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Transcript
· Under Wychwood
0:00 · okay I've just walked up out of a pretty little village in Oxfordshire,
0:04 · West Oxfordshire I want you to have a look at the name of the village have a look at this sign
0:08 · just here Ascot under Wychwood that tells me we should be under or beneath something to do with
0:15 · Wychwood but there's nothing local here whatsoever there's a Wychwood Forest which is about 3 and
0:20 · 1/2 miles in that direction but nothing else this gets worse come and take a look at this
0:32 · so this is uh as a sign reads Shipton under Wychwood we have the same problem we maybe
0:38 · a mile and a half further on from uh Ascot under Wychwood and yet again we're about 4 and
0:43 · 1/2 miles now away from the forest of Wychwood what exactly is going on here one more to show
0:49 · you and finally Milton under Wychwood half a mile in that direction as the sign up
1:00 · there suggest now as you probably predicted around about 5 5 and 1/2 miles away now from
1:05 · Wychwood Forest way over in that direction so what exactly is going on here why are
1:11 · all the settlements along here named under Wychwood when in fact we're absolutely miles
1:17 · away from Wychwood itself welcome to the story of the UK's largest lost forest all
1:24 · we need to do now is go and find Sam who's going to help us unravel today's mystery
· An Abandoned Village.
1:30 · our first clue in fact one that I discovered on another product a year ago is maybe 6 miles south
1:36 · of these Villages happened across an old chapel in an abandoned medieval village near burford in
1:43 · fact the chapel St Oswald's built in the 1200s an early gothic church and it's full of hugely
1:49 · important aspects of History a painting of some Kings from 1340 a Roman Mosaic in the corner was
1:55 · found and now is in cirencester museum this told us the chapel was likely built on top of a Roman
2:01 · villa but back outside of the clue you see in that direction around 6 or 7 miles we now have Wychwood
2:07 · forest and the village here now long since abandoned is often mentioned in conjunction with
2:13 · Woodford and its past the board of Agriculture here describe this part of the forest as a place
2:18 · of pilferers poachers and deer Steelers alike so we have a forest that stretches at least all the
· The Domesday Book
2:26 · way down to here at Woodford that's huge so how how do we find out exactly how big this place
2:32 · was it turns out if we scratch the surface this isn't unique we can almost map the forest from
2:37 · the history of the villages in the area Haley is another great example described as the ancient
2:44 · Wychwood Forest surrounded the village of Haley okay I think I found Sam so uh and a tumulus Sam
2:52 · said meet by the tumulus here we are this is Sam from Sam walks lot hello Sam how are you H I'm
2:58 · good thank you excellent we made it we made it and that looks like a tumuli right it does we're going
3:03 · to come back to that later um in this video if you want to go and see some uh more specifics about
3:09 · this Forest some of the uh not so gruesome but ghostly Tales oh ghost for sure you need to go and
3:14 · subscribe to Sam's Channel I'll put the link in the description below in the meantime on with the
3:19 · history so let's head back to one of the earliest sources we have for Wychwood and
3:27 · its existence which is the Doomsday Book now the Doom day book mentions Wychwood in its own right
3:32 · and the information we can gather from that and gleam from that is absolutely staggering a Royal
3:39 · Forest consisting of 182 square miles 182 square miles something like 13 by 13 miles here in the
3:49 · UK that is huge okay so let's give all of this Landscapes and context you see because before the
· Context
3:57 · Doomsday Book were the Normans before the Saxons before the Romans before the Iron Age tribes this
4:04 · land was populated we have countless long barrows within the forest now and we also have a number of
4:12 · Bronze Age barrows too so on those Bronze Age barrows we've been looking now for maybe half
4:17 · an hour we assume bronze brows T mil States so we assume we're looking for sort of a round um
4:22 · mound of some description now on the map it says it's just there had we not seen it on the map we
4:28 · wouldn't have seen that in a million years um we were looking at some lumps and bumps Sam you
4:32 · saw one where is it through there there yeah um that looks crystal clear so maybe there's
4:37 · more than one here maybe there's quite a few cuz there's Earthworks everywhere but if we spin the
4:41 · camera around that there is the tumuli that the map mentions it's only about 2 or 3 ft high above
4:47 · from where we're standing now doesn't stand out much the landscape here is littered with Bronze
4:52 · Age and neolithic long barrows of various shapes and sizes inside and outside of the now Forest as
4:58 · it stands today and then we have the Romans Villas are scattered here especially on the south side
5:04 · and why well because we have Aman Street sliding horizontally across the county here but let's move
5:09 · forward just a couple of hundred years because we may get a clue of the meaning of the name at this
5:15 · point so we're inside a very early Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Hwicce according to an Anglo-Saxon
· Whats in a Name
5:25 · Charter was found or formed um around about 577 ad within about 50 years of that date became
5:32 · a client Kingdom of Mercia so we're in that territory right now we disappointingly we're
5:37 · walking through the middle of this for we're on a pathway obviously and we've got like a six or
5:42 · 7ft high fence surrounding us on both sides it's it's quite an extreme way to keep people
5:48 · out of a forest a little bit disappointing but um we'll see what else we can find as time goes
5:53 · on well ever the etymology for which well the word Still Remains with us today in many places around
6:07 · here in Witchwood in warwickshire winchfield witchy Hill wycch drioitwych in Wychwood and
6:13 · of course we have here in Wychwood in Oxfordshire fantastic now despite the fact that we seem to be
6:20 · in an incredibly private area today in terms of access to the land but we are still treated with
6:27 · a few gorgeous sites the little all the way there down and perhaps the other side of that
6:32 · Valley too despite the fences we have been uh treated to a few nice views [Music] today so we
· What went wrong
6:45 · have this Forest dating back probably to Saxon times if not certainly Norman so what exactly
6:50 · went wrong how did we go from 182 square miles to perhaps just about five or six square miles
7:00 · so we now know that in 1086 we have a Royal Forest now that didn't always mean forest in
7:05 · the sense of the word of trees it was seen instead is an area outside of the lore so it would have
7:11 · been segregated for hunting Forest so the 1200 saw Wychwood Forest probably its largest sauve
7:19 · of land it ever had and ever will be it was reputed to stretch from Taynton to Woodstock
7:25 · chipping Norton in the north to northmore in the south that is absolutely Monumental and perhaps
7:33 · that even is larger than the 182 square miles that we uh talked about earlier but that was
7:41 · all about to change and by 1300 we start to see its demise seemingly no longer a king's hunting
7:47 · ground it split into three Woodstock cornbury and Whitney you see between then and 1700 the history
7:54 · is not well documented we know that at some point cornbury District of the forest is now in private
8:00 · hand and the Woodstock part was given to the crown by the Duke of Marlborough since that
8:05 · point it has remained in that family that family is known as the bleinham family but what about the
8:12 · rest it's not the first time we've looked into a the history of a place and seen a change in the
· Ships
8:19 · landscape and a change in the law purely owing to ship building that's what happened in 1778
8:26 · the Navy procured 500 trees from this very Forest we have an anglo French war between 1778 and 1783
8:36 · all while Britain was fighting the American war of independence so resources were crucial
8:41 · they need decent quality wood and that was high on the agenda and here at Wychwood we have that
8:47 · wood that was our intention today to show you all sorts of quirky bits and pieces an old well some
8:55 · long barrows you name it throughout the forest but so much of this is fenced off and marked as
9:01 · private which is a real shame cuz there's a lot of history here to show you but such is the way
9:06 · unfortunately sometimes trees were being chopped here back in the 1780s for the Navy But as time
9:13 · went on when cartload and cartload were being produced but it wasn't enough to meet that demand
9:19 · of and from the Navy there's a number of different reasons for this they said that um the quality of
9:27 · the Oaks here wasn't good enough and and of course they blamed a lot of the locals for uh stealing a
9:32 · lot of the wood and trees here for firewood all in all Witchwood supplied just 173 good quality
9:39 · Oaks by 1859 it seemed the failing forest was in for more bad news a further 2,000 acres
9:47 · across was cleared for Farmland housing and new infrastructure by 1867 we have pretty much exactly
9:53 · where we are now around 1,700 Acres remained via enclosures the 82 square mile Forest we saw in the
10:02 · 1200 has now gone to around 5 square miles today so this has been the story of Wychwood one of the
· Weird and Wonderful
10:11 · UK's or if not the UK's largest lost forest and as I said if you want to go for a bit of a deeper
10:17 · dive and some of the weird and wonderful bits and pieces around here check out Sam's Channel we'll
10:22 · put that in the link below in the meantime thanks for watching we'll see you next week [Music]

Transcript
	·	Under Wychwood
0:00	·	okay I've just walked up out of a pretty little village in Oxfordshire,
0:04	·	West Oxfordshire I want you to have a look at the name of the village have a look at this sign
0:08	·	just here Ascot under Wychwood that tells me we should be under or beneath something to do with
0:15	·	Wychwood but there's nothing local here whatsoever there's a Wychwood Forest which is about 3 and
0:20	·	1/2 miles in that direction but nothing else this gets worse come and take a look at this
0:32	·	so this is uh as a sign reads Shipton under Wychwood we have the same problem we maybe
0:38	·	a mile and a half further on from uh Ascot under Wychwood and yet again we're about 4 and
0:43	·	1/2 miles now away from the forest of Wychwood what exactly is going on here one more to show
0:49	·	you and finally Milton under Wychwood half a mile in that direction as the sign up
1:00	·	there suggest now as you probably predicted around about 5 5 and 1/2 miles away now from
1:05	·	Wychwood Forest way over in that direction so what exactly is going on here why are
1:11	·	all the settlements along here named under Wychwood when in fact we're absolutely miles
1:17	·	away from Wychwood itself welcome to the story of the UK's largest lost forest all
1:24	·	we need to do now is go and find Sam who's going to help us unravel today's mystery
	·	An Abandoned Village.
1:30	·	our first clue in fact one that I discovered on another product a year ago is maybe 6 miles south
1:36	·	of these Villages happened across an old chapel in an abandoned medieval village near burford in
1:43	·	fact the chapel St Oswald's built in the 1200s an early gothic church and it's full of hugely
1:49	·	important aspects of History a painting of some Kings from 1340 a Roman Mosaic in the corner was
1:55	·	found and now is in cirencester museum this told us the chapel was likely built on top of a Roman
2:01	·	villa but back outside of the clue you see in that direction around 6 or 7 miles we now have Wychwood
2:07	·	forest and the village here now long since abandoned is often mentioned in conjunction with
2:13	·	Woodford and its past the board of Agriculture here describe this part of the forest as a place
2:18	·	of pilferers poachers and deer Steelers alike so we have a forest that stretches at least all the
	·	The Domesday Book
2:26	·	way down to here at Woodford that's huge so how how do we find out exactly how big this place
2:32	·	was it turns out if we scratch the surface this isn't unique we can almost map the forest from
2:37	·	the history of the villages in the area Haley is another great example described as the ancient
2:44	·	Wychwood Forest surrounded the village of Haley okay I think I found Sam so uh and a tumulus Sam
2:52	·	said meet by the tumulus here we are this is Sam from Sam walks lot hello Sam how are you H I'm
2:58	·	good thank you excellent we made it we made it and that looks like a tumuli right it does we're going
3:03	·	to come back to that later um in this video if you want to go and see some uh more specifics about
3:09	·	this Forest some of the uh not so gruesome but ghostly Tales oh ghost for sure you need to go and
3:14	·	subscribe to Sam's Channel I'll put the link in the description below in the meantime on with the
3:19	·	history so let's head back to one of the earliest sources we have for Wychwood and
3:27	·	its existence which is the Doomsday Book now the Doom day book mentions Wychwood in its own right
3:32	·	and the information we can gather from that and gleam from that is absolutely staggering a Royal
3:39	·	Forest consisting of 182 square miles 182 square miles something like 13 by 13 miles here in the
3:49	·	UK that is huge okay so let's give all of this Landscapes and context you see because before the
	·	Context
3:57	·	Doomsday Book were the Normans before the Saxons before the Romans before the Iron Age tribes this
4:04	·	land was populated we have countless long barrows within the forest now and we also have a number of
4:12	·	Bronze Age barrows too so on those Bronze Age barrows we've been looking now for maybe half
4:17	·	an hour we assume bronze brows T mil States so we assume we're looking for sort of a round um
4:22	·	mound of some description now on the map it says it's just there had we not seen it on the map we
4:28	·	wouldn't have seen that in a million years um we were looking at some lumps and bumps Sam you
4:32	·	saw one where is it through there there yeah um that looks crystal clear so maybe there's
4:37	·	more than one here maybe there's quite a few cuz there's Earthworks everywhere but if we spin the
4:41	·	camera around that there is the tumuli that the map mentions it's only about 2 or 3 ft high above
4:47	·	from where we're standing now doesn't stand out much the landscape here is littered with Bronze
4:52	·	Age and neolithic long barrows of various shapes and sizes inside and outside of the now Forest as
4:58	·	it stands today and then we have the Romans Villas are scattered here especially on the south side
5:04	·	and why well because we have Aman Street sliding horizontally across the county here but let's move
5:09	·	forward just a couple of hundred years because we may get a clue of the meaning of the name at this
5:15	·	point so we're inside a very early Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Hwicce according to an Anglo-Saxon
	·	Whats in a Name
5:25	·	Charter was found or formed um around about 577 ad within about 50 years of that date became
5:32	·	a client Kingdom of Mercia so we're in that territory right now we disappointingly we're
5:37	·	walking through the middle of this for we're on a pathway obviously and we've got like a six or
5:42	·	7ft high fence surrounding us on both sides it's it's quite an extreme way to keep people
5:48	·	out of a forest a little bit disappointing but um we'll see what else we can find as time goes
5:53	·	on well ever the etymology for which well the word Still Remains with us today in many places around
6:07	·	here in Witchwood in warwickshire winchfield witchy Hill wycch drioitwych in Wychwood and
6:13	·	of course we have here in Wychwood in Oxfordshire fantastic now despite the fact that we seem to be
6:20	·	in an incredibly private area today in terms of access to the land but we are still treated with
6:27	·	a few gorgeous sites the little all the way there down and perhaps the other side of that
6:32	·	Valley too despite the fences we have been uh treated to a few nice views [Music] today so we
	·	What went wrong
6:45	·	have this Forest dating back probably to Saxon times if not certainly Norman so what exactly
6:50	·	went wrong how did we go from 182 square miles to perhaps just about five or six square miles
7:00	·	so we now know that in 1086 we have a Royal Forest now that didn't always mean forest in
7:05	·	the sense of the word of trees it was seen instead is an area outside of the lore so it would have
7:11	·	been segregated for hunting Forest so the 1200 saw Wychwood Forest probably its largest sauve
7:19	·	of land it ever had and ever will be it was reputed to stretch from Taynton to Woodstock
7:25	·	chipping Norton in the north to northmore in the south that is absolutely Monumental and perhaps
7:33	·	that even is larger than the 182 square miles that we uh talked about earlier but that was
7:41	·	all about to change and by 1300 we start to see its demise seemingly no longer a king's hunting
7:47	·	ground it split into three Woodstock cornbury and Whitney you see between then and 1700 the history
7:54	·	is not well documented we know that at some point cornbury District of the forest is now in private
8:00	·	hand and the Woodstock part was given to the crown by the Duke of Marlborough since that
8:05	·	point it has remained in that family that family is known as the bleinham family but what about the
8:12	·	rest it's not the first time we've looked into a the history of a place and seen a change in the
	·	Ships
8:19	·	landscape and a change in the law purely owing to ship building that's what happened in 1778
8:26	·	the Navy procured 500 trees from this very Forest we have an anglo French war between 1778 and 1783
8:36	·	all while Britain was fighting the American war of independence so resources were crucial
8:41	·	they need decent quality wood and that was high on the agenda and here at Wychwood we have that
8:47	·	wood that was our intention today to show you all sorts of quirky bits and pieces an old well some
8:55	·	long barrows you name it throughout the forest but so much of this is fenced off and marked as
9:01	·	private which is a real shame cuz there's a lot of history here to show you but such is the way
9:06	·	unfortunately sometimes trees were being chopped here back in the 1780s for the Navy But as time
9:13	·	went on when cartload and cartload were being produced but it wasn't enough to meet that demand
9:19	·	of and from the Navy there's a number of different reasons for this they said that um the quality of
9:27	·	the Oaks here wasn't good enough and and of course they blamed a lot of the locals for uh stealing a
9:32	·	lot of the wood and trees here for firewood all in all Witchwood supplied just 173 good quality
9:39	·	Oaks by 1859 it seemed the failing forest was in for more bad news a further 2,000 acres
9:47	·	across was cleared for Farmland housing and new infrastructure by 1867 we have pretty much exactly
9:53	·	where we are now around 1,700 Acres remained via enclosures the 82 square mile Forest we saw in the
10:02	·	1200 has now gone to around 5 square miles today so this has been the story of Wychwood one of the
	·	Weird and Wonderful
10:11	·	UK's or if not the UK's largest lost forest and as I said if you want to go for a bit of a deeper
10:17	·	dive and some of the weird and wonderful bits and pieces around here check out Sam's Channel we'll
10:22	·	put that in the link below in the meantime thanks for watching we'll see you next week [Music]