Ch. VII. 



NOR THA MP TON SHIRE. 



iSi 



is not however marked as a park in the 

 Survey of 171 2. 



The same Survey, however, recognises 

 the park at Aynhoe, in the south-western 

 angle of the county, which still exists. 

 It contains about 1 70 acres, and a herd 

 of fallow-deer, which formerly numbered 

 200, now reduced to 50. 



The forest of Whittlebury or Whittle- 

 wood and the adjoining, Salcey or Sacy 

 Forest, occupied the southern limits of 

 Northamptonshire. The former, before 

 it was disafforested in 1850, compre- 

 hended 4,111 acres, and there were be- 

 tween 1,700 and 1,800 deer of all sorts. 

 In the year 1792, it is stated, that about 

 138 bucks and loo does were here annu- 

 ally killed. In Salcey Forest there were 

 no deer.' 



In the neighbourhood of these forests 

 there were several parks, of which the 

 following may be mentioned in, and ad- 

 joining Whittlebury : — 



Easton-Neston, near Toucester. — Sir 

 Richard Empson, in the fourteenth of 

 Henry VII. (1499), obtained a license to 

 impark 400 acres of land and 30 acres of 

 wood here, and permission to embattle 

 his manor-house.'* 



At Paulerspury adjoining, the park, now 

 disparked, stretched along the side of 

 Whittlebury Forest, from Wakefield Lawn 

 to Shelbrook Lawn. In the thirty-eighth 

 of Edward III. (1363), it was found by 

 inquisition that it would not be to the 

 damage of the king if he granted license 

 to John Pavely to convert his woods called 

 Ottewood and Farnsted, containing 175 

 acres, into a park ; and in the tenth of 



' 8th Report of Commissioners of Woods 

 and Forests, &c., p. 47i 5 and Select Com- 

 mittee on Woods, &c., 1848-9. . 



2 Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. ii. p. 334- 



Henry IV. (1409), Sir John St. John had 

 license to enlarge his two parks called 

 the Old and the New Park.^ 



Astwell Park, in the parish of Wap- 

 penham, was imparked by Thomas Lo- 

 vett, Esq., in 1564, and disparked pro- 

 bably early in the eighteenth century. 

 (For the history of its formation, see the 

 Second Chapter of this work, p. 35.) 



Potterspury Park. — William de Ferrers, 

 Earl of Derby, had a license in the four- 

 teenth of Henry III. (1230) to enclose his 

 wood of Pyrie, and converted it into a park. 

 In the twenty-ninth of Edward I. (1300), 

 Matilda Countess of Warwick died seized 

 of the manor of Potters Pyrie and an en- 

 closed park, with beasts of chase, under- 

 wood, and herbage. It is recognised as 

 a park so late as the first of Henry VII. 

 (1485).* 



Wykehaiiion or Wicken Park.- — John 

 Fitzallen de Wolverton had license in the 

 eighteenth of Edward I. (1289) to enclose 

 his park of Wyke-hamon, within the forest 

 of Whittlewood. In the fourth of Henry 

 VIII. (1512) John Spencer, Esq., had a 

 confirmation of a free park of 300 acres 

 in Wyke-hamon, with free warren; but his 

 descendant Robert, second Earl of Sun- 

 derland, disparked it about 1 65 1, when 

 Sir Peter Temple, Bart., ancestor of the 

 Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, pur- 

 chased the deer, and enclosed the cele- 

 brated park at Stowe in Buckingham- 

 shire.^ 



Plumpton, Park. — In the second of Ed- 

 ward III. (1328) Richard Damary had 

 license to impark hi^ woods of Ubleigh 

 in Somersetshire, anc( Plumpton Pury in 



' Baker's Northamptcpshire, vol. ii. p. 204. 

 * lb. p. 220. 

 » lb. p. 252. 



