DEER-LEAPS 65 



parishes of Amestrey, Lingen, and Wigmore, in 

 Herefordshire, which was common land until some 

 time early in the last century. 



Fosbroke in his "Abstract of the MS. Lives of 

 the Barons of Berkeley, by John Smith, Esq., M.P. 

 for Midhurst," temp. Jac. I. (p. 'j']), explains "deer- 

 leaps" to be "private parks adjoining forests, 

 allowed by royal license to have places where the 

 deer might enter by leaping and be retained." 



More accurately speaking, of course it was not 

 the park "allowed to have such a place," but the 

 place itself, which in its formation varied in different 

 localities according to the nature of the ground and 

 the general surroundings. Sometimes it was 

 merely a low place in the park paling over which 

 the deer could easily jump, but having on the park 

 side a ditch with a long slope towards the park, 

 rendering return difficult. The " deer-leap " at 

 Wolseley Park, bordering on Cannock Chase in 

 Staffordshire, is of this description. An engraving 

 of it is given in Shirley's English Deer Parks, 

 1867 (p. 191). 



In other cases where no paling existed a deep 

 fosse was dug along the boundary line, and a per- 

 pendicular wall (some seven or eight feet perhaps 

 in height) was built from the bottom of the fosse to 

 the level of the ground on the forest side ; while on 

 the park side the ground was gradually sloped 

 away from the bottom of the wall towards the park, 

 the result being that a deer could leap down from 

 the forest into the park, but could not so easily get 

 back again. Of this description was the " deer- 



