Needwood Forest

Needwood Forest
Cottage in Needwood Forest by Joseph Wright 1790
Type	Woodland
Location	Staffordshire
Coordinates	52°49′N 1°46′W / 52.81°N 1.76°W / 52.81; -1.76
Area	9,437 acres (38.19 km2)[1]
Created	1266
Status	some parts remain

Needwood Forest was a large area of ancient woodland in Staffordshire which was largely lost at the end of the 18th century.

History

Needwood Forest was a chase or royal forest given to Henry III's son Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, in 1266.^[2] It was owned by the Duchy of Lancaster until it passed into the possession of Henry IV.

In 1776, Francis Noel Clarke Mundy privately published a book of poetry called Needwood Forest which contained his own poem of the same name and supportive contributions from Sir Brooke Boothby Bt., Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward. Anna Seward regarded this poem as "one of the most beautiful local poems".^[3] The purpose of Mundy's poems was to resist calls for the enclosure of the forest. Seward herself wrote a poem called "The fall of Needwood Forest".^[3]

From http://www.maggs.com/title/EA7255.asp:- Needwood Forest. MUNDY, (Francis Noel Clarke). AUTHOR AND ARTIST PRESENTATION COPY First Edition. 4to. 52 pp., steel engraved frontispiece of Needwood Forest by Landseer after Sneyd. Date:1808

Lichfield: by John Jackson, 1786

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  "Needwood Forest from the Holly Falls" - steel engraved print by J. Landseer after M.E. Sneyd

The Fall of Needwood First Edition. 4to. 45 pp., steel engraved frontispiece of The Fall of Needwood Forest by J. Landseer after M.E. Sneyd. Bound together in contemporary blue straight-grained morocco (extremities and spine rubbed). Some marginal staining to the first plate and a neat old repair to the margin of the second plate.

Derby: at the Office of J. Drewry, 1808

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  "The Fall of Needwood" - steel engraved print by J. Landseer after M.E. Sneyd

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Two poems and two engravings inspired by Needwood Forest.

Needwood Forest was a substantial and ancient Midlands forest. The enclosure Act of 1803 allowed for its disafforestation, which took until 1811 to complete. Thus the first poem was written before the Act and the second during the process of enclosure. There is a copy in the Houghton Library at Harvard annotated by Horace Walpole throughout and with notes identifying the author. The initials of the poems addressed to the author on pages 45 to 52 of the first work are thought to be those of Erasmus Darwin, Anna Seward, Sir Brooke Boothby, Bart., and Erasmus Darwin junior. The second poems includes the short work "My Grand Climetric, 1802", and a poem by Anna Seward entitled "To. F.N.C. Mundy, Esq., on his poem The Fall of Needwood." Presumably Mundy belonged to the literary circle at Lichfield that included the Sir Brooke Boothby, the Darwins, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and Miss Seward, 'The Swan of Lichfield' or as Walpole put it another 'Harmonious Virgin'. Anna Seward's parents adopted Hannah Sneyd, who was probably related to the engraver, Mary Emma Sneyd.^[4][5][6][7] At the time Thomas Gisborne held the perpetual curacy of Barton-under-Needwood; Gisborne regarded Needwood much as Gilbert White did Selborne, and the former wrote in the early 1790s his Walks in the Forest, then still unenclosed. Needwood Forest had been a chase of the Duchy of Lancaster until the reign of Henry IV when it became Crown property. It is commonly associated with Sir Gawain's Green Knight.

Provenance: Presented from the author and the artist: "The Poem the Gift of the Author. - The Plates the Gift of Miss Sneyd" (inscribed on the verso of the front free endpaper) and 'From the Author' (inscribed on the title-page of the second work.)

Under an enclosure act of 1803, commissioners were allowed to deforest it. By 1811 the land had been divided amongst a number of claimants.

In 1851 Needwood Forest was described as forming "one of the most beautiful and highly cultivated territories in the honour of Tutbury, which contains 9,437 acres (38.19 km²) of land, in the five parishes of Hanbury, Tutbury, Tatenhill, Yoxall, and Rolleston, and subdivided into the four wards of Tutbury, Barton, Marchington, and Yoxall, which together form a district of over seven miles (11 km) in length and three in breadth, extending northwards from Wichnor to Marchington Woodlands."

Nowadays there are twenty farms, on which dairy farming is the principal enterprise; 490 acres (2.0 km²) of woodland remain.^[2] Some parts of the forest are still open to the public. Jackson Bank is a mature, mixed 80-acre (320,000 m²) woodland left from the ancient Needwood Forest. This woodland at Hoar Cross near Burton upon Trent is still owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, which opens it to the public.^[8] Bagot's Wood near Abbots Bromley claims to be the largest remaining part of Needwood Forest.

Literature

• Needwood Forest, 1776, by Francis Noel Clarke Mundy, Brooke Boothby, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward

References

1. ^ History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White, Sheffield, 1851, accessed 30 May 2008
2. ^ ^{a b} Duchy of Lancaster accessed 30 May 2008
3. ^ ^{a b} Speaking for Nature By Sylvia Lorraine Bowerbank, 2004, ISBN 0801878721
4. ^ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=169-d1798_1-1&cid=1-8-22-4-13&kw=Staffordshire%20and%20Stoke-on-Trent%20Archive%20Service%20Staffordshire%20Record%20Office#1-8-22-4-13
5. ^ http://www.burton-on-trent.org.uk/?p=136
6. ^ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/lists/GB-0074-F-LEG.htm
7. ^ http://www2.eaststaffsbc.gov.uk/MVM.DMS/Planning%20Application/618000/618892/P_2010_00255%20ADDITIONAL%20INFORMATION%20RECEIVED%2020.04.10%20Heritage%20Significance%20Statement%20(April%202010).PDF
8. ^ The National Forest accessed 30 May 2008

See also

• Barton under Needwood