Ch. VII. 



WO J? CESTER SHIRE. 



165 



60 to 70 fallow-deer. Whether this is an 

 ancient park I have not been able to 

 ascertain. 



Northwich Park is in the parish of 

 Bleckley, and contains 290 acres with a 

 large herd of fallow-deer. It was a park 

 ' well stocked with deer ' in Nash's time 

 (1781), and was probably imparked in the 

 early part of the eighteenth century. 



Near the Forest of Feckenham, on the 

 eastern verge of the county, were several 

 parks. Feckenham Park itself, in the 

 parish of Hanbury, was a very ancient 

 Royal park, granted by the Crown in the 

 reign of Queen Elizabeth, and eventually 

 sold to Lord Keeper Coventry. 



Hanbury Park, enclosed late in the 

 seventeenth century, contains 63 acres, 

 with a herd of 184 fallow-deer. The hand- 

 some seat of the Vernon family, in the 

 midst of it, was erected in 1710. 



The Calendar of Patent Rolls contains 

 the notice of a park granted to Simon de 

 Wauton at Bradell, in the thirty-seventh 

 of Henry III., within the Forest of Feck- 

 enham ; and in the twentieth of Edward I. 

 William de Valence had license to impark 

 a certain preserve (vivarium) and 80 acres 

 of land on either side to increase his park 

 of Inkberg ijnkberrow) within the bounds 

 of the same forest.' 



In this neighbourhood is Beoley_ and 

 Bordesley. The first is noticed in the 

 ancient maps, and was a park of the 

 Sheldon family, disparked probably at the 

 period of the Great Rebellion when the 

 house was destroyed. 



Bordesley Park, from whence the deer 

 were removed by the present Mr. Dug- 



' Cal. of Pat. Rolls, pp. 26, 56. At p. 108 

 reference is made to a license granted in the 

 3rd Edw. III. to Wm. Corbett, to impark his 



dale to his seat at Merevale in Warwick- 

 shire, is said not to be ancient. I find it, 

 however, mentioned, together with ' the 

 pleasant park ' of Hewell Grange, in 

 Nash's' History of Worcestershire,' printed 

 in 1781. 



Grafton Park, an ancient seat of the 

 Earls of Shrewsbury, is thus noticed by Le- 

 land (the park has been long disparked) : 

 ' I came by a parke about a mile ere I 

 came to Bromsgrove, on the left hand. 

 It is called Grafton. It longid, before 

 Bosworth Field, to the Staffordes, noble 

 knightes, since by attainder it came to the 

 Kinge, and was given by King Henry 

 VII. to S^ Gilbert Talbot, and in that 

 name it yet remayneth. In this Parke is 

 a fayre Mannour place, and one Talbot at 

 this present dwellith in it."* 



The Park of Westwood, near Droitwich, 

 does not occur in the ancient surveys, but 

 is said to have been long established. It 

 contains a range for fallow-deer of 200 

 acres, with a hundred head of deer. 



At Hagley, Lord Lyttekon's, there ap- 

 pears to have been a park as early as the 

 reign of Edward III., when it belonged 

 to Sir John Botetourt, but it was for ages 

 disparked, and restored by Sir Charles 

 Lyttelton about the year 1694.' It con- 

 tains 230 acres, and about 70 fallow- 

 deer. 



The park at Great Witley, now Lord 

 Dudley's, was certainly, imparked before 

 it belonged to the Foley family in the 

 eighteenth century, as it is marked in 

 Saxton's Map of 1577. It contains 400 

 acres and 700 head of fallow-deer. 



Near Witley is Abbdrley, the site of 





wood of Prodesor in this coi 

 ■^ Leland's Itin. vol. iv. p 

 ' Nash, vol. i. p. 490. 



nty. 

 ri3, foL 186 a. 



