l62 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VII. 



WOR CE S TER SHIRE. 



Two Domesday parks are to be noted in 

 this county : one at Salewarpe {Salwarp), 

 near Droitwich, which belonged to. Earl 

 Roger, and which we do not hear of 

 again ; and the other at Wadberge, the 

 modern Wadborough, in the parish of 

 Pershore, the property of the Church of 

 St. Mary at that place. At the time of 

 the Conquest it was held under it by one 

 Robert, and afterwards came to the Beau- 

 champs Earls of Warwick, and their heirs 

 the Lords Latymer. In the time of Nash 

 it belonged to Sir Charles Cocks, Baronet.* 

 Wadborough was probably disparked long 

 before the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, but is marked as a park both in 

 the Surveys of Saxton (1577) and Speed 

 (1610). 



Besides the parks, hays are also no- 

 ticed in the Domesday Survey at Holt 

 (Holt Castle), and at Chintune, Kinton 

 or Kingston, 'in qua capiebant ferae.' 

 They were held respectively by Urso 

 d'Abetot, the sheriff, and Roger de Laci. 



The town and Royal Park of Bewdley, a 

 corruption of ' Beaulieu,' in Latin ' Bellus- 

 locus,' is in the parish of Ribbesford, and 

 came to the Crown from the Mortimers 

 Earls of March. It was also called Tick- 

 nell, and is thus noticed by Leland in his 

 ' Itinerary:' ' The fayre mannour place by 

 west of the Towne (of Bewdley), standing 

 in a goodly park well wooded, on the very 

 knappe of an hill that the town standeth 



' Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. i. 

 p. 249. 



■■^ Itin. vol. iv. p. 106, fol. 183. 



on, this place is Called Tikenhill.'" A 

 Court Roll held in the tenth year of 

 James I. thus described it: ' The Prince' 

 (Henry Prince of Wales) ' has a capital 

 messuage within the sayd manor called 

 Ticknell, and a stable called the King's 

 Stable, together witha parke, called Bewd- 

 ley Parke, and fair meadows adjoining, 

 called Lady Meadows, which contayne 

 above thirty-four acres, and are worth 4/. 

 per ann. There be growing within the 

 park 3)5oo old trees, and 1,000 of them 

 are valued at 1,000/., another 1,000 at 1,000 

 marks, and 1,000 at 500/., and 500 at 500 

 nobles, the park containeth about 400 

 acres, most of it is heath ground. Jlere 

 are by estimation between 100 and 80 

 head of deere, beside the feeding of which 

 deere, the herbage may be esteemed to be 

 worth 20/. per annum." Bewdley appears 

 to have been disparked at the period of 

 the Rebellion, and was not afterwards 

 restocked. In 1621 three bucks were 

 ordered to be supplied by the keeper of 

 Bewdley Park, for the use of his Majesty's 

 household in the Castle of Ludlow,'' and 

 at the same period three bucks were 

 charged to Malvern Chase, and to several 

 other places in that neighbourhood. 



The Bishops of Worcester possessed at 

 least three parks in the county, at Hartle- 

 bury, Alchurch, and Blockley, 



' At Hartlebury^ still the residence of 

 the bishop, ' there is a parke and deere,' 



' Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. ii. 

 p. 276. 



* Dineley MS. penes the Duke of Beaufort, 

 copied by Sir T. Winnington, Bart. 



