14 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 



of ' The Castle ' or ' The Hall,' and which may mark the site 

 of the hunting lodge and kennels of the hereditary Masters. 

 Still do the Pytchley awake the same woodland echoes as 

 were roused by many a princely Plantagenet, and still hounds 

 meet on the border of Farming Woods near an ancient stone 

 three feet high and now fast sinking into the earth, named 

 the ' Bocase Stone,' marking the site of a yet more ancient 

 tree, and bearing still the inscriptions, ' In this place grew 

 Bocase tree,' and, lower down, ' Here stood Bocase tree.' 

 No local tradition of the meaning of this inscription survives, 

 and so quaint and unlikely have been the derivations sug- 

 gested that leave may be taken to hold that here stood the 

 ' Brocas Tree,' and that here, where the old forest tracks, 

 still traceable, met near the ancient kennels, the hereditary 

 Brocas Masters, surrounded by their huntsmen, their 

 ' veutrers,' ' berners,' and hounds, and clad in the livery 

 specially provided from the King's wardrobe, were wont, in 

 successive generations, to await the royal hunting train 

 emerging from Kockingham Castle. 



While there is clear proof from public records and 

 documents of the Brocas family of the chief importance of 

 Eockingham in the early organisation of the Buckhounds, 

 it is strange that no direct evidence of the application of 

 this hunting estabhshment to the New Forest or other royal 

 demesnes has yet been discovered. 



The tenure of the manor and ofdce by the early Lovels 

 and de Borhuntes is so similar in most respects to that of 

 later times, and so interesting from its antiquity, that refer- 

 ence may here be made to an entry dated August 15, 1316, 

 wherein the escheator reported that Lovel had held one 

 messuage and one carucate of land in Weldon Parva of the 

 King in capite by service of keeping and feeding at his own 

 charges fifteen ' canes currentes ' of the King's for the forty 

 days of Lent in each year, and to a later document wherein it 



