8o 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. iir. 



western corner of this county, near the 

 town of Watford, is described as between 

 three and four miles in circumference, 

 affording some rich scenery and noble 

 timber.' Adjoining Cashiobury is 'the 

 Grove Park,' and a little to the north of 

 Watford is Kings Langley, where was a 

 royal seat founded by King Henry III. 

 The Home Park here was granted by 

 Edward IV. to the Prior of Langley. After 

 the dissolution it reverted to the Crown, and 

 in 1626 'Kings Langley Park, and all the 

 deer, marsh, grass, wood, and all trees 

 whatsoever,' were leased to Sir Charles 

 Morrison for 99 years, and soon afterwards 

 passed entirely from the Crown.^ 



At Berkhamstedvizs also an ancient royal 

 park attached to the castle there, which is 

 mentioned as early as the twenty-first of 

 Edward I. ;' this, like Langley, has been 

 for many ages disparked. 



Penley Park, near Berkhamsted, was 

 enclosed by the license of King Henry VI. 

 in the eighteenth year of his reign.* It 

 appears to have been disparked before 

 Chauncey's time. 



In the more northern part of the county, 

 near Benington, was Walkerne Park, no- 

 ticed in Saxton's Survey, and a little to 

 the south of it Knebworth, not marked in 

 the older maps, but which Chauncey de- 

 scribes as ' a large pile of brick with a 

 fair quadrangle in the middle of" it, upon 

 a dry hill in a fair park, stocked with the 

 best deer in the county, excellent timber, 

 and well wooded, and from whence you 

 may behold a most lovely prospect to the 

 east.' 



In the eastern border of the county 



Beauties of England and Wales. 

 Chauncey, p. 543. 

 lb. p. 575. 

 lb. p. 394. 



Saxton marks a cluster of parks near 

 Hunsdon. Honesdon or Hunsdon Park 

 is recognised as a park in the year 1124, 

 twenty-fourth Henry I., when Richard 

 Earl of Hertford granted to the monks of 

 Saint Augustine of Stoke an annual gift 

 of a doe out of his park here.^ Henry VIII. 

 built a palace at Hunsdon and erected it 

 into an ' Honour,' in connection with the 

 adjoining manors of Hansted and Joyden, 

 the last in Essex. In the church here is 

 a curious brass to the memory of a keeper 

 of the park here. He is represented with 

 his bugle-horn and broadsword levelling a 

 cross-bow at a stag, while Death, deline- 

 ated as a skeleton, is pointing a dart at his 

 breast.^ 



In the parish of Stansted-Abbot, a little 

 south of Hunsdon, is Hhe Manor of the Rye^ 

 where King Henry VI. granted a license 

 to Andrew Ogard and others to impar^ 

 50 acres of land, 11 acres of meadow, 

 8 acres of pasture, and 16 acres of 

 wood.' This park is marked both in 

 Saxton's and in Speed's maps, but has 

 been very long disparked. 



Saxton also marks a park near Sa- 

 bridgeworth. A grant to impark there, and 

 in Thorhy, was granted by Henry VI. to 

 John Leventhorpe, in the twenty-seventh 

 year of his reign. The park was licensed 

 to enclose 400 acres of land, 40 of meadow, 

 and 40 of wood.' 



Ancient parks appear also in Saxton's 

 Survey at Hondon, Hodham-parva, and 

 at Furneaux-Pelham. The latter place 

 in the time of Elizabeth belonged to Lord 

 Mount-Eagle, who sold the manor and 

 the two disparked parks, called the Old 



Chauncey, p. 196. 



See before, p. 54, where it is engraved. 



Chauncey, p. 195. 



lb. p. 181. 



