WINDSOR FOREST.• To the residents of Berkshire, or at least
to those who live in and about Sunninghill, this work will no doubt prove an acceptable acquisition ; but it is not one in which the general public will take much interest. It does not contribute any- thing to the history of England, but its references to prominent men and women in the past, and its topographical details, may add somewhat to the history of the county. So little mention had been made of Sunninghill by earlier topo- graphers, that Mr. Hughes says he found before him an ample field for research, and he was in no wise dis- couraged by the comparative silence that prevailed on the subject. He considers that " although the facts connected with it may not be very important, they may help to clothe the dry bones even of parochial history with a more real life, and give a warmer colouring to many of its incidents." This anticipation is rather chilled by the ruthlessness with which he sweeps away the traditions of the neighbourhood. He announces that the church-bells were not presented by Queen Elizabeth, that the parish yew-tree was not a Domesday landmark, that the Ascot Races were not founded by the Duke'of Cumberland, that Lord Ranelagh did not build Cranbourn Lodge, that the Duchess of Marlborough did live at Cumberland Lodge, and that the Manor House was not the home of the author of Sandford and Merton, nor Sunninghill that of Richard II.'s " baby " Queen. It is hard that the few local events which bordered on matters of wider
• A History of Windsor Pore‘t. Sunninghill, and the Great Park. By G. M. Hughes. London and Edinburgh : Ballantyne. Ranson, and Co. 1890.
interest should be the very ones to be demolished by Mr. Hughes's conscientious pen.
He confesses at starting that his task has been a labour of love, and he certainly appears to have left no stone unturned in his search for village lore and local gossip. He has ad- mitted much that a more judicious though less enthusiastic compiler would have omitted, and there is no doubt that some weeding among the extracts would have been beneficial. Casual readers will not care to trace the growth of the village of Sunninghill under the Normans, the Plantagenets, and the Stuarts, nor to follow the condition of the Forest from its early days to the passing of the Act in 1813 which repealed its laws and swept away its rights and privileges for ever. This forest is enclosed on the north and east by the River Thames, and on the south by the range of chalk hills known as the North Downs ; but for its origin " we look back in vain through centuries of a changeless existence into a past almost too remote for history." Most of our Sovereigns have valued the Forest as a splendid hunting-ground, and for the big game it sheltered. William the Conqueror recognised it as such, and as soon as he had established his conquest, he persuaded the Abbot of Westminster to let him have Windlesora in exchange for territory in Essex, and Walter FitzOther, his Minister, was the earliest Warden or Beeper Mr. Hughes has been able to find. Edward III. was very fond of the Forest, and erected a hunting-lodge at Easthampstead. Richard II. stayed there in 1381 to enjoy the hunting, and his chief forester was Sir Simon de Burley, from whom the well-known Burley Bushes probably took its name. During the Wars of the Roses, the rulers of the Forest were constantly changing, as one side or the other prevailed. Henry IV. used to hunt, and on one occasion was laid up at the Manor House from an accident to his leg. Henry V. was too busy with his foreign wars, and Henry VI. with his home ones, to spend much time in the woods ; but Edward IV. is often heard of as indulging in the chase. Henry VII. had enough to do to restore order ; but his sons, Arthur and Henry, were always busy with their bows, or hawking for a heron about the swamps and pools. Later on, Henry VIII. became passionately fond of the chase, and in 1528 it is recorded that when a packet of letters was brought to him one day, he asked that they might be kept until the evening, as he was going to have a shot at a stag. Hay bourne's Lodge took its name from Ric Haybonrne, who in 1529 was Queen's Yeoman, and probably the keeper of Haybourne's Walk. The " Banqueting House " rose upon its site, and was succeeded by the Ranger's or Great Lodge, which in turn gave place to Cumberland Lodge, the present residence of the Ranger, H.R.H. Prince Christian. To Queen Mary the chase gave no pleasure; but Elizabeth, her sister, had many a day's sport in the woods, and in 1602 shot a "great and fat stag " with her own hand, and sent it to Archbishop Parker. James I. thoroughly enjoyed hunting the stag, although the late Mr. Hepworth Dixon said his pleasure was only to "shuffle after conies with a stick, or bring down partridges with a hawk." Moreover, he and his son Henry used occasionally to hunt the wild boar. Charles I., who followed the milder pastime of squirrel-hunting, gave his secretary, Nicholas, a lease of the Great Park in 1644; then it was cut up and allotted to the Round- head soldiers in lien of pay. In 1633, Sir Sampson Darrell was fined £5 for erecting a windmill on his own ground within the Forest, for the reason that it "frightened the deer, and drew company to the disquiet of the game." After the Restoration, Charles II. resumed the ownership, and in 1670 Nicholas again secured the keepership, with the four lodges and land amount- ing to 3,410 acres. In 1697, Bentinck, Earl of Portland, became Ranger, and erected the principal part of Cumberland Lodge, and in 1702 Queen Anne gave it to Sir Edward Seymour. On the death of the latter, the Duchess of Marlborough stepped into it. It soon became her favourite residence, and she made great alterations and additions to it. From here she wrote to Mrs. Jennens in 1717 :—" Lady Pembroke will play but half- crowns. I won't desire you to dine here if it is uneasy, but we never go to dinner till half-an-hour after two. All I can say is, you will both be very welcome, and I have wonder- ful good ale." It was here, too, that the Duke retired on his quarrel with Mrs. Masham, and where he eventually died,—at least, so says Mr. Hughes, though he reminds us that the current Daily Post and the last edition of the Sneye2opanlia Britannica give his death as at Cranbourn Lodge, whilst other authorities say it was at Windsor Lodge.
Cumberland Lodge, however, was at the time variously known as " The Lodge," " The Great Lodge," and " Windsor Lodge." With Queen Anne hunting was a passion. Her early married life seems to have been spent in the Forest, riding or driving after the hounds, building the new kennels at Ascot, and laying out the drives. In 1746, George II. gave the Rangership to his son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, who " greatly improved the natural beauties of the Park, and by large plantations of trees, extensive lawns, new roads, spacious canals, and rivers of water, made this villa one of the most delightful and princely habitations that can be seen." The original circumference of the Forest was 120 miles, although, according to Norden, in 1607 it was only 77 miles ; but year by year some grant or secret encroach- ment lessened its area, until at the time of the enclosure in 1813, its circuit had dwindled to 56 miles.
Of Sunninghill itself, Mr. Hughes was surprised to find how little had been written. Lysons disposed of it in a few lines, and other writers did but copy his brief account. It had been currently believed that the village was a vill in Saxon times ; that the church contained Saxon memorials, and was of Saxon origin; and that the ancient yew-tree in the churchyard was a landmark alluded to in Domesday. Alas ! the swans are all geese ! In Edward the Confessor's time, Sunninghill was but the name of a wild spot in the heart of the Forest; there is neither stone nor rain to mark the site of any village, and no ancient writer makes the slightest allusion to one. The existing church was erected in 1837, on the pulling-down of the ancient Norman church that occupied its site ; and the old yew-tree in the churchyard, a venerable record of Norman times, is not mentioned in Domesday, where, indeed, the name of Sunninghill does not occur. Of the gentry, none, except the owner of Sunninghill Park, have been at Sunninghill much more than half-a-century. Of the tradesmen, one family has been there since Queen Mary's time; whilst of the old yeoman class there is another occupying precisely the same position it held in the days of King Alfred. There are also some labourers whose families have been there for three centuries or more, and who were labourers then, clinging to the soil with the same dislike to change and the same love of freedom that characterised Charles Kingsley's "thorough gentlemen." The village has never been the seat of any flourishing trade, nor is it even agricultural, for its soil is, Mr. Hughes assures us, "as inimical to cultivation for profit as it is delightful for residence." To its balmy air and to its wild beauty it owes much of its fair fame, whilst William the Conqueror deemed it a place "proper and convenient for a royal retirement and its suitableness for hunting." Its deep seclusion and its distance from any great thoroughfare pre- served it from the intrusion of soldiers or the visits of travel. lers, and after the abandonment of the great Roman road, no other struck into the Forest for ages. Chap. viii., on "Local Derivations," looks formidable, and, following Mr. Hughes's advice, though without admitting that we have "no archaeological taste," we have not penetrated its uninviting pages.
Sunninghill is, it seems, and always has been, a detached parcel of the Manor of Cookham. The first notice of it which Mr. Hughes has been able to discover is in the Saxon Charter of A.D. 666, and the earliest name associated with it, that of William de Cumba, in 1198. King John gave the church and its belongings to the Nunnery of Broomhall. In the time of Edward II., Sunninghill was held by Queen Isabella as her own private estate, and for several reigns it appears to have formed part of the " peculiar appanage " of the Queens of England. Henry IV. settled on his youngest son, the "good Duke Humphrey," the Manors of Cookham and Bray, including Sunninghill; and in Queen Elizabeth's time, Sir Henry Neville was the principal man in the place.
Queen Anne and her husband took a fancy to the district, and laid the foundation of much of the future welfare of Sunninghill; after the depression of the Civil War and the general stagnation of the seventeenth century, the place awoke to new life, and the springs attracted fashionable visitors from all parts. Local government was a stronger feature of the village then than now. The Vestry was its House of Commons, the Vicar its Speaker, and the constable its Ser- jeant-at-Arms. " Tithingmen " either heard and determined trifling causes between villages and neighbours, or acted as public prosecutors in trivial offences,—as when, in still earlier times, they had ruled that "Alice, the wife of William Smyth- gate, of Bray-wick, is a babbler and has an unruly tongue, wherefore said Alice is commanded to refrain herself under penalty of 40s. and bodily punishment."
Mr. Hughes has a good deal to say about the origin of Ascot Races, and there is an interesting autotype illustration, from Paul Sandby's picture at Windsor Castle, of the racing as it used to be. Mr. Hughes reminds his readers that it was asserted in the Quarterly Review that the Ascot Races were founded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, and that nearly every writer since has echoed the statement until it has been accepted as an undisputed fact, even the author of the most recent History of Berkshire also stating that the races were instituted by the Duke, and that the first meeting took place on July 4th, 1751. Mr. Hughes thinks differently. He declares that the races were established by Queen Anne, and that the first race was run on August 11th, 1711. Mr. Hughes is probably right in his contention. Cheney's Racing Calendar, which preceded Weatherby's, states that there was racing at Ascot prior to 1727, and Ashton's Social Life of Queen Anne, that a Gold Plate was run for at Ascot on August 12th, 1713. Moreover, in a letter of August 10th, 1711, from Swift to Stella, there is evidence which, in Mr. Hughes's opinion, places the fact beyond dispute, that the first race ever ridden on Ascot Heath was that of August 11th, 1711, in the presence of Queen Anne and a fashionable gathering, who had come over-night to Windsor to attend it. It is known, too, that she and her Royal spouse ran horses in their own names—' Pepper,' Mustard,' and 'Star' were hers—and in 1710, at Datchet Races, the Queen gave a Gold Cup, which was won by Bay Bolton.'
A labour of love reckons not the cost; yet, with the circula- tion limited to four hundred copies, this book, which is bulky and expensively got up, must have been a considerable loszi to somebody. The illustrations are very unequal. The steel- plates are pretty, but too insignificant to do justice to the beautiful scenery which abounds in and about the Great Park. A dozen full-page views, taken from well-chosen photographs, and engraved like the gems of sixty years ago for the Landscape Annual, would have made the book far more attractive. Residents and others interested in the Forest and its locality, however, owe much to Mr. Hughes for collecting within this book all that has been or is likely to be written on the subject, and clothing it in readable and pleasant language.
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