144 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VII. 



noticed by Leland in his ' Itinerary; ' ' 

 ' riding a little farther I left the Parke of 

 Bewmaner, closid with a stone walle, 

 and a pratie logye yn it, longging a late 

 to Beaumont.' It was disparked before 

 1622.' 



Qftorndon, supposed to be the same as 

 Barrow Park, which belonged to the Earls 

 of Chester, and which existed as early as 

 the reign of Henry I.' 



Swithland is not found marked as a 

 park in Saxton's or Speed's Surveys. It 

 is near Bradgate. 



Bradgate Park was imparked before 

 the year 1247, as appears by the very 

 curious agreement between Roger de 

 Quincy, Earl of Winchester, and Roger 

 de Somery, Baron of Dudley, about their 

 mutual hunting in Chamwood Forest and 

 Bradgate Park, dated in that year, and 

 which I have given at length in a former 

 part of this work. In its present state, 

 this celebrated and historical park is 

 about seven miles in circumference, and 

 formed into several divisions by means of 

 stone walls, the materials for which are 

 found on the spot ; it is mostly covered 

 with the common fern or brakes, and 

 the projecting bare and abrupt rocks 

 rising out here and there, with a few 

 scattered gnarled and shivered oaks, in 

 their last stage of decay, present a scene 

 of wildness and desolation, highly con- 

 trasted with some of the beautiful adjoin- 

 ing valleys and fertile country. There 

 were about 500 deer, chiefly fallow, some 



' Itin. vol. i. p. 20. 



^ In the Compotus of John Kyrkeby, bailiff 

 of Elizabeth Lady Beaumont for Beaumanor, 

 3 & 4 Hen. VI. is this item : — ' in vad' Rob'ti 

 Chalous cementar' custod' mur' lapid' parci et 

 laund' ib'm viijj. ; ' which I understand to 

 imply that this mason had a yearly fee of 8j. 

 for keeping the stone wall of the park in | 



years ago ; the venison is esteemed some 

 of the finest in the kingdom, aiising from 

 the peculiar wild verdure of the park, but 

 numbers- perish every winter from the 

 severity of the cold and little shelter that 

 it affords them.* ' At Bradegate there is a 

 fair parke,' says Leland, ' a vi' miles com- 

 pace, and a lodge lately buildid there 

 ■ by the Lord Thomas Grey, Marquise of 

 Dorset, father to Henry that is now Mar- 

 quise.' ^ 



There appears to have been another old 

 park in this district, called Acle, or Ack- 

 ley or Okeley Park, in the parish of Sheep- 

 sted. It was of considerable extent, and 

 was given by one of the Earls of Leicester 

 to the Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis. 

 Among other privileges the abbot and 

 convent had the right shoulder of every 

 wild beast {cujuslibet feree) taken in the 

 park of Acle.' « 



At Ashby de la Zouche were two parks, 

 belonging, in Burton's days, to the Earl 

 of Huntingdon. ' One of which parkes, 

 called the Old Park, was belonging to Ihe 

 Baron Zouch of Ashby, the other im- 

 parked by William Lord Hastings, by 

 license of K. Edward IV. (14th E. IV.).' 

 The smaller of these is marked in Saxton's 

 map as ' Prestop Park.' 



Donington Park, the seat of the Mar- 

 quis of Hastings, is also noticed by Bur- 

 ton as a park belonging to the Earl of 

 Huntingdon. Leland observes, ' Dunning- 

 ton Castelle is in the border of the Forest 

 of Charley towards DarbyShire, and hath 



repair. At the view of Frankpledge, 22 Ed- 

 ward IV. Ralph Shirley was steward of Beau- 

 manor ; Radulpho Shirley, senescallo. 



' Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. p. 120. 



' See Bloxam's Description of Bradgate 

 Park, i2mo. Leicester, note 3. 



' Itin. vol. i. p. 19. 



° Potter's Chamwood Forest, p. 174. 



