THE RE-AFFORESTATION OF HAINHAULT. 5
the King's wild beasts. It was probably from the effect of this
latter regulation that the Commoner's rights of Pasture were
found in the enquiry into Epping Forest to be rights of Inter-
commonage, i.e., the cattle of each Forest manor had the right
of passing over the entire waste and not merely over the waste
of the manors to which they respectively belonged. It is
interesting to note that it was this very right of inter-
commonage on which the judgment turned in the famous suit by
which Epping Forest was finally saved for the public, and the
enclosures by the Lords of Manors of portions of the waste with
the consent of the homage of the Manor Court were held to be
invalid. The manors of Barking and Dagenham, in which the
greater part of Hainhault Forest lay, were among the many
manors held by the famous Abbey of Barking, and passed with
all other property of the religious houses into the hands of the
Crown at the dissolution of the monasteries. And while the other
Forest-manors which had been the property of religious houses
passed again into private hands by sale or grant, these manors
of Barking and Dagenham remained Crown property until the
Dis-afforestation Act of 1851. It is not necessary to comment
again on the short-sighted policy which led to the Disafforestation
Act. We can here only state the result. By the Act of
1851 the Ancient Forest of Hainhault was disafforested, and
the work of destruction was completed so speedily that the
protests of those who would have stayed it were hardly heard.
At that time the unenclosed area of the Hainhault Forest
was 4,000 acres, 1,300 acres having been enclosed since the
perambulation of 1641. Of this 4,000 acres, 2,914 acres were
known as the King's Woods, and of these the soil and timber
belonged to the Crown, the soil and timber of the remainder
belonging to the Lords of the Forest manors other than Barking
and Dagenham. Under the Act of 1851 Commissioners were
appointed, who made their awards on November 6, 1852,
allotting 1,873 acres to the Crown in lieu of the Crown's Forestal
and Timber-rights. 45 acres were allotted to Sir E. Hulse and
subsequently purchased by the Crown, leaving 969 acres to
satisfy the rights of the Commoners, with 1,200 acres beyond
the King's Woods, which were forthwith cut down and removed.
By the Commons Allotment Act of 1858 the rights of common
and other rights, not provided for in 1851, were dealt with,