OFFLOW HUNDRED. :367 NEEDWOOD FOREST now forms one of the most beau­ tiful and highly cultivated territories in the honour of Tutbury, and contains, exclusive of the public roads, 9437 A. 2R.. 31P. of land, in the four parishes of Hanbury, Tutbury, Tatenhill, and Y oxall, and subdivided into the four wARDS of Tutbury, Barton, Marchington, and Yoxnll, which together form a dis­ trict of an irregular oval figure, upwards of seven miles in length and three in breadth, extending northward from vVichnor to Marchington Woodlan<ls, and lying nearly at an equal distance between Burton-upon-Trent and Abbots Bromley, being about four miles from each of those towns. This extensive forest or chase, where the neighbouring nobility and gentry "eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of bunting," was a member of the Duchy of Lancaster, and after the accession of Henry IV. be­ came a possession of the crown, subject, however, to the de­ pasturage of the landholders and inhabitants of the surrounding townships; and in this state it remained till the enclosure act, passed in 1801, empowered the commissioners to disafforest it, and to divide the soil among the different claimants. Before this enclosure, which was not completed till 1811, Needwood was wholly in a state of nature, except four small patches of Lodge lands. Here the little warblers of the grove, unnum­ bered, chanted their wild and mellifluent notes; the woodcock, the snipe, the pheasant, and the partridge, abounded in profu­ sion; numerous deer ranged in the valleys; the bare burrowed in the thicket, the fox and badger in the declivity of the deep glen, and the rabbit on the sandy hill; but the sport of the huntsman and the fowler has undergone as much alteration as the scenery. The officers of the forest were a lieutenant and chief ranger, assisted by a deputy, four lieutenants, four keep­ ers, and an axe bearer. A court was held every year, by the King"s steward of the honour of Tutbury, when a jury of 24 persons, resident within the jurisdiction, presented and arnerced all persons guilty of "encroaching on the forest, or committing any offences in vert or venison." There were anciently eight paTks impaled within the ring of the forest, viz., Agardsley, Stockley, Barton, Heylyns, Sherholt, Castle Hay, Hanbury, and Rolleston. That of Castle Hay, distant about two miles from Tutbury Castle, was 3~ miles in compass; and that of Hanbury, 2! miles. The lodges of Brickley, Ealand, Yoxall, and Sherholt, were the only dwellings upon the forest before the enclosure, but it now contains a considerable number of scat­ tered villas and neat farm houses. The natural disposition of the forest presents a great and beautiful variety of aspect; gra­ dual eminences and easy vales, watered by murmuring rills, with here and there a bolder and more abrupt swell, form its ge­ nHal features. In the northern parts, the eminences are far more numerous and lofty than in the southern divisions. The forest here exhibits to the eye a series of deep glens, enclosed .