THE ESSEX HUNT COUNTRY. 2"] 



considered to be the best in the country. The greater part 

 of this covert was stulibcd up in the time of the Rev. 

 Joseph Arkwright, l^ut good runs were obtained from what 

 was left of it for several years after his death. 



Old Park stood midway between Garnetts and Pleshey, 

 where hounds meet beside ancient earthworks of vast 

 extent, which mark the site of the Casde of the High 

 Constables of England. At Pleshey hunting (probably 

 stag-hunting) was a pastime five centures ago, when the 

 Casde was inhabited by the Duke of Gloucester, son of King 

 Edward the Third. F"roissart tells how the Duke's 

 nephew. King Richard the Second, " in maner as goyng 

 a huntyng rode from Havering of Bour a xx myle from 

 London in Essex, and within xx myle of Plasshey, where 

 the duke of Gloucestre helde his house. After dyner, the 

 Kynge departed from Haveryng with a small company, 

 and came to Plasshey about v a clocke." On arriving at 

 the Castle, the Kinaf invited his uncle to London, but the 

 invitation, like the preparations for hunting, was part of a 

 treacherous plot, which ended in the capture and murder of 

 the Duke. 



In "King Richard the Second" Shakespeare intro- 

 duces the Duke's widow, who sends an invitation to her 

 brother to visit her at " Plashy." This historic estate has 

 been held for more than a century by the Tufnell family. 



