Ch. VII. 



WARWICKSHIRE. 



IS5 



2nd Elizabeth, 'between S' Richard Ver- 

 ney and Thomas Fisher, of Warwick, 

 Esq',' being a lease of the park of Wedge- 

 nock, excepting ' the going within the said 

 park of haulf a dozen or not exceeding 

 haulf a score of geldings or nagges of 

 S' Richard Verney, or such of his friends 

 as may come with him at all tymes of his 

 coming gestwyse to the said park, and 

 during their abode there guestwyse, so 

 that it exceed not four dayes and four 

 nights at any one time.' 



Agreement of the 4th of January, 2nd 

 Elizabeth, between Sir Richard Verney 

 and Thomas Fisher, Esq., whereby Fisher 

 engaged ' to build a house in the park of 

 Wedgenock, of three bayes, near unto the 

 forde leading out of the new railes into 

 the old park, and in the same to make 

 one loft or lodging for a keeper to lye as 

 occasion may serve for the better preser- 

 vation of game.' Tithes of pannage and 

 venison from Wedgenock Park were 

 granted by Margery, Countess of War- 

 wick in Henry III.'s time, to the Hos- 

 pital of St. Michael at Warwick, and in 

 after times a buck and doe were given 

 annually to the vicars of Kenilworth, 

 Budbrook, and Hatton, in lieu of tithes, 

 now commuted into money. A fat buck, 

 however, is still given to the wardsmen of 

 Thomas Oken's Charity at Warwick. 



The Park of Haseley is not mentioned 

 by Dugdale, and although marked in 

 Speed's map, was probably di sparked be- 

 fore the end of the sixteenth century, when 

 it had ceased to belong to the earldom of 

 Warwick. Grove, on the contrary, in the 

 parish of Budbroke, is still stocked with 



' One half to Mr. Geast for 36J. a head, 

 the other half to Lord Anson for 38J. a head. 

 MS. note of the late H. E. Lander, Esq. 



deer, although in October, 1822, part of 

 the deer were sold," some few escaped, 

 and there is now a herd of about 80 

 fallow-deer. This place, long the seat of 

 the Dormers, was an ancient park of the 

 Beauchamps Earls of Warwick, the lodge 

 here having been built by Thomas Earl of 

 Warwick, in the seventeenth of Richard 11.^ 



Besides their parks at Wedgenock, 

 Haseley, and Grove, the Earls of Warwick 

 had a park or chase at Sutton and at 

 Studley, in the northern and western parts 

 of this county. 



Sutton Park, or Chase, is of consider- 

 able size, and was called before the reign 

 of Henry I. a forest. The Domesday 

 Survey makes the woods here to extend 

 to two miles in length and one in width. 

 Henry I. granted it to Roger Earl of 

 Warwick, and it long remained attached 

 to the earldom of Warwick. The park, 

 which the Lord Basset of Drayton erected 

 at Drayton-Basset, about the beginning of 

 King John's time, was within the limits of 

 this chase, and hence the agreement en- 

 tered into between Waleran, Earl of War- 

 wick, and the Lord Basset in the third of 

 John, the earl recognising the park on the 

 annual receipt of two good bucks, and a 

 provision that the fence pf the park should 

 be kept up, and preserved ' sine buke- 

 stall," without a buck-stal, that is, as 

 Cowel defines it, 'a deer hay, toil, or 

 great net, to catch deer with, which by 

 the statute of the igth of Henry VII. is 

 not to be kept by any^ man that hath not 

 a park of his own, under pain of 40/.' 

 Many other remarkable grants and li- 

 h this chase may 



censes connected wi 



Dugdale's Warwick: 

 lb. p. 909. 



hire, vol. ii. p. 660. 



