FORESTRY 1 "^HE chief interest pertaining to the forest lore of this county is in connection with the ancient and wild royal forest of the Peak, and the more fertile and smaller duchy forest of Duffield. 1 But there was much rich woodland in the shire apart from the districts under forest law, particularly in the south. Parks of old times, as well as of the present day, are generally associated with fine timber or well-wooded glades. Lysons drew up a list, based on Quo Warranto rolls and early records, by which he claimed that this comparatively small county had ' fifty-four deer parks ' in the early part of the fourteenth century ; 2 but leave to impark did not necessarily imply the presence of deer within the park. Several in this list were of small extent, and others only had an ephemeral existence. THE FOREST OF THE HIGH PEAK The king's forest of the High Peak was a wild district that formed part of the patrimony of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and was royal demesne at the time of the great survey. The parish of Hope and other adjacent lands were granted by the Conqueror in 1068 to William Peverel, in conjunction with numerous lordships in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and other counties which were known as the honour of Peverel. On Peverel's death in 1 1 14, his vast possessions passed to his son, but in 1155 a younger Peverel was disinherited for poisoning the earl of Chester, and all his estates were forfeited to the crown. From that time until 1372, the castle and forest of the Peak were in the hands of the crown, when they were transferred to the Duchy of Lancaster, and thence returned to the crown by absorption in the following century. At the beginning of the twelfth century the forest of the Peak included the whole of the north-west corner of the county. The Hope district embraced the seven berewicks of Aston, Edale ' Muckedswell,' half of Offerton, Shatton, Stoke, and Tideswell ; whilst Longdendale included the whole of the wide-spreading parish of Glossop, and much that was extra parochial. According to somewhat later parochial divisions, the forest comprised the whole of the parishes of Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Castleton, and Hope, with most of Tideswell, considerable portions of Bakewell, and part of Hathersage. It formed altogether an area of 40^ square miles. From the time when Longdendale was added to the honor of Peverel, in the days of Henry I., the Peak forest was divided into three districts, each having its own set of foresters, but all under one chief official. These three districts were known as Campana (i.e. the Champagne or open country) on the south and south-west, Longdendale on the north and north-west, and Hopedale on the east. It is hardly necessary to mention that the old term ' forest ' had nothing in itself to do with trees or woodlands, but merely implied etymologically a waste, and was used historically for an open district reserved by the king for the purposes of sport. The bounds of the forest as set forth in the Forest Pleas held in 1286 were (translated into English) as follows : ' The metes and bounds of the forest of the Peak begin on the south at the new place of Goyt, and thence by the river Goyt as far as the river Etherow ; and so by the river Etherow to Langley Croft at Longdenhead ; thence by a certain footpath to the head of Derwent ; and from the head of Derwent to a place called Mythomstede Bridge ; and from 1 The amount of unused material illustrative of the history of these two forests is very great. These stores are chiefly to be found at the Public Record Office and British Museum, but there is a fair amount in private hands, and certain gleanings at Lambeth Palace Library and the College of Arms. All that can now be attempted is to give a few of the hitherto unchronicled features of the forests.
- Lysons, Derbyshire (1817), clxix.
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