Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
land by George and Roger Walrond, members of a family who were hereditary Keepers of
the Chase. At certain times of year the Walrond brothers enclosed a field (at lower left) to
grow corn, claiming that the terms under which they held their farm allowed them to do this.
The Duchy's tenants complained that this effectively barred them from grazing their animals
there.
The map and court papers reveal a complex pattern of ownership and land tenure. Named
fields are labelled with their owner or occupier, whether royal land, the Walronds' inheritance
or copyhold of the manor. Their use is given, as arable, pasture, coppice, woods or closes.
Each piece of land also has a pictorial representation of the flora and fauna found there,
crammed in a mass of detail over a plan drawn to scale. Just as larger and smaller human
interests were interwoven in any one parcel of land, so the animals interact with the trees and
bushes growing there. The mapmaker has shown cattle, sheep and horses grazing, some with
their heads hidden behind the herbage.
The mapmaker 'thought best' to draw a hugely detailed picture of this swathe of coun-
tryside. He records a lodge built in 1606, and the remnants of a medieval ridge-and-furrow
farming pattern, although these were not relevant to either party's case. Notes outside the
map explain that the green lines denote enclosures with quickset hedges, while dotted lines
indicate common land. Each tree is shown with its canopy in the shape of its leaf; oak and
ash are immediately obvious, and others may be elder, hazel, hawthorn and willow. There are
red-flowered plants, scrub, underwood, even dying trees, in a scene which certainly brings us
'the more manifestacion' of this place, one summer over 400 years ago.
