Kinver Forest was a
Royal Forest
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...
, mainly in
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
.
Extent
References to "forest" in
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
suggest that the forest was of similar extent in 1086 and in the 14th century. Its precise extent in the intervening period can only be deduced from the places summoned to attend forest courts in the 13th century or which were declared disforested in whole or part in the Great Perambulation of 1300.
At its greatest extent its boundaries met those of
Feckenham Forest
Feckenham Forest was a royal forest, centred on the village of Feckenham, covering large parts of Worcestershire and west Warwickshire. It was not entirely wooded, nor entirely the property of the King. Rather, the King had legal rights over game ...
on the southeast and
Morfe Forest
Morfe Forest was a medieval royal forest in east Shropshire.
The forest was perambulated in 1300 and the bounds were recorded. The forest was bounded by the River Severn on the west, by the River Worfe on the north and stretched east to Abbots C ...
on the northwest. However, it probably included
Wolverley
Wolverley is a village; with nearby Cookley (1 mi northeast), it forms a civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire, England. It is 2 miles north of Kidderminster and lies on the River Stour and the Staffordshire and ...
and
Kidderminster
Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it had ...
, which were not in the post-1300 forest. It stretched north to
Lower Penn
Lower Penn is a village in South Staffordshire, situated to the south-west of Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
The Civil Parish covers the area of the historic Parish of Penn that is not now covered by the city of Wolverhampton and thus covers a ...
and
Seisdon
Seisdon is a rural village in the parish of Trysull and Seisdon, Staffordshire approximately six miles west of Wolverhampton and the name of one of the five Hundred (county division), hundreds of Staffordshire. The population recorded at the Unit ...
and thus occupied much of the lower
stour and
Smestow valleys, stretching west to the Shropshire boundary and east approximately to the road from
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
to
Stafford
Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...
, through
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The 20 ...
and
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...
. To its east was
Pensnett
Pensnett is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, south-west of central Dudley. Pensnett has been a part of Dudley since 1966, when the Brierley Hill Urban District, of which it was a part, was absorbed into the ...
Chase of the lords of
Dudley
Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...
.
In the 13th century,
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, in Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified ...
Priory was authorised to appoint its own officers to keep the woods in Wolverley, which weakened the impact of the forest law on that manor.
Under the Great Perambulation of 1300, the bounds were greatly reduced. The new area seems to have consisted just of the parish of
Kinver
Kinver is a large village in the District of South Staffordshire in Staffordshire, England. It is in the far south-west of the county, at the end of the narrow finger of land surrounded by the counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire and the We ...
with
Ashwood Hay in
Kingswinford
Kingswinford is a town of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the English West Midlands, situated west-southwest of central Dudley. In 2011 the area had a population of 25,191, down from 25,808 at the 2001 Census.
The current economic focus ...
parish and
Chasepool Hay. These hays (together with
Iverley
Iverley is an area of the parish of Kinver in Staffordshire that has no road link to the rest of the parish. It is notable as being the most southerly point in Staffordshire.
Iverley lies in a corner of Staffordshire, with Churchill, Worcesters ...
Hay (in Kinver) were hedged hunting areas.
The manor of Kingsley, near Tettenhall remained a detached part of the forest and of the manor of Kinver. It is called the Hay of Kingesley in 1358.
Officers
The wardenship of the forest was an office annexed to the manor of Kinver and
Stourton, which was held from the king by a rent of £9 per year and the serjeanty keeping the forest. A separate office of Riden of the forest occurs from 1388.
The office of bailiff of Ashwood Hay was also hereditary, the farm of
Prestwood
Prestwood is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, about two miles west of Great Missenden and six miles north of High Wycombe.
History
Early history and creation of parish
The village name is Anglo Sax ...
being held by the performance of this office.
The herbage, pannage and other perquisites of Chasepool Hay was granted to
John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley
John Sutton VI, 1st Baron Dudley, KG, (25 December 1400 – 30 September 1487) was an English nobleman, a diplomat, and councillor of King Henry VI. He fought in several battles during the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses, as well as ...
in 1454. His grandson
Edward Sutton, 2nd Baron Dudley
Edward Sutton, 2nd Baron Dudley, (c. 1460 – 31 January 1531) was an English nobleman elected as Knight of the Garter (KG) in the beginning of King Henry VIII's reign. He was chamberlain to Princess Mary (later Queen Mary I) from 1525 to 1528.
...
was made Lieutenant of the Forest on his death in 1487. He was succeeded both in the Lieutenancy and in custody of Chasepool Hay by
the Duke of Norfolk
Duke of Norfolk is a title in the peerage of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the county of Norfolk. The current duke is Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk. The dukes ...
, who was in turn succeeded by
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1504Loades 2008 – 22 August 1553) was an Kingdom of England, English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried ...
. This reverted to the crown on his
attainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditar ...
in 1553. When his ancestral estates were restored to
Edward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley
Edward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley (circa 1515 – 12 July 1586). The oldest son and heir of John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley. He was an English nobleman and soldier. Contemporary sources also refer to him as ''Sir Edward Dudley''.
Life
He served in Ir ...
, he was granted Chasepool and Ashwood Hays, though not Prestwood. This led to a dispute between his son and
Gilbert Lyttelton as owner of Prestwood, over the boundary between Ashwood Hay and Prestwood Hill at the end of the century.
Iverley Hay had a keeper in the 16th century.
[''Victoria County History, Staffordshire'', XX, 142.]
In addition, the forest had the usual verderers and regarders.
References
{{Reflist
English royal forests