156 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VII. 



be seen in Dugdale's ' History of War- 

 wickshire.' 



Studley was also a park of the Earl of 

 Warwick in the twenty-fourth year of Ed- 

 ward I., as appears by a commission is- 

 sued out to certain persons to enquire who 

 those were that had entered therein and 

 killed his deer. In more ancient times 

 the park here had belonged to the Mont- 

 forts.' 



But by far the largest and most re- 

 markable of the parks of this county were 

 those which in the time of Queen Eliza- 

 beth belonged to the Earl of Leicester and 

 his magnificent castle of Kenilworth, of 

 which D.ugdale writes that ' he has heard 

 some who were the servants of the great 

 Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester say, 

 that the charge he bestowed on this castle, 

 with the parks and chase thereto belong- 

 ing, was no less than sixty thousand 

 pounds.' It appears by the survey taken 

 of Kenilworth in the reign of James I. 

 that ' there lyeth about the same castle in 

 chases and parks 1200/. per an., 900/. 

 whereof are grounds for pleasure ; the rest 

 in meadow and pasture thereto adjoining. 

 There joineth upon this ground a park- 

 like ground called the king's-wood, with 

 XV several copices lying altogether, con- 

 taining 789 acres within the same, which 

 in the Earl of Leicester's time were 

 stored with red-deer, since which the deer 

 strayed, but the ground in no sort blem- 

 ished, having great store of timber and 

 other trees of much value upon the same.' 

 ' The circuit of the castle, mannours, 

 parks and chase, lying round together, 

 contain at least xix or xx miles in a plea- 

 sant country, the like both for strength, 



' Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 743. 

 2 lb., vol. i. p. 242, &c. 



state, and pleasure, not being within the 

 realme of England.' The Park of Kenil- 

 worth, the ancient seat of the Chntons, is 

 mentioned as early as the eleventh of 

 Heniy II., when it was in the hands of 

 the sheriff; other notices respecting it will 

 be found in Dugdale's ' Warwickshire.' 

 It was finally destroyed during the Inter- 

 regnum, ' when Ohver Cromwell gave the 

 whole manor to several officers of his 

 army, who demolished the castle, drained 

 the great pool, cut down the king's woods, 

 destroyed his parks and chase, and divided 

 the lands into farms among themselves.' * 

 Perhaps the remainder of the parks of 

 Warwickshire may be most conveniently 

 noticed as they occur in their respective 

 hundreds. In Knightlow Hundred, be- 

 sides the parks attached to the castles of 

 Warwick a.ndiKenilworth, there was apark 

 noticed in the thirty-third year of Henry 

 ML at Cheylesmore, near Coventry, which 

 then belonged to Roger de Montalt. There 

 were deer here in the eighth of Richard II., 

 observes Dugdale, as appears by a lease 

 of the pasturage, which reserves sufficient 

 grass for them. In other leases of the 

 time of Henry VIII. the deer are not 

 mentioned, and were no doubt long re- 

 moved before this park was granted to 

 the Mayor and Corporation of Coventry 

 by Queen Elizabeth in the tenth year of 

 her reign.3 At Astley Castle, in this hun- 

 dred, the seat of the Astleys, and after- 

 wards of Thomas Grey Marquis of Dor- 

 set, were two parks, ' the little parke,' im- 

 parked by the marquis, and ' the great 

 parke,' enlarged by him with 90 acres of 

 land in the twelfth of Henry VII., taken out 

 of the precincts of Arley, 'which to this 



' Dugdale, vol. i. p. 140. 



