By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.
Derbyshire is fortunate in possessing a considerable number of plans of the great tract of the Forest of the Peak, one of which is of late Elizabethan date, and most of the remainder of the days of Charles I. They are in safe custody in that great national storehouse in Chancery Lane termed the Public Record Office. So far as we are aware, they have never hitherto attracted the attention of any students of Derbyshire history, or of any topographical writers. At all events, nothing has hitherto been printed about them, although in many ways they are of superlative interest.
George, Earl of Shrewsbury, the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, so celebrated in history as the custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, was taken again into the favour of Queen Elizabeth in his old age in 1587; he died in 1590. Some time between these two dates the Earl was permitted to purchase a portion of the Longdendale district of the Peak Forest, which was formally disafforested for the purpose. In connection with this purchase, a large quaint map of the whole of the three great divisions of the forest was prepared, on which are marked large parallelograms, painted vermilion, where there were pasturage rights. On the Ashop and Edale section of the forest four contiguous large patches of vermilion are shown; these are lettered “quenes farmes in Ashop and Edall.” Immediately to the west of these is another large parallelogram, divided into five by parallel lines, and by the side of this is “Edall the Quenes mates Farmes are devided into Fyve vacaries.” To the north of these pasturage grounds there are large uncoloured spaces marked “Greate Waste,” and the same term is repeated on a smaller patch to the south-east.
The section on the north-west of this plan, termed Longdendale, has “Greate Waste” marked in various places over by far the greater portion of the area. There is, however, a small vermilion parallelogram between the towns of Glossop and Hayfield, the herbage of which pertained to the Earl of Shrewsbury. A larger space in this section of the forest is marked “The Herbage of Chynley, otherwise called Maidstonfeld. Godfrey Bradshawe and others farm’s thereof.”
The third or southern section of the forest, called the Champion or Champayne, has fully half of its area coloured red in somewhat irregular patches. The largest space in the centre is lettered “The Severalles of the Champyon,” and within this is a smaller area termed “The Inner Severalles.” Attached to the larger space at different angles are other areas marked “Halsted Harbage,” “Grene,” “Ferfeld Harbage,” “Tyddeswall Harbage,” and “The Herbage of Boughtedge, Tenauntes and Fermers thereof, viz.: Thomas Lee, Henry Bagshawe, and George Thornehill.” There are also two nearly adjacent small patches of which the names are not clear.
It thus becomes evident that it was only the townships or hamlets of the Champayne division of the forest which had any claim to general pasturage rights.
The highly interesting feature of this late Elizabethan plan is the series of little outline pictures illustrative of the buildings of the chief places within the forest district. Each of these is here given in exact outline after the original, except that there is a dash of colour on the roofs of all the buildings, which throws them into better relief. Interesting as these are from an art point of view, they have to be accepted with some caution as accurate in a topographical sense. It is not, for instance, possible to imagine but that the sketch of the Peak Castle was somewhat imaginary; nor can the sketches of some of the churches be made to fit with the extant fabrics. It should also be remarked that this plan is a good deal blemished in places by having been roughly divided into three parts, with the result that several fragments are now missing, and the sketches of Castleton and Hayfield are somewhat mutilated.[77]
No. 1.