^o 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. III. 



romance of Amadis de Gaul ; and joining 

 to it a plain where knights and other 

 gentlemen use to meet at set times and 

 holidays to exercise on horseback.' This 

 tower was built by Humphry Duke of 

 Gloucester, and repaired by Henry VIII. 

 in 1526. ' It became at one time the 

 habitation of some of the younger branches 

 of the Royal Family ; sometimes the resi- 

 dence of a favourite mistress ; sometimes 

 a prison, and sometimes a place of de- 

 fence.'^ The Observatory now occupies 

 the site. Kilburne, in his Survey, informs 

 us that ' King James' [the First] 'walled 

 the park with brick.'* 



The kings of England had a palace at 

 Elthant-aX a verj- early period. The Great 

 Park at Eltham contained 596 acres, 

 according to the survey taken in 1649. 

 Patrick Maule, Esq., Groom of the Bed- 

 chamber, was then Ranger and Master of 

 the Game. The Little, or Middle, Park 

 contained 333 acres ; Home, alias Lee, 

 Park, in Eltham and Lee, 336 acres. The 

 deer in all these parks had been destroyed 

 by the soldiery and common people. In 

 the three parks, 3,700 trees had been 

 marked for the navy. A book, called 

 ' The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause,' 

 published in 1660, says, 'Sir Thomas 

 Walsingham had the Honour of Eltham 

 given him, which was the Earl of Dor- 

 set's, and the Middle Park, which was Mr. 

 White's ; he has cut down 5000/. worth of 

 timber, and hath scarcely left a tree to 

 make a gibbet.' Sir Theodore Mayerne, 

 physician to the king, had been for many 

 years chief ranger and master of the game 



' Lyson's Environs, vol. i. p. 519. 



' Kilbume's Survey of Kent, p. 115. 



' Lyson's Environs, vol. i. p. 479. 



* Lambard's Perambulation of Kent, p. 375. 



' The keeper of the Great Park at Otford 



of Home Park, and resided in the lodge 

 (now a farmhouse). During the reign of 

 Charles I., before 1649, he had removed 

 to Chelsea, and left an undertenant in the 

 lodge, as is stated in the Survey.' 



Of episcopal parks in Kent there were 

 Otford and Aldington. At Otford there 

 were two parks adjoining to the palace, 

 ' whiche of long time belonged to the 

 Archbishops of Canterbury,' and of this 

 place Lambard narrates, that as ' Thomas 

 a Becket walked on a time in the Olde 

 Parke ("busie at his prayers), that he was 

 muche hindered in devotion by the sweete 

 note and melodie of a nightingale that 

 sang in a bushe beside him, and that 

 therefore (in the might of his holynesse) 

 he injoyned, that from thenceforth no 

 byrde of that kynde shoulde be so bolde as 

 to sing thereaboutes.'* Otford was ex- 

 changed with Henry VIII. byArchbishc^ 

 Cranmer.* 



Aldington Park is mentioned by Leland 

 in his ' Itinerary,' ' where Archbishop 

 Moreton builded.' ° It was also alienated 

 from the Church by Archbishop Cranmer 

 in the thirty-first of Henry VIII. 



^9^. Augustine's, adjoining to Canter- 

 bury, appears to have been appendant to 

 the celebrated abbey there, which after 

 the Dissolution came to the Crown : the 

 park was existing in 1576. 



Of the deer parks noticed by Lambard 

 as existing in 1576, three only remain at 

 the present time — Knole, Cobham, and 

 Lullingstone. Knole, at one time a palace 

 of the Archbishops of Canterbury, after- 

 wards exchanged by Cranmer with the 



had a yearly fee of 61. y. /^d. , and the keeper 

 of the Little Park had a yearly fee of 6/. is. Bit. 

 —Cotton MS. Titus B. vol. iv. fol. 236. 

 " Leland's Itin. vol. vii. p. 138, 139. 



