All that remains of a once vast, wild and ancient forest that stretched from Kent to
Hampshire. Pre-historic man hunted deer and swine. The Romans built a road
through it to Londinium and exploited the mineral wealth with a highly organised
iron industry. The Saxons and Normans were happy to remain outside the
Essendoun Forest but there have always been those who have used the forest for
their own purposes: encroaching farmers, smugglers, commoners and enclosers.
In 1372 Edward III granted Assedoun Forest to his son John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster and it remained as a Royal Forest for 300 years. In 1672, Charles ll
granted it to the Earl of Dorset. In 1693, after a lawsuit between the Earl and the
Commoners, it was decreed that 6400 acres, in the vicinity of the farms and villages (mostly around
the perimeter), were subject of rights of ‘common’ whilst the remaining 13,991 acres could be enclosed
by the landowners.
On the eastern perimeter are the Parishes of Withyham and Rotherfield and it is there that my roots are
set down. Even as late as 1851 the census shows the location for Thomas Ashdown’s dwelling as
‘edge of forest’.