The perambulation of 17 June, 1300, was made in the presence of the foresters and verderers and the attorney of the justice of the forests, on the oath of Sir Gervais Clifton, Sir John Leeke, and six other knights and four serjeants. (2) This perambulation is identical in its main features with one taken in the year 1300 in both cases the perambulation, or setting forth of the bounds, began at the king’s ford (Conyngeswath), which was a ford over the stream of Rainworth Water between Edwinstowe and Wellow at the north-east corner of the forest, thus proceeding in both directions. There does not appear to be any surviving record of a perambulation of Sherwood earlier than 1232, but in that year the Clay and Hatfield districts were declared to be outside the forest, and the true bounds were set forth in a definite fashion. (1) In 1215 John, by one of the articles of Magna Charta, was compelled to agree to the disafforesting of all the great tracts put under the forest law during his reign, and in 1217 the child-king, Henry III, was made to issue in return for certain grants, the Charter of the Forest, whereby good men and true were to view forests in every shire, and all that had been added since the coronation of Henry II was to be disafforested. These special instructions were forwarded inter alia, to the verderers and foresters of the forest of Sherwood to the verderers and forester of the enclosures or hays of Sherwood (de haiis de Shirewood) to Maud de Caux, widow, keeper of the forest of Sherwood and of Clay (a title she obtained in that year) and to Phillip Marc, keeper of the hays of Sherwood. Special writs were issued by the crown to the authorities throughout England directing the sale of the timber with a return of the proceeds. In the winter of 1222 a great storm swept England, and many trees were overthrown.
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