[152]Same edition as before, p. iv. a. The entry is remarkably interesting. Out of its ten hydes, four were taken into the Forest. In the six which were left, there dwelt fifty-six villeins, twenty-one borderers, six serfs, and one freeman. There were here 105 acres of meadow, a mill which paid 22s., and a church with half a hyde of land. On the four hydes which were taken into the Forest, fourteen villeins, and six borderers, who had seven ploughlands, used to dwell. How very much the woodland preponderated over the arable we may tell by the additional entry, that the woods maintained 189 hogs, whilst a mill in that part was only assessed at 30d., which facts may help us to form some opinion of the kind of soil that was in general afforested. The meadows, as usual, were not touched.
[153]See Yarrell’s History of British Fishes, vol. ii. pp. 399-401.
[154]On this phenomenon, see Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, p. 139.
[155]The Ordnance map here falls into an error, placing Sandford a mile too far to the south; whilst it omits the neighbouring village of Beckley, the Beceslei of Domesday, and “The Great Horse,” a clump of firs, so called from its shape, a well-known landmark in the Forest, and to the ships at sea, as also “Darrat,” or “Derrit” Lane.
[156]In Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 337-40, is a description, illustrated with a plan of these entrenchments, together with the adjoining barrows, most of which have been opened, but the accounts are very scanty and unsatisfactory.
[157]See Dr. Guest on the “Belgic Ditches,” vol. viii. of the Archæological Journal, p. 145.
[158]Gibson, in his edition of The Chronicle—in the “nominum locorum explicatio,” p. 50, seems to think that Yttingaford, where peace was made between the Danes and Edward, was somewhere in the New Forest, deriving the word from Ytene, the old name of the district. Mr. Thorpe, however, in his translation of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 77, suggests that it may be Hitchen.
[159]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 178. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. pp. 117, 118.
[160]Grose, in his Antiquities (vol. ii., under Christchurch Castle), gives the following curious extract from a survey, dated Oct. 1656, concerning the duties of Sir Henry Wallop, the governor:—“Mem.: the constable of the castle or his deputy, upon the apprehension of any felon within the liberty of West Stowesing, to receive the said felon, and convey him to the justice, and to the said jail, at his own proper costs and charges; otherwise the tything-man to bring the said felon, and chain him to the castle-gate, and there to leave him. Cattle impounded in the castle, having hay and water, for twenty hours, to pay fourpence per foot.” The fee of the Constable in the reign of Elizabeth was 8l. 0s. 9d. Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., part. 5, p. 71. In the Chamberlain’s Books of Christchurch we are constantly meeting with some such entry as, “1564, ffor the castel rent for ij yeres—xiijs. vd.” “1593, ffor the chiefe rent to the castel—vis. xid.”
[161]Descriptions of it will be found in Hudson Turner’s Domestic Architecture of England, vol. i. pp. 38, 39. Parker’s Glossary of Architecture, vol. i. p. 167. Grose’s Antiquities, vol. ii. Hampshire; in whose time it appears to have been cased with dressed stones. In the Chamberlain’s Books of the Borough, under the date of the sixth year of Edward VI., 1553, we meet with repairs “for the house next the castle,” which entry probably refers to some buildings belonging to the house, which, according to Grose, stretched away in a north-westerly direction to the castle.