All Round the Wrekin - The Royal Forest

The Norman Forest

By the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, William I had created 21 new forests, a figure which had risen to 80 by the end of Henry II's reign in 1154. Both Henry and Richard I made huge additions to the Wrekin Forest (which was renamed as the Royal Forest of Mount Gilbert - in honour of a local hermit!) so that it covered an area of about 120 square miles by the 12th Century. Many of the forests created by the Normans contained large areas with no woodland cover at all, often including whole towns, villages and land previously used for agriculture. In this sense, the forest became much more than just a source of food, timber and hunting for the Crown and served as an independent power base where the King could weald his personal authority and make money in an age before taxation.