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Tudors and Stuarts
The Tudor and Stewart period in Forest history was a time
when iron was being produced locally in large amounts, possibly
one sixth of the production of the Kingdom was coming from
the Forest of Dean.
This early industrial revolution' was not achieved without
social effect, and, as we shall see, one family had a profound
influence on both iron production and local affairs - they
were the Wintour family of Lydney. The Winters had a part
to play in the Civil War, taking the side of the King against
local sentiment which favoured the Parliamentarian cause.
However we will pick up the story at the time of Sir William
Wintour, a favoured admiral of Elizabeth the first. He was
granted the manor of Lydney in 1588 in recognition of his
services against the Spanish armada. It is believed that Sir
William built White Cross Manor in Lydney. The connection
of the Wintour family went back at least one generation as
John Wintour (d. 1546), William's father, also owned a house
in Lydney. The linage continued with William's son Edward,
who also had a naval career, and was knighted in 1595. He
was obviously an important man in his time as he was warden
of the Forest and Constable of St Briavals during the period
1601-1608. He died in 1619. So we come to the main player
in our story - Sir John Wintour - who was born in about 1602.
Before we unfold his deeds we should place into context
the use of the Forest and it's assets at the time of Sir John
Wintour. The Forest had originally been used for Royal hunting
and had no other purpose. Later the timber of the Forest was
used to produce charcoal to fire the iron furnaces and also
to build naval ships. Timber was also sold illegally to coopers
and carpenters, as was oak bark to tanners. There was often
a conflict between those needing the timber for charcoal production
and those requiring timber to build ships for the navy. The
government of the day was not always clear in it's policy,
as leasing the Forest to those who made iron produced a good
income for the Treasury. However on the other hand the policy
of leasing land to unscrupulous iron masters often meant that
the reserves of naval timber were used in iron production.
The activities of the iron masters in denuding the Forest
of trees and of fencing off parts also led to local unrest
as commoners often illegally cleared sections of the Forest
themselves. The commoners were used to having access to common
pasturage and had ancient rights to mine anywhere they chose
within the Forest. None of this sat easily with the rights
associated with grants awarded by the crown.
It was around 1625 that Sir John Wintour became active as
an iron master. During the course of his life he became the
second most important iron master in the realm, at one point
owning six furnaces and eight forges. In six years between
1628 and 1634 he produced more than 11000 tons of iron in
his furnaces. However over zealous clearing over timber led
him to be called to account in July 1634 when he confessed
and was fined £20,230.
This setback did not prevent him being appointed Secretary
to Queen Henrietta Maria in May 1638. Perhaps he was able
to use his position to advantage because in 1640 he signed
an agreement with the Crown whereby he would pay £106,000
over six years, and an annual farm fee of £1951 to secure
the timber and mineral rights to 18000 acres of Royal demesne
(Forest) land. The agreement called for him to supply an amount
of wood to the King's own ironworks and to preserve 15000
tons of ship timber for the Crown. This grant of lease to
Sir John gave him control of most of the ore and iron mines
and timber production in the Forest area. His activities in
enclosing and felling made him very unpopular locally. The
Long Parliament' of the time ordered an inquiry and collected
evidence of misappropriation of ship's timber and other abuses
of his grant. He was deprived of his grant by Parliament in
1642, and the commoners took their chance to demolish the
enclosures he had erected.
The Civil War intervenes in our story at this point. The
lands of the Forest stood between Royalist Chepstow and Parliamentarian
Gloucester. Sir John Wintour was a Royalist and so he made
Whitecross Manor a fortified Royalist stronghold in an area
where most of the inhabitants had Parliamentarian sympathies.
There were no major battles in the area but there were a number
of skirmishes between the opposing forces, with Edward Massey,
the commander at Gloucester, wasting no opportunity to travel
to the Forest to attack Sir John. In one incident in May 1644,
whilst Sir John was away, Mary Wintour (his wife) beat off
an attack on Whitecross Manor.
However Sir John was ultimately unable hold off the Royalist
attackers and in 1645, rather than allow Whitecross fall into
the hands of the Commonwealth, he burnt it down. In May 1645
Sir John left England for France with Queen Henrietta. His
ironworks, which were important for the Royalist cause, were
destroyed by Parliamentary troops.
In 1649 Sir John was imprisoned in the Tower of London,
but by 1652 his position had improved to such an extent that
he was free to buy back his estate from the Parliamentary
Commissioners. The purchase left him in debt and he was forced
to sell off a large part of his estate. He resumed ironmaking
by constructing a new furnace in the grounds of Whitecross
Manor. The restoration of the monarchy, with Charles II in
1660, led an upturn in the fortunes of Sir John. We can catch
a glimpse of the affairs of this remarkable man in the diary
of Samuel Pepys in an extract from 20th June 1662;
"Up by 4 or 5 o'clock and to the office and there draw up
an agreement between the King and Sir John Wintour about the
Forest of Dean: and having done it, he came himself, whom
I observed be a man of fine parts; and we read it, and both
liked it well. That done I turned the Forest of Dean, in Speedes
Maps, and there he showed me how it lies; and the Leabayley
with the great charge of carrying it Lydney, and many other
things worth knowing."
By 1663 Sir John had re-established control over much of
the area and allegedly had as many as 500 woodcutters working
in the Forest. Somewhat inevitably by 1667 his controversial
over activity in timber cutting was again a matter for Parliament.
We know that by 1674 his son William was providing an annuity
for him, so presumably he had retired from business by then.
He was dead by 1687.
The estate remained in the hands of the Wintour family until
1723 when Dame Francis Wintour sold it to Benjamin Bathurst,
son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst of Cirencester. The residual
estate remains in the hands of the Bathurst family to this
day.
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