Figure 9. Quercus (oaks intended for timber) and robora (non-timber trees)
ordered each year from Hainault Forest and Havering Park T216 - 1275.
Hatched: used on the king's works. White: given away. +: order for an
unspecified number of trees. From the Close and Liberate Rolls.
inefficient it is clear that the inhabitants of Sherwood ate at least as many deer
as the 30 or so a year which found their way to the king's table and those of his
friends.
If we allow for poaching, royal hunts, orders not specifying the number of
deer, unrecorded orders, and natural deaths it is likely that the average annual
yield of 40 fallow deer a year in S.W. Essex should be multiplied by three. This
suggests a population of 500-700 animals, which on 11,000 acres of physical
Forest would have been a considerable but not overwhelming ecological in-
fluence. The maximum in recent centuries has been 275 on 6000 acres in 1902
(8).
The deer in the Park were better controlled but probably too many to
survive a hard winter. In 1251 the bailiff was ordered to remove "the bodies of
dead beasts and swine which are rotting in the park" and hay was to be
provided for feeding the deer.
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