circuit of about fifty miles, and included within the forest area almost the whole of the parish of Oare, portions of Culbone, Dulverton, Exford, Porlock, and Winsford, and the whole of Hawkridge and Withypool, together with the modern parish of Exmoor. The perambulation stated that King John had added to the original forest a considerable number of adjacent parishes and manors, to an aggregate of about 20,000 additional acres, which included East and West Luccombe, Doverhay, Stoke Pero, Woodcockleigh, Bossington, Holnicote, Withycombe, etc. As a consequence of the 1298 perambulation for the whole county of Somerset, all the additions made by John to the forest of Exmoor were disafforested, and the ancient bounds as then laid down remained unaltered for several centuries.

The justices in eyre appointed to hear the Somerset forest pleas are known to have held their courts at Ilchester, Langport, Somerton, Taunton, and Wells. Taunton, the nearest of these court towns, was over thirty miles distant from the nearest part of Exmoor, whilst the other towns were all upwards of fifty—a distance that could not fail to considerably impede the course of justice and increase its expense. At the eyre held at Ilchester in 1257 by William le Briton and his colleagues, twenty-six vert trespassers were presented from Exmoor; the highest fine was 5_s._, which was inflicted on a clerk, William de Bagel; in another case the fine was 2_s._; the remainder were mulcted in 12_d._ The few cases of venison trespass show that there were both red deer and roebucks on Exmoor; but there is no mention of fallow deer in this or subsequent pleas and inquisitions. At this eyre there were various presentments for encroachments and for sowing land with wheat, rye, or oats (not “beans,” as Mr. Rawle has it). Several offenders were also fined half a mark for waste of wood.

At the eyre held at Ilchester in 1270, there were upwards of fifty vert trespassers presented. In a few cases the fine was 2_s._, but in general it was 12_d._; the justices imposed no fine in five instances in consequence of the poverty of the offender. The venison trespassers presented by the foresters and by Philip de Luccombe and Richard de Bradley, the verderers, were not numerous, considering that thirteen years had elapsed since the last eyre. Simon, the miller of Dulverton, Ralph Bulbe, and John de Reygny caught a stag on St. George’s Day, 1259, and carried it to the house of William de Reygny. Simon made no appearance, and a writ was addressed to the sheriff of Devon. Ralph could not be found, and a writ of exigent was issued. John and William de Reygny were committed to prison, but released on the payment of ten marks and finding pledges for their future behaviour. In another case, Thomas le Shetten and William Wyne were charged with entering the forest on Easter Eve, 1267, with bows and arrows, with the intent of wrong-doing to the king’s venison. They hunted a hind, and chased her into the wood of Longcombe, without the forest bounds, and there caught her, and carried her away to their houses at Molland. The same two men were charged with often entering the forest with evil intent, when they were harboured in the house of John, then chaplain of Hawkridge. The chaplain came to the eyre and was put in prison, but the other two made no appearance, and a writ for their arrest was directed to the sheriff of Devon. Before the court was dissolved, John the chaplain was pardoned for the sake of the king’s soul (_pro anima Regis_).

At an inquisition held at Langport before a deputy justice of the forest, in 1333, in addition to two cases of venison trespass, Richard le Webbe and two others of Moulton were convicted of burning the heath of 1,000 acres on the hills of the forest, to the damage of the king and to the injury of his deer. At the same time, William Cobbel, rector of Oare, was convicted of felling saplings in the wood of Oare, and carrying them off for his own purpose.

Various other inquisitions as to the state of Exmoor, held before forest justices or their deputies at Somerton, Taunton, and Wells during the latter part of the reign of Edward III., are set forth in detail by Mr. Rawle.

Mr. Rawle has, however, overlooked several entries on the Patent and Close Rolls pertaining to Exmoor, several of which have been already cited in earlier chapters.

In 1324, John Everard, the escheator of the four western counties, was ordered to deliver to Eleanor, widow of Ralph de Gorges, and mother of Ralph his heir, aged 15, two parts of a third of the manor of Brampton, co. Devon, as the king learnt by inquisition that Ralph held at his death a third of that manor of the king in chief, by service of finding the king an arrow when the king came or sent to Exmoor to take venison there, the arrow to be delivered to the king’s huntsman.

In November, 1377, Richard II. granted Baldwin Badyngton, king’s esquire, and Matilda his wife, to enclose at pleasure, notwithstanding the assize of the forest, all their demesne lands in Somerset within the metes of the forests of Exmoor and Petherton, which had been wasted and destroyed year by year by the deer, so as to prevent the deer from entering, and thus to hold these premises for their lives.

Peter de Courtenay obtained in 1382, during the minority of the heir, the custody of the forest of Exmoor, which was in the king’s hands since the death of Edmund, Earl of March.

Edward IV., in 1462, granted for life to William Bourgchier, of Fitzwaren, knight, the master forestership of Exmoor, receiving the usual fees in the same manner as Thomas Courtenay, late Earl of Devon. Six years later the king granted the same office for life to Humphrey Stafford, knight, on the death of William Bourgchier. In 1470, John Dynham obtained from the Crown the grant for life of the custody of the king’s forests of Exmoor and Neroche, with the herbage and pannage and the courts of swainmote, rendering yearly to the king forty marks.

Henry VII., when he came to the throne in 1485, seems to have put the control of the venison of Exmoor into the hands of his chamberlain, Lord Daubeny.

On the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catherine of Aragon, Exmoor was settled on the queen as part of her jointure. In 1520 Sir Thomas Boleyn covenanted with the Earl of Devonshire to give up certain forests, offices, etc., which he held of Queen Catherine at a yearly rent of £46 13_s._ 4_d._, saving and reserving 100 deer to remain in the forest of Exmoor. The forest was afterwards held by Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour.

In 1598 Hugh Pollard was ranger of the forest, and kept a pack of hounds at Simonsbath. James I. granted Exmoor forest to his queen, Anne of Denmark. Charles I., on coming to the throne, granted a lease for 22½ years to the Earl of Pembroke of “the Forest and Chace of Exmore in the counties of Devon and Somerset, and of the manor of Exmore for fourteen years ... with a further clause of liberty to him to build a lodge in the forest at his chardges, and to enclose and lay one hundred acres of land thereunto.”

In 1630 the king was petitioned to disafforest Exmoor in favour of an influential applicant. The petition was granted, but further action was not taken. In the royal library at Windsor is a warrant, dated 5th August, 1637, under the sign manual of Charles I., directing the ranger of Exmoor to deliver to Mr. Wyndham “one fatt stagg”; a facsimile of this document forms the frontispiece to Mr. Rawle’s volume.

Within a few months of his accession, Charles II. granted a lease of Exmoor for 39 years to James Butler, Marquis of Ormonde.

In 1784 a lease of the forest and chase of Exmoor, with the courts and royalties, was granted to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart. This was the last lease granted by the Crown.

In 1815 an Act of Parliament was passed for the disafforesting and enclosing of Exmoor. The extent of the forest was then found to be only 18,810 acres, which were thus allotted: A little more than one-half to the king; one-eighth to Sir T. D. Acland in lieu of the tithes of the whole forest, which he held; and the remainder to “owners of certain estates, to which free suits were attached, and to several other persons in respect of old enclosed tenements lying in various parishes bordering on the forest.” The king’s portion was at once offered for sale, and his 10,000 acres were purchased by Mr. John Knight for £50,000.

Thus ended the royal rights over the ancient forest of Exmoor, which had their origin in days prior to the Norman Conquest.