The Forest of Dean: An Historical and Descriptive Account. H. G. Nicholls
“That all grants of any part of the waste soil of the said Forest be re-assumed and made void; and that no part of the said waste or soil be aliened for ever from the Crown, or farmed to any particular person or persons, by lease or otherwise.
“And that this may be settled by Act of Parliament.
“(Signed) Hen: Hall. Dun: Colchester,
Wm. Probin. Jo: Witt.”
The importance of the foregoing propositions appears from the use made of them, more than a century afterwards, by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in 1788, who informed the descendants of those gentlemen who appended their names to the above document, that they had thereby lost all claim to any perquisite in the way of bark and windfalls; observing also, that the important Act of 1668 (20 Charles II.) resulting from it was approved by and obtained at the desire of the freeholders, inhabitants, and commoners then living.
Another proposition intended to further the preservation of the Forest woods was presented to the Lord Warden of the Castle of St. Briavel’s by the freeholders thereof, promising on their part to relinquish claims to wood and timber for so long a time as “his sacred Majesty” should resolve to suspend his iron-works therein, whom they implore to call in the patent granted to Sir John Winter.
Some idea may be formed of the strength of public feeling against Sir John Winter, on account of his wholesale fellings of the Forest timber, by the decision which Mr. Pepys records his “cousin Roger” to have given upon him, viz. that “he deserves to be hanged.” In order that the mischief might be put an end to as soon as possible, late as it was in the session, a bill was brought into the House for settling the Forest, and preserving and improving the wood and timber. Parliament was prorogued, however, before the bill could pass, and its promoters had to be content with the House “recommending the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take care for the preservation and improvement of the Forest.” This recommendation appears to have had no influence on Sir John Winter, for on a new survey made in 1667 it was reported to Government that out of the 30,233 trees sold to him, only about 200 remained standing, and that from 7000 to 8000 tons of timber, fit for his Majesty’s navy, was found wanting. He would seem to have felt some alarm at this report, for twice about this time he resorted to Mr. Pepys, who writes, 15th March, 1667—“This morning I was called up by Sir John Winter, poor man, come in a sedan from the other end of the town, about helping the King in the business of bringing down his timber to the sea-side in the Forest of Deane;” and again 30th April, “Sir John Winter, to discourse with me about the Forest of Deane.”
All the propositions sent up to the Government in 1663 were incorporated in the Act of 20 Charles II., chap. 3, which also provided that the new enclosures should be perfected within two years, in favourable and convenient places, the cost of making and maintaining them being met by the sale of such trees as would never prove timber; that no trees were to be felled until they had been viewed and marked by two or more justices of the peace, under a penalty of twenty pounds; that no fee-trees were to be allowed, and all grants to be void; that every freeholder might do what he pleased with his land; that no enclosure was to be mined, quarried, or trespassed in; that the bounds of the Forest were to remain as settled in 20 James I.; that all lawful rights and privileges relating to its minerals were to continue, with permission to the Crown to lease coal-mines and stone-quarries for periods not exceeding thirty-one years; that the letters-patent granted for a term not expired to Sir John Winter, Kt., Francis Finch and Robert Clayton, Esqs., should remain good, as also, certain leases granted to Thomas Preston, Esq., and Sir Edward Villiers, Kt. After all that had occurred, it seems strange that Sir John Winter should have obtained permission by Act of Parliament to retain his patent; he had however several powerful friends, and also strong claims on the Crown in consideration of his services during the civil war.
CHAPTER III.
AD 1663–1692.
First “Order” of forty-eight free miners in Court—8,487 acres enclosed and planted—Speech-house begun—Second order of the Miners’ Court—The King’s iron-works suppressed—The six “walks” and lodges planned out—All mine-works forbidden in the enclosures—Third order of the Miners’ Court—Enclosures extended—Fourth order of the Miners’ Court—Speech-house finished—The Forest perambulated—Fifth order of the Miners’ Court—Proposal to resume the King’s iron-works rejected—Sixth and seventh orders of the Miners’ Court—Riots connected with the Revolution—Eighth order of the Miners’ Court—Dr. Parsons’s account of the Forest.
Contemporaneously with the important Parliamentary enactments noticed in the preceding chapter, there took place, on the 18th of March (1663), the earliest session of a local but very significant court, that of “the Mine Law,” whose date and proceedings have been preserved. It was held at Clearwell before Sir Baynham Throgmorton, deputy constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, and a jury of forty-eight free miners, and shows that the Forest Miners of that day were a body of men engaged in carrying on their works according to rule, so as to avoid disputes or unequal dealing.
The Court ordered and ordained, as respects the western half of the district, that the minerals of the Forest could only be disposed of, beyond the limits of the Hundred, by free miners; that no manner of carriage was to be used for transporting them, nor more than four horses kept by any one party; that the selling price was to be determined by six “Barganers”; but that any free miner might carry “a dozen” of lime coal to the lime slad for 3s., to the top of the Little Doward for 5s. 6d., to any other kilns thereon for 5s. 4d., to the Blackstones for 5s., to Monmouth for 5s. 6d., to the Weare over Wye for 4s., to Coldwall for 3s. 6d., to Lydbrook for 3s., and to Redbrook for 4s. 4d.; that no young man who had not served an apprenticeship for five years should work for himself at the mine or coal, nor should any of the “labourers” do so unless they had worked seven years, neither was any young man to carry coal, &c., unless he was a householder; and that none should sue for mine, &c., but in the Court of the Mine, under the penalty “of 100 dozen of good sufficient oare or coale, the one-half to be forfeited to the King, and the other halfe to the myner that will sue for the same.” The originals of this foregoing, and of the seventeen succeeding “Orders,” written on parchment, are preserved in the office of the Deputy Gaveller at Coleford. The forty-eight signatures to it are almost effaced, and about half have “marks” affixed to them, but the whole are written in the same hand.
The new Act of 1668 was soon brought into operation. Immediately after it had passed, upwards of 8,487 acres of open land were enclosed and planted, the remaining 2,513 acres being taken in some time afterwards. The following statement of Mr. Agar, then surveyor of the woods, shows that the cost of making the enclosures was raised as the Act directed. He said that he “received several sums of money by the sale of cordwood to Mr. Foley and divers others, and of the timber that did happen to arise out of the old oaks and beeches felled for the cordwood and other uses, and of wood that I sold to the colliers for their pits, in the whole amounting to £5,125 8s. 9¼d., which money was expended in buying Cannope, &c., of Banistree Maynard, Esq., at £1,500; in setting up his Majesty’s Enclosures in the said Forest, of 8,400 acres, with gates, stiles, &c., and some reparations of them; in employing a sworn surveyor to admeasure them; in building part of the Speech House; in divers repairs at Saint Briavel’s Castle; in the charge of executing two several commissions, and other services in the said Forest.”
In allusion to the item of timber sold to the colliers, the commissioners, in their report of 1788, remark:—“Immediately after the passing of the Act of 1668, the colliers, who, it is said, now pretend to have a right to whatever timber they find necessary for carrying on their works in the Forest, without paying anything for it, then purchased it from the Crown.” It seems also that “the Speech House” was then commenced, although it was not finished until 1682.
The second existing Order of the Mine Law Court states that it met in 1674, on the 9th March, at Clowerwall, before Sir George Probert, deputy constable