From the text: The oldest existing perambulation of the New Forest, made in 1280, shows the bounds to be east and west, the Southampton river and the Avon; south, the sea-coast; north, the line running east and west from Owerbridge to North Charford. This detail is preserved in the Chapter House of Westminster.

The officers of the Forest ranged from the Lord Warden and his lieutenant to a verminer and sub-verminer, between whom came a riding forester, a bow-bearer, two rangers, two woodwards, four verderers, two stewards, twelve regarders, nine foresters or master-keepers, and thirteen (originally fifteen) under-foresters or groomkeepers.

VOLUME ! - "There is no better way of rediscovering a lost but still not forgotten England than to turn to the colourful pages of William Cobbett's Rural Rides," writes Asa Briggs in the Introduction to this volume.

Already when Cobbett began to write the accounts of his journeys in 1821, the England which he had known as a boy was beginning to look and to feel different. The landscape was changing as a result of the double impact of agricultural enclosure and the growth of towns: society too was changing as a result of the combined influences of industry, finance and war.

To many of Cobbett's contemporaries the changes were good, visible signs of the " march of improvement"; to Cobbett and his followers they were bad, but it still seemed that there was time enough to reverse them. "Events are working together".

Cobbett wrote in 1825, "to make the country worth living in which, for the great body of the people, is at present hardly the case." It was for the sake of discovering the true state of affairs and appealing to others to help promote the proper remedies that Cobbett began to travel round England.

VOLUME 2 - "There is no better way of rediscovering a lost but still not forgotten England than to turn to the colourful pages of William Cobbett's Rural Rides," writes Asa Briggs in the Introduction to this volume.

Already when Cobbett began to write the accounts of his journeys in 1821, the England which he had known as a boy was beginning to look and to feel different. The landscape was changing as a result of the double impact of agricultural enclosure and the growth of towns: society too was changing as a result of the combined influences of industry, finance and war.

To many of Cobbett's contemporaries the changes were good, visible signs of the " march of improvement"; to Cobbett and his followers they were bad, but it still seemed that there was time enough to reverse them. "Events are working together".

Cobbett wrote in 1825, "to make the country worth living in which, for the great body of the people, is at present hardly the case." It was for the sake of discovering the true state of affairs and appealing to others to help promote the proper remedies that Cobbett began to travel round England.

Book Introduction: Besides depending upon the classic authority of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and the topographical and biographical writings of our earlier Wiltshire antiquary, the only and incomparable John Aubrey, I have drawn freely for information upon the Magazine of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, and upon Wiltshire Notes and Queries.

On Salisbury and the Cathedral there are many books; among the more recent writings on special points I may mention those of the Rev C Wordsworth, Mr Maiden and Mr C Haskins.

The Plain has been adopted of late years as a military training ground. But there is less change, however, than might be thought. The landscape is so large and open that the camps scattered here and there from April to September—and even the permanent settlements are soon lost and forgotten in its immensity.

Preface: Whether the following poem will give its author any claim to be considered a child of nature, and to have produced a poem in harmony with truth, beauty and utility, the reader must judge. Both the poet and his poem, therefore, should be children of nature, not of art.

As there are many proofs that Southampton was a place of importance in the earliest times of the Saxons, it must have been a considerable British town before the Romans left this Island, and was perhaps a British town before they attempted its conquest.