PARK TIMBER 



249 



constant grants for their enclosure during the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries, which are found in the State Rolls 

 and Charters of those periods. In Scotland no such process 

 went on, as that country was not under feudal tenure ; and 

 to this fact may be attributed the absence of parks in that 

 part of the country. 



So far as size went, these ancient parks were probably no 

 larger than those of the present day, although the area over 

 which the deer now roam may have been gradually restricted 

 by the fencing in of ordinary grazing ground, and the plant- 

 ing of woods or pleasure grounds. During the Wars of the 

 Roses it is probable that many parks were devastated, and 

 the ground they occupied subsequently put to other uses, as a 

 result of the destruction and decay of the castles round which 

 they had been formed. 



During the reign of Elizabeth there were said to be seven 

 or eight hundred parks in England. But this was a utili- 

 tarian age, and the enormous development of sheep-breeding 

 probably brought the devotion of large areas of good land for 

 the feeding of deer out of fashion. This was the day of the 

 yeomen of England, and the multiplication of manor houses 

 throughout the land, and very few of these manors possessed 

 parks ; nor was there any inclination on the part of their 

 owners to form them. But the parks of the great nobles 

 and prelates still remained, and, although many of the latter 

 passed into private hands at the Reformation, it is not 

 probable that any great decrease in their number took place 

 after that period. During the Civil War a great number of 

 parks were considerably damaged. The deer were killed, the 

 timber cut down, and the park palings burned. This may 

 have resulted in a few being abandoned when peace was 

 restored, and it also did away with the deer of a great many ; 

 but the fact remains that the majority of the parks of the 

 seventeenth century still remain, in addition to a large 

 number of smaller ones which have been formed in modern 

 times. 



Although the term " park " is now applied to any tract 

 of permanent pasture adjoining a mansion house, and outside 

 the limits of an ordinary field, the word is only used here in 

 connection with those stretches of timbered grazing ground 



