.Ch. VII. 



NOR TEA MP TON SHIRE. 



149 



near Rockingham Lord Rockingham's; 

 and at Deane Lord Cardigan's : the latter 

 at present is a park of 700 acres, with 

 about 400 fallow and a few red-deer. 



A little to the north of Deane is Blather- 

 wick, an existing park of 566 acres, with 

 a herd of 450 fallow-deer; it does not 

 appear to have been enclosed in 17 12. 



South of Gedington is the Park of 

 Boughton, the former seat of the Dukes 

 of Montague, and now of their descendant 

 the Duke of Buccleuch : it contains about 

 300 acres, and 440 fallow-deer. At He- 

 mington, on the borders of Huntingdon- 

 shire, was a more ancient park, noticed 

 by Saxton, and which also belonged to 

 the Montague family. 



At Carlton Hall, the seat of the Palmer 

 family, is an existing park ; and at Ding- 

 ley, near Harborough, was also a deer 

 park very recently existing. ' 



Passing further south, and towards the 

 midland districts of Northamptonshire, a 

 park should be noticed at Cottesbrooke, 

 belonging to Sir John Langham, which is 

 not, however, given in Morton's Survey in 

 1712 : it contains at present 83 acres, and 

 170 fallow-deer. The same survey marks 

 a park however at Lamport, in this neigh- 

 bourhood, the seat of the Isham family. 



About five miles directly south of Lam- 

 port, and two miles north of Northampton, 

 is the interesting park of Moulton, noticed 

 by Leland. ' It is,' writes Baker, ' an 

 «xtra-parochial estate of about 450 acres, 

 walled round ; in early records indifferently 

 called Moulton Park, and Northampton 

 Park, being locally connected with the 

 former and a feudal appendage of the 

 castle of the latter. There is direct evi- 



' Baker's History of Northamptonshire, vol. 

 i. p. 52. 



dence of the existence of this park as early 

 as Heniy II.' Baker gives extracts from 

 many records from the seventh of Henry 

 III. (1222) till 1634, regarding Moulton 

 Park, and the repair of the park wall, by 

 which it appears that the men of certain 

 villages were bound to repair it, and that 

 each village had an allotted portion. An 

 interesting relic of feudalism still remains 

 in the names of the villages of Clipston, 

 Crick, Deene, Draughton, Trafford in 

 Byfield, &c., which are cut in the inside 

 of the wall to point out their respective 

 quotas of murage. When it was disparked 

 is uncertain, but evidently not until after the 

 twenty-third Henry VIII. (1531), in which 

 year Sir John Mordaunt, Surveyor-general 

 of the woods and forests, was required by 

 Royal mandate to write to the officers of 

 our forest of Saucey and of our park of 

 * Moulton,' commanding them to deliver 

 to John Hartwell, Esq., and Richard 

 Wale, Gent., ' such and as many oaks 

 convenable for posts and rayles, with 

 the lops, tops, and bark of the same, as 

 shall be sufficient for enlarging the park 

 at Hartwell and making a new lodge 

 there.' » 



OverstonPark adjoining, originated in a 

 license obtained in the thirty-ninth Henry 

 III. (1254), by Gilbert de Millers to convert 

 his wood at Overton into a park. In 1830 

 it contained nearly 800 acres.' It is not 

 given in Saxton's Survey, and is now dis- 

 parked. 



West of Moulton are the manors of 

 Harleston, Alihorp, and Holdenby. The 

 first is described by Baker as an eminently 

 beautiful park, contairjing about 160 acres, 

 and well stocked with deer.^ 



Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 58. 

 lb. p. 170. 



