Old Hampshire Mapped
Cobbett's Hampshire
Transcription (101)Waltham Chase
Soberton Down
Goodlad, Mr
justice of the peace
Singelton, Mr
poacher
enclosure
woods
forestry
In coming along yesterday, from Waltham Chase to Soberton Down, we passed by a big white house upon a hill that was, when I lived at Botley, occupied by one GOODLAD, who was a cock justice of the peace, and who had been a chap of some sort or other, in India. There was a man by the name of Singleton, who lived in Waltham Chase, and who was deemed to be a great poacher. ... ... I cannot quit Waltham Chase without observing, that I heard, last year, that a Bill was about to be petitioned for, to enclose that Chase! Never was so monstrous a proposition in this world. The Bishop of Winchester is Lord of the Manor over this Chase. If the Chase be enclosed the timber must be cut down, young and old; and here are a couple of hundred acres of land, worth ten thousand acres of land in the New Forest. This is as fine timber land as any in the wealds of Surrey, Sussex or Kent. There are two enclosures of about 40 acres each, perhaps, that were simply surrounded by a bank being thrown up about twenty years ago; only twenty years ago, and on the poorest part of the Chase, too; and these are now as beautiful plantations of young oak trees as man ever sat his eyes on; many of them as big or bigger round than my thigh! Therefore, besides the sweeping away of two or three hundred cottages; besides plunging into ruin and misery all these numerous families, here is one of the finest pieces of timber-land in the whole kingdom, going to be cut up into miserable clay fields, for no earthly purpose but that of gratifying the stupid greediness of those who think that they must gain, if they add to the breadth of their private fields.
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