152 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VII. 



Northamptonshire. The name is retained 

 in a small public-house, called ' Plumb 

 Parker Corner^ and between 80 and 90 

 acres adjoining, the property of Sir C. 

 Mordaunt, Bart., still retain the name of 

 The Park> 



Stoke Park contains about 400 acres. 

 In the fifty-fourth of Henry III. (1270) 

 Pagan de Chaworth had license to enclose 

 his wood of Stoke in Northamptonshire. 

 In the first of Charles I. (1629) the king 

 granted to Sir Francis Crane, Knight, the 

 park of Stoke Brewerne, with all lands 

 known by the name of the park, and all 

 deer, and free warren.^ 



Hanley Park, or Hanley Free Hay, as 

 it was usually called whilst within the 

 precincts of Whittlebury Forest ; it was, 

 in fact, part of the forest, and was included 

 in it in the perambulation of Whittlewood 

 Forest, in the twenty-seventh of Edward I. 

 (1299).' 



But the most important of all the parks 

 in this forest district, was the Royal Park 

 of Grafton, an ancient appendage to the 

 Manor-Jiouse or Palace of Grafton-Regis, 

 containing about 995 acres, one-third 

 in Grafton parish, another in Potters- 

 pury and Yardley-Gobion, and the re- 

 mainder in Alderton and Paulerspury 

 parishes. It was subdivided into two 

 parks, commonly called Grafton Park 

 and Pury Park. There were two lodges 

 for keepers. The two parks occupied the 

 entire intervening space between Grafton 

 and Watling-Street, or Chester Road, 

 and communicated with Whittlebury 

 Forest near the Gullet. It was stocked 

 with deer, and intersected by rectilinear 



' Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. ii n an 

 2 lb. p. 241. ^ ^' 



' lb. p. 340. 



avenues of noble oaks. These have long 

 since been sacrificed to agricultural im- 

 provements, and the whole converted into 

 farms,- but an old inhabitant of Grafton 

 remembered (writes Baker) portions of 

 the park paling reaching almost to the 

 village. 



Grafton was erected into 'an Honor' 

 by Act of Parliament, in the thirty-third 

 of Henry VIII. (1541). In the sixteenth 

 of Charles I. (1640-1) the king granted to 

 Thomas Marsham, of London, Esq., and 

 Ferdinand Marsham, Gent., the office of 

 custos of the parks ' called Grafton Parke 

 and Potters-pury Parke,' part of the honor 

 of Grafton for life, with a stipend of 2d. 

 per diem for each park, with the herbage 

 and pannage of the parks, and the brows- 

 ing wood, windfall wood, and dead wood, 

 and the reversion of the offices to Ed- 

 ward Earl of Dorset, Chamberlain of 

 Queen Henrietta, for life. Three years 

 after, the king, subject to the above grant, 

 in consideration of 7,000/. conveyed ' all 

 that park or parks called Grafton Park, 

 with liberty to dispark the same, to Sir 

 George Strode, of Westerham in Kent, 

 and Arthur Duck, of Chiswick in Middle- 

 sex, in fee.' * 



Midway between the forests of Whittle- 

 bury and Salcey was the park of Hart- 

 well, containing 320 acres, with the lodges 

 and houses, ' disparked for ever as well 

 from vert and hunting as from all other 

 things to a park incident or belonging,' 

 granted for 2,100/. to Endymion Porter, 

 Esq., in. the fifth of Charles I. (i629-3o).5 



At Gayton, on the confines of Salcey 

 Forest, was an ancient park which Ingel- 



- ' Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. ii. p. 114 

 &c. ■ ^' 



" lb. p. 184. 



