56 Notices of Chatton, by Messrs. Procter and Hardy. 



It is not improbable that the wild animals mentioned in the- 

 park at Chatton in 1368, were the same as are still kept in 

 Chillingham Park. The park called " Kelsowe " cannot at 

 present be identified, but it lay somewhere on " Chatton 

 Moor."* It probably consisted of the 200 acres or there- 

 abouts which Edward I., in 1292, detached from the barony 

 of Alnwick and disafforested^. Did he himself pursue the 

 chase therein ? We know from returns, dated from Plump- 

 ton (Northamptonshire), 1296-7, that King Edward enjoyed 

 the sport of hawking, and that Patrick Earl of Dunbar 

 accommodated him with the loan of a falcon, and th© 

 services of Elias Spot, the earl's own falconer, to take charge 

 of it while the king lived there in retirement^. The 

 probability is, that he took his pastime during his various, 

 progresses on the Borders. 



The royal appropriation of this 200 acres appears from an 

 inquiry before the Justices in Eyre, A.D. 1292, into the- 

 manorial rights of the Great Barons; and the return as 

 contained in the " Rotuli Hundredorum," so far as it relates 

 to the power and privileges of the Barony of Alnwick, is, 

 given in Mr. Tate's " History," i., p. 94. It supplies impor- 

 tant information on the power of the demesne lord in 

 Chatton territory, and after quoting it there will be no need, 

 for further references to his prerogatives :— * 



" "William de Vesci was brought forward that he might on. 

 this day, here show, by what warrant he claimed to have the 

 chattels of felons condemned in his own court of Alnewyk, 

 gallows in Alnewyk, market and fair, tumbrell, pillory, toll, 

 correction of the assize of bread and ale broken in Alnewyk, 

 Chatone, and Alnemuthe, free chace in Alnewyk, Alneham, 

 and Chatone, and free warren in all his demesne lands in the 

 vills aforesaid, &c. 



" And William, by his attorney, came and produced a certain 

 charter, made under the name of lord Henry king, father of the 

 present lord king, to a certain William de Vesci, father of William 

 himself, whose heir he is, by which the same lord Henry king 

 grants to the aforesaid William his father, that he and his 



* A park of the de Vescies within the precincts of Alnwick forest, in which 

 domestic cattle were grazed, is written Walsow, Walshow, Walshowe, from 

 1260—1297. Mr. Tate thinks that the termination is hov>, a rounded hill ; 

 but are not this and " Kelsowe," corruptions of Leasow, a pastui e-ground ? — 

 J.H. 



% " Anno 7o Ed. I., Mem'. 79, Joh' es de Vescy — Chatton mora diafforesta,' 5 

 — Hodgson, Vol. v., p. 47., " Eschaet," &c. 



J Stevenson's " Documents," &c, iii., p. 137- 



