80 SINAI PARK 
Many forests had various parks. A park was an enclosure fenced 
off by pales ora wall. In the forest, forest law prevailed in a park, but 
not in those outside such limits, and under the head of Shobnall 
Park we first meet with a definite description of what in after days 
became known as Sinai Park. 
Of the various notices of Shobnall given in the early charters 
and documents of the Abbey, we may briefly glance at the following :— 
Early in the reign of Henry I, in a deed it is stated that Ulsi 
held one house in Scopenhal for which he paid twelve pence, three 
acres of land and one acre of meadow. In the same reign is recorded 
the great dispute beween Robert de Ferrers and Geoffrey, Abbot of 
Burton, which ended in a grant of permission to have two carts in 
the Forest of Needwood to draw dead wood for firewood for the 
Abbey. 
1247, Matthew de Scobenhal quit claims to Lawrence, Abbot of 
Burton all the land, which he held in Scobenhal by Matilda formerly his 
wife and previously wife of William Gardener of Lichfield, for ever, 
for which the Abbey granted him one mark of silver and every 
month a bushel of rye from the granary of the Abbot. 
Walter son of Ralph de Sobenhal in the time of Henry III quit 
claims to God and the Church and the monks of Burton one messuage 
with appurtenances in Sobenhal, which Ralph Bole held, together 
with the messuage of Nicholas de Oxonia and a small toft near the 
messuage of Herbert Carucarii extending from Holebroc towards the 
Abbot’s Hay, for which grant the Abbot Lawrence paid him one mark 
in silver. He granted them also for the health of his soul and his 
ancestors eight acres of land in a field cailed Broderuding for ever. 
By a similar deed Hawise, daughter of Jordan de Sobenhal, in 
her lawful widowhood quit-claims to God, the Abbey of Burton 
Lawrence the Abbot and the Monks there all that tenement and 
lands which she held in the township of Sobenhal, and the meadow 
and volatu in Littlehay and all other appurtenances, together with all 
that tenement and land which Eva her mother held in dower in the 
town of Sobenhal, save only that she should hold the same of the 
Abbot and Convent for her life by service of fourpence in annual 
rent, 
