"When Chipnam stood in Pewsham's wood,
Before it was destroy'd,
A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare-
but now it is denyed".
The metre is lamentable; but the cry of the poor was more lamentable. I knew severall that did remember the going of a cowe for 4d. per annum. The order was, how many they could winter they might summer: and pigges did cost nothing the going. Now the highwayes are encombred with cottages, and the travellers with the beggars that dwell in them. ___________________________________
The deer of the forest of Groveley were the largest of fallow deer in England, but some doe affirm the deer of Cranborne Chase to be larger than Groveley. Quaere Mr. Francis Wroughton of Wilton concerning the weight of the deer; as also Jack Harris, now keeper of Bere Forest, can tell the weight of the best deere of Verneditch and Groveley: he uses to come to the inne at Sutton. Verneditch is in the parish of Broad Chalke. 'Tis agreed that Groveley deer were generally the heaviest; but there was one, a buck, killed at Verneditch about an°. 165-, that out-weighed Groveley by two pounds. Dr. Randal Caldicot told me that it was weighed at his house, and it weighed eight score pounds. About the yeare 1650 there were in Verneditch-walke, which is a part of Cranborne Chase, a thousand or twelve hundred fallow deere; and now, 1689, there are not above five hundred. A glover at Tysbury will give sixpence more for a buckskin of Cranborne Chase than of Groveley; and he saies that he can afford it. ___________________________________
Clarendon Parke was the best parke in the King's dominions. Hunt and Palmer, keepers there, did averre that they knew seven thousand head of deere in that parke; all fallow deere. This parke was seven miles about. Here were twenty coppices, and every one a mile round. ___________________________________
Upon these disafforestations the marterns were utterly destroyed in North Wilts. It is a pretty little beast and of a deep chesnutt colour, a kind of polecat, lesse than a fox; and the furre is much esteemed: not much inferior to sables. It is the richest furre of our nation. Martial saies of it -
"Venator capta marte superbus adest". - Epigr.
In Cranborn Chase and at Vernditch are some marterns still remaining. ___________________________________
In Wiley river are otters, and perhaps in others. The otter is our English bever; and Mr. Meredith Lloyd saies that in the river Tivy in Carmarthenshire there were real bevers heretofore - now extinct. Dr. Powell, in his History of Wales, speakes of it. They are both alike; fine furred, and their tayles like a fish. (The otter hath a hairy round tail, not like the beavers. - J. RAY.) ___________________________________
I come now to warrens. That at Auburn is our famous coney-warren; and the conies there are the best, sweetest, and fattest of any in England; a short, thick coney, and exceeding fatt The grasse there is very short, and burnt up in the hot weather. 'Tis a saying, that conies doe love rost-meat. ___________________________________
Mr. Wace's notes, p. 62.- "We have no wild boares in England: yet it may be thought that heretofore we had, and did not think it convenient to preserve this game". But King Charles I. sent for some out of France, and putt them in the New Forest, where they much encreased, and became terrible to the travellers. In the civill warres they were destroyed, but they have tainted all the breed of the pigges of the neighbouring partes, which are of their colour; a kind of soot colour.