108 THE WOODLANDS OF ESSEX.
the Forest Laws there was a continuous shrinkage of our
woodlands during this long period.
The Domesday book, written early in the Norman times,
gives us a very clear idea of the distribution of Essex woodlands.
The "hundreds" and "vils" correspond to our present
hundreds and villages. In all of these we read of the plough
with its teams of oxen, the streams which water the meadows,
providing hay for the oxen and turning the mill which ground
the corn for the landlord's benefit ; and we find that the rural
economy of Essex differed in no way from that of other rural
districts. The pastures for sheep probably refer, however, to the
famous marshes reclaimed from the morasses which fringed our
coast when Caesar invaded England.12 We are told that the
reduction of the woodlands of Essex was proceeding previous to
the Domesday record, and it is certain that considerable reductions
took place in our most thickly wooded districts between the
years 1066 and 1086.13 The severe Forest Laws were doubtless
intended to prevent the destruction of cover for game, but they
obviously failed in their object, for Harrison, of Radwinter,
writing of the time of Henry VIII., sadly deplores the destruction
of woodlands, and states that in his time the county between
Epping Forest and Radwinter, formerly the most thickly
wooded part of the county, was only thinly sprinkled with
woods.14 Norden, writing of this period, describes Essex as
"most fat and fruitful," and calls it the "English Goshen."
He also tells us that this county seems not everywhere destitute
of woods, though nowhere well stored. He states that the
Hundreds of Waltham, Ongre, and Becontre, and much of the
Liberty of Havering were for the most part woody ground and
forest.15 Essex is also mentioned by Tusser in conjunction with
Suffolk as a type of an enclosed county.
The following lines in Drayton's Poly-Olbion, published at the
end of the sixteenth century, suggest that at some early date
cultivation may even have been attempted over some small areas
of the Waltham Forest and the areas have been replanted.16
12 Victoria History of Essex, vol, i. Domesday article.
13 Ibid.
14 Elizabeth's England. Scott's Library, p. 196.
15 Speculi Britanniae Pars, John Norden, 1894.
16 Drayton's Poly-Olbion. Nineteenth song, commencing at the 41st line.