Feckenham Forest

Courts and the forest gaol were located at Feckenham and executions took place at Gallows Green near Hanbury.

The forest boundaries were extended greatly during the reign of Henry II, expanding from 34 to 184 square miles.

The wood was encroached to produce salt in Droitwich, and was quite reduced by the time it was disafforested during the reign of King Charles I in 1629.

[4] At its greatest extent, the forest covered an area including Bromsgrove, Redditch, and Evesham, reaching to the gates of Worcester.

This stretched from Evesham in the south, close to Worcester, up to Droitwich and Wychbold in the west, to Stone, Chaddesley Corbett and Alvechurch in the north, and Redditch, Studley and Alcester in the east.

He had rights over hunting game, feeding pigs on acorns and beech nuts; and timber and ‘underwood’.

Under the keeper were verderers who were the main enforcers of forest law, investigating infractions and trespasses.

Poaching and encroachment on royal rights was not simply a matter of the poor taking game and, when caught, being executed.

Under Henry III, however, the Church of St Mary, that is Worcester Cathedral, was granted rights to hunt in their own forests, so that "no forester, verderer or other bailiffs of the King's shall in future intermeddle in the woods saving in matters touching the King's venison".

[14] Land disputes are also recorded with the Abbotts of Evesham, who enclosed a large part of the forest, when it was at its greatest extent, arguing they had the right under old charters.

[17] There was considerable pressure on the wooded areas from the use of timber to fuel salt pans in Droitwich, a practice that had been recorded as far back as the Domesday Book.

[27] The general policy of compensating poor and tenants, says Sharp, "was a recognition of the pressing social problem that was the ultimate cause of the riots.

With one hand the Crown deprived the large and growing population of poor cottagers in each forest an essential part of their income – free access to thousands of acres of waste ground – and with the other offered to them the crumbs left over from the feast consumed by the King, his farmers, and the substantial landholders in the forests".

[30] Evidence of the inadequacy of the settlement for the poorest residents comes from the legal challenge they made in 1630 to express dissatisfaction with the proceedings.

The area lacked important industries, so large numbers of cottagers had settled in the forest and survived by using the common.

[32] The rioting was taken highly seriously by the Privy Council, which was also disturbed by what it perceived as inaction by local militias and courts.

[34] 300 people rioted in Spring 1632 and were met by the Sheriff, a Deputy Lieutenant and a Justice of the Peace with forty armed men.

The rioters "in a most daring and presumptuous manner presented themselves unto us with warlike weapons (vizt) pikes, forrest bills, pitchforks, swords and the like".

On this occasion, the authorities acted to suppress this "flatt [flat] rebellion", tried to arrest the rioters and injured a number of them.

Neither wanted theare (in Hanbury) for the recreation our Kynges a fayre Parke sortinge in name with the Kinges vast forest, reachinge in former ages far and wide.

A large walk for savage beastes, but now more commodyously chaunged into the civill habitations of many gentellmen, the freeholds of wealthy yeomen, and dwellings of industryous husbandmen.

Feckenham Parke cominge by attainder to the Crown, Queen Elizabeth bestowed it on Sir Thomas Leighton, who married her neere Kynswoman Mistris Elizabeth Knolles in which family continuing towe descentes, it is devolved (by purchase) to the honourable house of the Lord Baron Coventree, Lord Keeper of the greate seale.

Many are now managed by the Wildlife Trusts, who have a "Forest of Feckenham" living landscape project to restore some of the habitats:[44] Very little of the original woodlands are left.

"[57] Worcestershire County Council's documents identify that the larger area includes many "irregular fields with hedges rich in woody species indicating their origins from assarts cut into the ancient wildwood";[58] examples would include Astwood.

[58] The "Forest of Feckenham and Feckenham Wetlands" area is identified by the Council as a "hotspot for biodiversity" and a priority for protecting and developing 'green infrastructure' especially to protect "traditional field patterns, boundaries and small woodlands [and to] [e]nhance stream corridors".