(714 acres) which is open to the public (many regard this as The St. Leonard's Forest), as are Owlbeech (mainly heathland) and Leechpool Woods (claimed by Horsham District Council to be ancient woodland) to the east of Horsham, and Buchan Country Park to the SW of Crawley.

An area of 85.4 hectares (211 acres) is St Leonards Forest Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The High Weald Landscape Trail leads from Horsham Station east across the forest to Handcross.

The hammer ponds remain, the dams of those in St. Leonard's forest being crossed by Hammerpond Road between Horsham and Handcross, and today are used for fishing.

St Leonards Forest is at the western end of a plunging anticline at the centre of the Weald.

The northern boundary is very distinct, the Holmbush Fault which has a throw of some 30 metres runs from Warnham Mill through Faygate Roundabout on the A264, along the northern edge of Douster and Broadfield Ponds and is best seen immediately north of the top carpark in Tilgate Park.

Although mainly sandstones and siltstones there are several layers of clay revealed by muddy sections on the paths and tracks.

Although at a lower altitude it is part of the Wealden Clay formation, deposited later than the Hastings Beds, and is exposed in the forest between the Sidnye Farm and Borde Hill faults SE of Lower Beeding, and between Crabtree and Cowfold, again due to faulting.

These rocks were laid down in an early Cretaceous floodplain of either a braided or meandering river whose source was in the high ground of Londinia to the north east.

[2] The clays indicate rising sea levels turned the flood plain into a coastal lagoon at times.

[3] The forest was part of the large wooded area now known as the Weald which extended from Hampshire east to the sea between Eastbourne and Dover, and bounded by the North and South Downs which are formed of chalk and hence have a very different vegetation.

St. Leonard's prayers ensured the safe delivery of Clovis's child, and he was given as a reward as much land as he could ride round on a donkey in a day.

Noblac became a place of pilgrimage and was visited by crusaders including Richard Coeur de Lion, and it may be that this is how the story came to the south of England where some one hundred churches are named after the saint.

Æthelweard's Chronicle of 770AD mentions "Monstrous serpents were seen in the country of the Southern Angles that is called Sussex".

Speed's map of 1610 (surveyed by John Nordon about 1595) also shows three enclosed parks - St. Leonard's, Schelley and Bewbush, with the Rape border and Tylgate Forest on the east.

In the 16th century the forest was divided into bailiwicks - Roffey, Bewbush, Alkynburne (Hawksbourne), Horningbrook, Hyde, Shelley, Whitebarrow, Thrustlehole, Herony, Gosden and Patchgate, many of which are still recognisable today.

It was around this time that the forest started to be cleared, wood being used for barrels, buildings and charcoal, the latter being used for both iron production and by the townsfolk of Horsham.

The iron industry was not solely responsible for the loss of the woods because although a few large timbers were used for buildings and machinery, the main requirement was for charcoal which was produced initially from the undertimber and later by coppicing.

Other timber was used for charcoal, and by the middle of the century large areas had been cleared, especially Bewbush and Shelley Plain.

At the beginning of the 18th century there were five including the Great Warren to the south of Colgate, Plummers Plain and Sibballs (now known as Holmbush).

The forest was described as bleak and barren as the Cumberland and Yorkshire moorland, and William Cobbett who travelled from Pease Pottage to Horsham in 1823 described it as "six of the worst miles in England...The first two of these miserable miles go through the estate of Lord ERSKINE [Lord Chancellor].

However Michael Mills planted a straight avenue of trees around 1720, and although these were blown down in 1836, the line of the avenue remains as a long narrow clearing (legend says that Mick Mills raced the devil and won - he went so fast that he burnt the trees on either side and they would never regrow).

New dams were built to create lakes for ornamentation at Leonardslee, fishing and boating at Buchan Hill.

The main change in the 20th century as far as vegetation was concerned was the spread of rhododendron throughout the forest except where the dense planting by the Forestry Commission prevented it growing.

The opening of this park and also Owlbeech and Leechpool Woods near Horsham took place in the second half of the century and these together with Forestry England land afford public access to parts of the forest.

In Episode 4 of BBC's Elizabeth R, Horrible Conspiracies, Mary, Queen of Scots complaining of her captivity, mentions Saint Leonard's forest as a "wood where nightingales never sing," because "some unseen evil drives them away".