Thoughts on the Proposed Inclosure of Waltham (commonly called Epping) and Hainault Forests: In which a new plan is suggested for disafforesting the same: with the heads of the bill now proposed for that purposeStreet, Thomas
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Thoughts on the Proposed Inclosure of Waltham (commonly called Epping) and Hainault Forests: In which a new plan is suggested for disafforesting the same: with the heads of the bill now proposed for that purpose
I, some time since, understood, from authority, the correctness of which
I have no reason to doubt, that it was not the intention of the Crown to
press for a general inclosure of these Forests, but merely to obtain a
reasonable compensation (to be settled by the Commissioners under the
proposed Act) for disafforesting both Waltham and Hainault Forests, and
extinguishing the rights of the Crown therein. I hare considered the
subject with much attention, and I confess that I could hardly have
pictured to myself any thing so desirable to the owners of landed
property in and adjoining to these Forests, as their being relieved from
the rights of the Crown, rights from which, in point of fact, the Crown
derives no sort of benefit; but, on the contrary, incurs an annual
expense of £300, (as appears by the 15th Report of the Commissioners of
Woods and Forests,) and which have been, for many years past, a continual
source of complaint on the part of the land-owners and inhabitants. I
was, therefore, much surprised, on perusing the resolutions passed, on
the 26th November last, at a Meeting of the Freeholders and others,
possessing landed property in the parish of Woodford, to find them so
strongly deprecate the proposed inclosure.
As to the proposition respecting Hainault Forest:—the principal part of
it, which is occupied by the growth of timber, is so low and swampy, that
no human being would ever think of building in such a situation, and the
land could not be brought into cultivation without an enormous expense in
grubbing up the timber, and draining the soil. If, therefore, we give
the Commissioners for the Inclosure credit for a reasonable degree of
judgment and discretion, it is within this part of the Forest, so well
calculated for the growth of timber, that they would undoubtedly
appropriate the 2,000 acres to be inclosed as a nursery for that purpose,
and for which it would be a situation peculiarly advantageous, on account
of its easy communication with water-carriage and the dock-yard at
Woolwich. I really cannot discover what injury could be done to the
land-owners surrounding that spot, who, according to the plan proposed,
would have a thousand acres of uninclosed land left subject only to the
custom of the manor, within which their lands happen to lie, and totally
free from the intervention of the forty days court; the frequent and
inconvenient interference of which, in the exercise of the duty imposed
on them of protecting the rights of the Crown, and preventing the deer
being deprived of the herbage, has been so generally complained of by
persons within its jurisdiction.
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