All Round the Wrekin - The Royal Forest

Decline

The decline of the Wrekin Forest was well under way by the mid 13th Century and many local settlements, including Wellington, were exempted from the jurisdiction of forest at the local Assizes of 1250. Only Wellington Hay remained as Crown land by 1300 and the Norman forest effectively ceased to exist from that date forward. Over the next 200 years, rapid deforestation followed and when the Tudor Antiquary John Leland wrote of The Wrekin being 'entirely bare of trees' in 1530, the wooded area had shrunk to roughly the size it is today. By the 17th Century, the combined need for agricultural land and charcoal for local industries meant the forest had very nearly disappeared altogether.