76 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. iir. 



same reign the Bishop of London received 

 a hke grant for 300 acres in Wickham, 

 also in Essex.* 



The same year Ralph Till was constituted 

 keeper of the king's park of Haveringe at 

 Boure, for his life.= And again in the 

 thirtieth of Henry VI. John Earl of Ox- 

 ford was appointed keeper of the same 

 park, and of the whole forest of Essex.' 

 The pale of the park of Havering, said to 

 have contained one thousand acres,* was, 

 before the third year of Richard II., kept 

 in repair as far as regarded 467 perches 

 of it (every perch of eighteen feet), by the 

 abbot and convent of Barking, when the 

 service was commuted for an annual pay- 

 ment of five marks.* 



Adjoining to this park was Pirgo, a 

 mansion and park granted by Queen 

 Elizabeth to Sir John Grey, second son 

 of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, and 

 visited by Her Majesty in 1561. 



Guidea or Giddy Hall, a little south 

 of Pirgo, was also visited by Elizabeth 

 in 1568 ; it was begun by Sir Thomas 

 Cooke in the reign of Edward IV., and a 

 license obtained for a park and castle at 

 that period ; it is marked as a park in 

 Norden's Survey. 



At 7%or«ifo», near Brentwood, is a park 

 mentioned in the ancient surveys, and at 

 present containing about 735 acres, and a 

 herd of 100 red and 550 fallow-deer ; it 

 has been long the seat of the Petre family. 



At Weald Hall is also an extensive 

 existing park, of three hundred acres 

 within the pales, which appears to be 

 marked in the ancient surveys ; it con- 

 tains about 200 fallow-deer ; it is a beau- 



' Cal. Patent Rolls, p. 193. 

 ^ lb. p. 194. 

 ' lb. p. 294. 



tiful park, with perhaps some of the most 

 magnificent oak timber in England. 



The park of Wanstead in this same 

 south-western corner of Essex, in the 

 EUzabethan period belonged to Robert 

 Devereux, Earl of Essex, and was very 

 extensive ; here was the celebrated seat of 

 the Tilney family, built in 1715 and de- 

 molished in 1823. In the neighbouring 

 forest of Waltham Sir Henry Wroth ob- 

 tained a warrant from Charles II. in 1666 

 to enclose 1,500 acres of common in the 

 manors of Loughton and Chigwell, ' yet 

 so that the deer may go into the same, 

 altho' no writ of Inquisition has been held 

 thereon." 



^ Gaines^ an ancient disused park in 

 the parish of Heydon Gernon, was en- 

 closed by R. Gernon with the license of 

 Henry III., it was then called ^ Le Leyt.' 

 Near this was the park of ' Wyntrey,' and* 

 to the east ' Writtle,' the latter marked- 

 only in Saxton's Survey. 



Further north is Pleshey ; this was the 

 ancient seat of the Bohuns, Earls of 

 Essex, and afterwards of Thomas of 

 Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. ' In 

 1282 Humphry de Bohun, Earl of 

 Hereford and Essex, obtained leave of 

 Edward I. to enclose 150 acres of 

 demesne land adjoining to his park of 

 Waltham and Haut-Estre, called Le 

 Plessier, to enlarge that park ; which 

 comprehended spme of the land belong- 

 ing to Waltham-bury, and was known by 

 the name of Waltham Great Park in 

 the year 15 16. The two parkes called 

 Plecy parkes, alias le Great Parks, and le 

 little Park de Plecy, were granted to Sir 



' Beauties of England and Wales, Essex, 



P- 475- 

 * Rolls of Par. vol. vi. p. 335. 

 « S. P. O. Domestic, 1666, p. '539. 



