PARKING OF WILD CATTLE. 79 



Chartley Park in Staffordshire, one of the parks which 

 Sir Simon Degge tells us was cut out of Needwood Forest, 

 which Leland nearly 350 years since calls a "mightye 

 large Park," and which is described by Erdeswick, himself 

 a Staffordshire man, at the close of that century, as con- 

 taining besides deer, " wild beasts and swine." The " wild 

 beasts " it still contains, and the tradition is, that both 

 they and the swine, as well as the deer, were driven in 

 from the royal forest of Needwood when the park was 

 enclosed about the year 1248, by charter of Henry III., 

 a tradition strongly corroborated by the circumstance 

 that the wild boar at least could have scarcely come 

 from anywhere else. We cannot expect to find in every 

 case such evidence as this; but the Park of Lyme Hall, 

 in Cheshire, some thirty-five miles to the north, which 

 yet retains the wild bull, and has done so for ages, still 

 belongs to the family of Legh, to which it was 

 granted by Richard II., being cut out of the Forest of 

 Macclesfield, from which its " wild beasts " are said to be 

 derived. It was imparked towards the close of the 

 fourteenth century, being given as a reward for the 

 services of Sir Piers Legh, who was standard-bearer to 

 the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy. Intermediate 

 between Chartley and Lyme Hall still exists a very 

 ancient breed of white cattle of unknown antiquity, 

 and, though polled, much resembling those at Chartley, 

 and which, though now domesticated, I feel convinced 

 were in olden times wild. They are at Sir Charles 

 Shakerley's, Somerford Park, near Congleton, a place in 

 the heart of what was once Maxwell Forest, mentioned 

 by Leland. * On the opposite and eastern side of this 

 vast range of hills and forests lies Wollaton, near 



* " Itinerary," vol. v., p. 87, Hearne's 2nd edition. 



