HISTORY OF DECOYS. 6\ 



Decoys in use. Decoys not in use. 



Boarstall. 



Winchendon. 



Wotton. 



Claydon. 



Boarstall Decoy. 



This Decoy lies a quarter of a mile north of Boarstall, in Bucks, a 

 village of 250 inhabitants, and 8 miles NW. of Thame. 



The Manor of Boarstall was formerly part of the ancient forest of 

 Bernwode (disafforested in 1623), and is said "to have its name of one 

 Nigel, a forester of Bernwode, who, having killed a wild boar in the forest, 

 had given him by the King, as a reward of his courage, a hyde of 

 arable land called Deerhyde, on which he built a mansion, and called it 



' Borestale ' However this may be, it is said that Boarstall was 



given by one of the Williams to Nigel aforesaid, together with the ranger- 

 ship of the forest of Bernwode, by the livery of a horn, which is still 

 preserved as a curious piece of honourable antiquity." (Kennett's Par. 

 Ant. Vol. II. p. 518, Ed. 1815.) The chief object of interest in the 

 village is the ancient Tower which (according to Lipscombe) Sir John de 

 Handlo was licensed to fortify and embattle in the year 1312. 



This Tower, with the adjoining house, was garrisoned in 1644 for the 

 king and was strongly fortified ; it stood several sieges. 



The Manor was then the property of the Dynham family, and Lady 

 Dynham resided there in 1650. It passed to Sir John Aubrey, the second 

 Baronet, y«;'^ uxor, and he died there in i 700. 



The Aubreys lived at Boarstall House until Sir John Aubrey, the 

 sixth Baronet (who died in 1826), pulled it down, leaving the Tower standing, 

 and went to reside at Dorton House, 3 miles distant. 



On the death of Sir Thomas Aubrey, the seventh Baronet, in the 

 year 1856, the estates passed to his niece Elizabeth Sophia, the wife of 

 Charles Spencer Ricketts, Esq., and on her death, in the year 1873, to 

 Charles Aubrey Ricketts, her son, who thereupon assumed the name of 

 Aubrey, and is the present owner of the Boarstall, Dorton, and Brill estates, 

 and proprietor of the Decoy. 



There is no record of the age of the Decoy. 



Kennett says, " There is observable in this Lordship of Borstall a fine 



