128 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VI. 



conveyance of Sir John Chastillon in 1414, 

 mentioning the woods in the parishes of 

 Stow and Westbury,-with the parks called 

 Royes or Royesia!s Park, and Makelines 

 or Malcolm's Park, &c.* 



Stowe,saidto contain nearly 1,500 acres, 

 was disparked after the celebrated sale 

 at this place in 1848, but of late years, 

 under the careful management of the pre- 

 sent Duke of Buckingham, it has been re- 

 stocked, deer being brought from Langley 

 Park and Blenheim. 



At Lmborough, two miles south of 

 Buckingham, was an old seat of the In- 

 golsby family. Sir Richard Ingolsby, 

 about 1617, enclosed this lordship, and 

 made a park, which his grandson dis- 

 parked about 1673.' 



Adjoining to the hundreds of Ashendon 

 and Buckingham is that of Cotteslow, in 

 the north of which is Whaddon Chase. 

 There were in old times two parks here, 

 granted by the Crown, with the Chase, to 

 the custody of various persons. In the 

 reign of James I. they were in the posses- 

 sion of George Villiers, Duke of Buck- 

 ingham, and afterwards came to the 

 family of Mr. Selby-Lowndes, the present 

 proprietor. This Chase was supposed 

 sufficient to feed one thousand head of 

 deer. The Giffards were its hereditary 

 keepers under the De Burghs, Earls of 

 Ulster, in the time of the three first Ed- 

 wards.' In the centre of this same hun- 

 dred of Cotteslow is Wing, once the seat 

 of the Dormers, Earls of Carnarvon. 

 Here was a park _ noticed in Saxton's 

 Survey, which appears to have been dis- 



> Willis, p. 296. 



' lb. pp. 35-36. 



' Lipscomb's Bucks, vol. iii. p. 498. 



* lb. vol. iii. p. 525. 



' Itin. vol. iv. p. 127, fol. i(ji b. 



parked and the timber cut down by Sir 

 William Stanhope about the year 

 1727.* 



At Purstone or Birdstane, a little south 

 of -Wing, was a park alsa noticed by 

 Saxton, and which in the reign of Eliza- 

 beth belonged to Sir Henry Lee, K.G. 

 It has been long disparked. The follow- 

 ing mention of it is from Leland's ' Itine- 

 rary ' : — ' Birdsteine, in the Vale of Ayles- 

 bury, where Mr. Leigh hath a goodly 

 house with orchards and a parke. This 

 Birdsteine is almost in the middle of the 

 Vale of Aylesbury.' ■■ 



The large park of Ashridge occupies 

 the south-eastern extremity of this hun- 

 dred ; it is about five miles in circum- 

 ference, and has been celebrated for its 

 great variety of ground, and fine planta- 

 tions of oak, beech, and ash : it was 

 anciently in two divisions, one of them 

 stocked with fallow and the other with 

 red-deer.' 



In Newport Hundred, occupying the 

 most northern part of the county, bor- 

 dering on Northamptonshire and Bed- 

 fordshire, there was an ancient park, near 

 Olney and Lavendon, on the borders of 

 Bedfordshire : it is given by Saxton, and 

 is thus alluded in Leland's ' Itinerary ' : — 

 ' Castel Parke, a mile from Laundon 

 Abbey, and Laundon, is withyn a myle 

 of Olney ; this parke longgid to the 

 Souches , but now lately sold to the Lord 

 Mordant." ' This might have been iden- 

 tical with that which was imparked by 

 Ralph Basset, of Drayton, in the forty- 

 eighth year of Edward III., as appears 



" Lipscomb's Bucks, vol. iii. p. 447. 



' Itin. vol. vii. p. 2, fol. 3. In the third of 

 Elizabeth it belonged to the Crown, and was 

 let to J. Marsha for 21 years. Cotton MSS., 

 Titus, B. iv. fo. 297. 



