estovers

Common of firewood, or estovers, is enjoyed by about eighty commoners.

Previously, estovers consisted of four different elements:

Copyholders had similar rights over the land they occupied and over the waste of the manor, in which case the rights are known as Commons of estovers.

The various kinds of estovers were known as house-bote, cart or plough-bote, hedge or hay-bote, and fire-bote.

Ancient woods were very valuable properties for their owners, as a source of wood fuel, timber (estovers and loppage) and forage for pigs (pannage).

In English law, estovers is wood that a tenant is allowed to take, for life or a period of years, from the land he holds for the repair of his house, the implements of husbandry, hedges and fences, and for firewood.

Men of the king's demesnes, as in Rodley in the Forest of Dean, were required to show by what warrant they exercised their rights of common and estovers of dead and dry wood in the forest, and if they could produce none they were required to pay for them.