page_title: Forests of Mara and Mondrem
section_title: After the Earls
hierarchical_section_title: Forests of Mara and Mondrem / History / After the Earls
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir John Done, Master Forester of Delamere Forest (1577–1629) Oil painting by unknown 18th century artist
context_page_description: The Forests of Mara and Mondrem were adjacent medieval forests in Cheshire, England, which in the 11th century extended to over 60 square miles, stretching from the Mersey in the north almost to Nantwich in the south, and from the Gowy in the west to the Weaver in the east. Mara and Mondrem were a hunting forest of the Norman Earls of Chester, established soon after 1071 by the first earl, Hugh d'Avranches. They might earlier have been an Anglo-Saxon hunting forest. Game included wild boar, and red, fallow and roe deer.
  After the earldom lapsed in 1237, the forest rights passed to the Crown, with the monarch's heir being given the title of Earl of Chester. Edward I and James I both hunted in the forests. Clearance for agricultural use began to be permitted after 1215, and by the mid-14th century, large areas of the Forest of Mondrem had been cleared. Deer hunting still continued within the remaining forest in the 17th century, and the forest was not formally disafforested, or removed from forest law, until 1812. The modern Delamere Forest is the remnant of the medieval forests, but little ancient woodland survives.
context_section_description: After the lapse of the Chester earldom in 1237, the forest rights passed to the Crown and the monarch's heir was given the title of Earl of Chester. Although Edward I hunted in the forest, the sport became less important, and the forests were used for timber production and as a source of revenue from taxes, fees and fines. In 1300, Edward I confirmed Ranulf de Blondeville's charter of 1215–16, but in the mid-14th century, Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, introduced various restrictive measures, which led to a large number of complaints recorded in the Black Prince's Register of 1351. Agricultural exploitation of the eastern edge of the forest was hampered by outbreaks of Black Death at Over, Little Budworth and Vale Royal Abbey in 1349, 1361 and 1369. The Old Pale and Eddisbury Hill were enclosed in the 14th century, to retain deer.
  The northerly Forest of Mara remained wooded in the 14th century, and still retained a population of wild boar and wolves. By that date, however, large areas of the southerly Forest of Mondrem had been cleared. The remaining Mondrem woodland in the mid-14th century appears to have been concentrated in the north around Castle Northwich, Hartford and Winnington, and to a lesser extent in the south east around Aston juxta Mondrum, Calveley, Cholmondeston, Church Minshull, Poole and Wettenhall. Extensive assarting by Vale Royal Abbey made a major contribution to the loss of Mondrem woodland before the abbey's dissolution. The proximity to the medieval salt wiches of Nantwich and Middlewich, with their wood-fuelled salt pans, might also have been a factor.  
  Deer continued to be hunted in the 17th century; a large area at New Pale was enclosed at this time for the retention of deer. James I, on a royal visit to Cheshire in August 1617, hunted in the forest, describing it as "this delectable place". From the early 18th century, however, the focus of hunting moved away from deer; Tarporley Hunt Club was founded in 1762, and the local gentry hunted hares and later foxes.
caption: Sir John Done, Master-Forester, was knighted by James I after he hunted at the forest in 1617
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