Ch. VII. 



WAR WICK SHIRE. 



159 



from Warwick to Stratford are the wood- 

 lands of Hampton-on-the-Hill, Grove 

 Park, Hatton, Snitterfield, Edston, and 

 Welcomb, forming part of the oak woods 

 of the forest of Arden,' of which this is 

 the south-western extremity. On the left 

 are the meadows of the Avon, and the 

 rich valley of Wasperton, Charlecote, Al- 

 veston, and the alluvial and clay lands 

 beyond, where the elm is indigenous and 

 abundant. Fulbroke Park pales extended 

 for more than a mile along the Warwick 

 and Stiratford road, in the time of Richard 

 III. A lane still marks one boundary of 

 the park, Hampton parish another. The 

 north-west and south-east sides are formed 

 by the before-named road and the mea- 

 dows along the Avon. The ground breali^ 

 away from the red sandstone plateau in 

 endless combes, gentle slopes, and rounded 

 heights, to the meadows. In flood-time 

 the bright waters appear below ; Hampton 

 Wood, with the little eminences near it, 

 closes in the view: in a line with this 

 wood the brick and lime fragments in a 

 ploughed field even now prove where the 

 castle stood. Further on by the river is 

 a substantial farm-house, with a moat, the 

 ancient park lodge ; and near this is the 

 site of the church noted in Henry VIII.'s 

 first survey, but which had disappeared 

 before the last (survey) of his reign, com- 

 monly called the King's Book. A few 

 large trunks of ancient living trees remind 

 one of the self-grown oak forest still ex- 

 isting here in the year 1560, but most of 

 the ground is under the plough.' 



A small park of 80 acres, with a herd 

 of 130 fallow-deer, was enclosed at Clop- 



' Rather the woodlands of Arden, as there 

 was never, strictly speaking, any forest. — 

 E. P. S. 



ton, near Stratford-on-Avon, in the year 

 1850. 



In the neighbourhood of Alcester were 

 the parks of Arrow, Beauchamps-Court, 

 and Coughton. Arrow was imparked by 

 Sir Robert Burdet, Kt., by hcense in the 

 seventh of Edward III., and is well 

 known as the park where King Edward 

 IV. killed a white buck, which the owner, 

 Thomas Burdet, set much store by, ' whd 

 passionately wishing the homes in his 

 belly that moved the king so to do, being 

 arraigned and convicted of high treason 

 for those words, upon inference made that 

 his meaning was mischievous to the king 

 himself, he lost his life for the same.' * 

 The present park of Ragley, in the parish 

 of Arrow, is extensive ; the deer, however, 

 about 230 in number, occupy only a small 

 portion of it, about 90 acres. It has long 

 been the principal seat of the Seymour- 

 Conways, Marquises of Hertford. 



At Beauchamps-Cottrt, in the parish of 

 Alcester, was a park, which appears to 

 have been made by Foulk Grevile, who 

 married the heiress of Willoughby in the 

 reign of Henry VIII.' 



At Coughton, the ancient seat of the 

 Throckmorton family, was also a park, 

 enclosed in the second year of Henry VII. 

 by Sir Robert Throckmorton, Kt.* It 

 appears in the maps of Saxton and Speed, 

 but has been long disparked. 



Skelts, in the parish of Studley, ' im- 

 parkt for deer' by William Sheldon, Esq., 

 in the reign of Elizabd:h, but disparked 

 and turned into farms tjefore the time of 

 Dugdale. 1 



Lapworth Park is marked both in the 



