Ch. VI. 



OXFORDSHIRE. 



137 



It occurs in all the ancient maps, and has 

 long been the seat of the Wenman and 

 Wickham famihes. 



South of Thame, and on the very verge 

 of the county of Buckingham, is Stonor. 

 Here is a • fayre Parke,' noticed by Le- 

 land, although not appearing in Saxton's 

 Surveys. ' This Park is nearly three miles 

 in circumference, and contains a con- 

 siderable portion of beech woodland, the 

 mast produced by which, and the thyme 

 and other fragrant herbs with which the 

 pasture abounds, are said to contribute 

 much to the flavour of the venison and to 

 have been the cause of its celebrity.' ' 

 Another park, then belonging to the Stonor 

 family, is marked by Plot in the adjoining 

 parish of Watlington. 



The Royal Manor and Honor of Eisi- 

 elme, which once belonged to the De la 

 Poles Dukes of Suffolk, a little to the 

 south of Watlington, formerly boasted a 

 ' right fair parke,' ' of which the fol- 

 lowing notices have been preserved : — 

 On the 9th of May, 1536, King Henry 

 VIII. appointed Edward Ashfield to the 

 office of keeper of the Manor of Ew- 

 elme, with the garden there, as also 

 keeper of the Park of Ewelme and 

 master of the wild beasts there, with the 

 herbage and pannage of the said park, 

 and the browse and windfalls there, &c. ; 

 and again, in 155 1-2, King Edward VI. 

 conveyed the Manor and Park of Ewelme 

 to his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, for 

 her life. In a survey of this manor, taken 

 in 1609, it is stated that Lord William 

 Knollys was then keeper of the park, and 

 master of the wild beasts in the same, in 

 which park there was a house or lodge in 



' Neale's Views of Seats, 1818, vol. iii. 



' Leland's Itin. vol. ii. p. 34, fol. 7. 



' Historical Notices of Swyncomb and 



good repair, and that the same park con- 

 tained in circuit 3,000 paces. On the 21st 

 of March, 1627, King Charles I., by Let- 

 ters Patent, conveyed to Sir Christopher 

 Nevil, K.B., and Sir Edmund Sawyer, 

 their heirs and assigns for ever, in con- 

 sideration of the sum of 4,300/., all that 

 park called Ewelme Park, containing 895 

 acres, which was part of the manor of 

 Ewelme ; also six acres, four of which 

 were in a place called Haseley, and two in 

 a place called Ellesmere, the keeper of the 

 park having heretofore been accustomed 

 to save the hay thereof for the deer and 

 wild beasts in the said park, to be held 

 subject to a rent of 60/. per annum.^ 

 Ewelme Park was probably disparked at 

 this period : it does not appear in Plot's 

 Survey of the year 1676, although marked 

 in the older maps, together with a smaller 

 park in the adjoining village of Bensing- 

 ion, or Benson. 



In the neighbourhood of Henley are 

 two existing parks, Greys- Court and 

 Crowsley : the former is an ancient park, 

 noticed by Leland, in the Elizabethan 

 period, the seat of the House of Knollys : 

 at present it is reduced to thirty acres, 

 with 90 head of fallow-deer. Formerly, 

 as appears by the ancient surveys, it 

 must have been of much larger extent. 

 Crowsley Park is thought to have been 

 enclosed in the time of James II., when 

 the present mansion was built. It has an 

 area of about 200 acres, with a herd of 

 190 fallow-deer. 



Both Saxton and Speed concur in 

 marking a park at Maple-Durham, the 

 ancient seat of the Blounts ; and it would 

 appear by the map in Plot's ' Oxfordshire ' 



Ewelme, by the Hon. and Rev. Alfred Na- 

 pier, 4to. Oxford, 1858, pp. 204, 207, 212, 

 217. 



