THE WOODLANDS OF ESSEX.
109
" Dear sister rest content, nor our declining rue.
What thing is in this world that we can say is new.
The ridge that furrow shews that once the crooked plough
Turned upon the grassy turf, where oaks are rooted now.
And at this hour we, the share and coulter tare
The full corn bearing glebe, where sometime forests were."
As an illustration of the inaccuracies into which historical
writers have fallen through want of local knowledge, I cannot do
better than quote from John Richard Green's Making of England.11
He writes, "The East Saxons found themselves barred from any
advance into the island by the dense chain of woodlands, the
Waltham Chase of later ages. These woodlands stretched at
this time in a dense belt on either side of the Roding along the
western border of the district that the invaders had won from
the Thames to the open downs above Saffron Walden." He
also tells us that the absence of Roman remains from this
district indicates the absence of Roman military or country
stations, and that the country was not fruitful enough to draw a
large mass of the conquerors.
A map accompanying the above statement shows the Boulder-
clay district of Essex covered with dense woodland ; that district
which Roman writers clearly indicate was highly valued for the
remarkably fertile nature of the marl which underlies it, even before
Roman times, and which is still the most profitable corn-produc-
ing portion of our county. If occupied by woodland, is it likely
that its fertile nature would have been so well known to the
ancients ? And again, Green's statement that the district was
not penetrated by Roman or Saxon is equally unfounded, for Mr.
Guy Maynard informs me that he has mapped out the sites
where Roman remains have been found in Essex, and he finds
in fact that the district has been fairly productive of Roman
relics.
Our information regarding the gradual clearing of the Essex
woodlands may be summed up as follows:—That the reduction
of the woodlands began in pre-Roman times; that it proceeded
throughout the Roman, Saxon, and Norman periods, and has
continued until the present day. That the destruction was more
rapid at some periods than at others. That the most fertile
portions of the county, e.g., those on the Boulder-clay, were the
17 Making of England. 1881, pp. 48, 49.