Juniata sentinel. [volume] (Mifflintown, Pa.) 1846-1873, 1873-10-01
Windsor Forest.

gins Will hItuuT huu LIS huiSAoS
where the Saxon kings lived, ant
where, in its castle, the most celebrated
pageants and courtly ceremonies fol
many reigns performed is truly famous
At first this forest comprehended cir
cumference of a hundred and thirty
miles. It dwindled away with the lapse
of time to seventy-seven miles, witt
three thousand head of deer. At pres
ent the view from Windsor Castle IS one
of the finest in ENGLAND. EtOn College
is in its neighborhood further on is
Stoke Pegis, the scene of Gray's Elegy.
On the extreme right is Runnymeae,
where King John signed Magma Charta.
Nearer is the village of Datchet, where,
according to Shakespeare, Sir John Fal.
staff was ducked by the Merry Wives
of Windsor. In this park, too, was
"Herne's Oak" immortalized by Shak,
speare:
'There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime keeper here in Windsor forest
Windsor Forest contains the largest
artificial lake in Europe - Virginia
Water, formed in the reign of George
III. There is a statue of this king in
Windsor Park. 1t contains some mag
nifcent trees - beeches thirty-six feet
round, and two of the oaks near Gran
bourne Lodge are thirty eight feet
round. Windsor Castle and Forest are
more associated with royalty than any
other in England. Here Edward Ill.
instituted the Order of the Garter; here
Queen Elizabeth hunted deer and
here Charles I. is buried. Queen Anne
held her drawing rooms at Windsor
Castle. In short, ''the proud keep of
Windsor" is associated with the most
interesting events and persons in the
History of England. Hainault Forest
contains the unique 'Lawn Farm" re-
claimed from the woods, which is said
to be the original of Warren Farm, "
in Dickens novel of ''Barnaby Rudge. "
Chigwell is not far off, and there is still
an inn called "The Maypole.
Every reader of history knows that
William the Conqueror made himself
detestable by seizing tract of land
covered with manOrs, towns, and vii
lagos, and converting it into the New
Forest, and making most cruel and ar
bitrary laws. At present it is twenty
miles one way, and fifteen the other.
Six thousand acres are enclosed for tim
ber growth, scattered in different en-
closures, subject to forest laws. Forty
eight thousand acres are enclosed
against cattle, but not deer. In the
purlieus of this forest there are some
acres of freehold property, whose pro-
prietors claim forest rights and privi-
leges. Beaulieu Abbey, that beautiful
monastic ruin, is here; gypsies form a
portion of the~population. The New
Forest is celebrated for breed of small
half-wild horses, which belong to the
borderers and cotters. and run wild till
caught and tanned. Herds of hogs are
fed on beech-mast in autumn, and here
and there are focks of sheep. In the
New Forest, owing to the diversity of
vegetation and the surface, the note of
every British bird may be heard. The
principal trees are oaks and beeches !;
the ground is characterized by heathy
Lands and carpet lawns, interspersed
with woods; parts are so high as to
command magnificent views rivers and
brooks run through it, and along its
borders are bays with coast scenery,
with broken cliffs and winding shores.
The mention of Sherwood Forest re-
calls Robin Hood. Once it covered
the whole of Nottingham County; but
Civilization has come, and the Forest is
but vestige. At Bilhaugh there are
oaks which cannot be less than six CEN
turies old. When Richard the Lion
Hearted returned from his imprison-
ment in Austria, he visited Sherwood
Forest, at that time terror to the Nor
mans. There the last remnant of armed
Saxons, still denying the conquest,
found a refuge. A man who had long
been the hero of the poor, the serfs,
and the Anglo-Saxon race, lived there,
too - the famous Robert Hood the
chronicles tell us little more than this
of the partisan chief. The romances
and ballads tell us all we know. He
has claim to the title of the Earl of
Huntington it is in his epitaph on his
tombstone at Kirklees. An old song
relates that he was travelling, at the age
of eighty, in the vicinity of the nunnery
there, and was taken i'll. The superior
was his cousin:
"she blooded bold Robin Hood, till not drop would
ran"
Pilgrims still frequent the wayside inn,
and traces of the nunnery exist. The
fragment of Parliament Oak in this re-
gion is above a thousand years old.
Some years since branches started from
this trunk which yielded hundreds of
acorns. In the heart of Sherwood For
est stands Newstead Abbey, the ances-
trail home of Lord Byron, one of the
best specimens of that style of architec-
ture, half castle, half nunnery, ruined,
changed, and restored according to its
owners. The fact that there are so many
minor and miscellaneous forests, all
named, with pedigree, and under for
est laws, proves the solidity and sense
of the English-a fact which America
should open her eyes to, and make laws
for the preservation of the forests SO
rapidly disappearing.