THE PAST HISTORY OF THE FOREST OF ESSEX. 123
The method and checks employed need not be entered into here,
but it is to be hoped that they will later appear in a paper
dealing with this interesting Roman method of dividing the arable
land in workable rectangular areas.
The resulting map showed the centuriation pattern very
clearly in those three areas where light soils obtain, and again
with striking clarity along the eastern stretch of London Clay.
Scattered patches also appeared on the Boulder Clay. The
localities where the rectangular pattern was entirely or almost
absent were to be found on the south-western London Clay
and the main mass of the Boulder Clay—smaller areas appearing
around Thurstable, Danbury and West Rochford. We may
assume that these latter districts were wooded. They appear
so in Domesday times (1086).
It would, therefore, appear that at the close of the Romano-
British period the Forest of Essex was mainly confined to a large-
crescent-shaped area passing from the south-west of the county
to the north-east. This main forested area was fronted by
smaller woodland areas along the coast at Tiptree, Danbury and
Hockley. Attempts at forest clearing had probably resulted in
small clearings within the main Boulder Clay forest as at Dunmow.
Thus, a comparison of the forested area in existence during
the late British times with that at the close of the Roman period,
seems to support the previously mentioned theory that, whilst
the Romans may have contemplated forest clearing, it was,
in fact, never carried out. The only important deforestation
occurring in pre-Saxon times was the clearing of the lightly
wooded eastern London Clay—a movement inaugurated by
the La Tene III. folk, who could cultivate the heavy clay soil
with their coulter plough.
With the advent of the Saxon invasion and settlement,
lack of documentary evidence concerning the forest again
forces one to have recourse to deductions from settlement
distributions. Saxon place-name endings of the first period4
show in addition to the customary riverine distribution a
repetition of the threefold settlement on the light soils. Burials
in the vicinity support the evidence of place-names. A more
significant feature is the appearance of early Saxon place-
names scattered over the Boulder Clay area showing some
4 Viz, -ing, ham, and ingham, etc. See English Place Name Society, vol. 1.