i8o 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



ch. viii: 



a visit to Brewood, having reached Wor- 

 cester, addressed a precept to Geoffrey 

 Fitz-piers and Hugh de Nevill (The Chief 

 Justice of England and the Justice of the 

 Forest) prohibiting them from hindering 

 the Bishop of Coventry in enclosing a 

 park in his wood of Brewood, for which 

 park to be two leagues in circumference 

 the Bishop had the King's license. A 

 further precept of King John, dated 20th 

 July, 1213, allows the Archbishop of 

 Dublin to take thirty stags in Brewood 

 Park, the See of Coventry being va- 

 cant.' ' 



At Weston-under-Lizard, near this 

 ancient Episcopal park, the late Earl of 

 Bradford established a deer park. 



The following parks were existing in 

 this part of the county during the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries : — 



At Chillington, the seat of the Giffords ; 

 Hilton, that of a younger branch of the 

 Vermons; Wrottesley, belonging to the 

 very ancient family of that name, now 

 Barons Wrottesley, and founded by Hugh 

 Wrottesley, son and heir of Sir William, 

 who had license to make a park here in 

 the twenty-first of Edward III.* At 

 Pepperhill, which belonged to the Tal- 

 bots Earls of Shrewsbury, and at Patte- 

 shull, once the seats of the Astleys of 

 Staffordshire, and now of Lord Dart- 

 mouth. 



In the south-western comer of the 

 county Saxton marks parks at Envill 

 and Compton ; the former a seat of the 

 Greys, the latter of the Whorwoods. 

 ' The fair park ' at Compton is noticed by 

 Erdeswick, but appears to have been 



' Ey ton's Shropshire, vol. ii. p. 186 ; quoting 

 the Close Rolls. 



" Harwood's Erdeswick, 2nd ed. p. 360. 



without deer at the period of the Civil 

 Wars. 



A more modern park was at Himley, 

 Lord Ward's, in 1735, and an ancient one 

 at Sedgdey, belonging to his ancestor 

 Lord Dudley, and which Erdeswick calls 

 ' a large goodly park.' Another park was 

 at Dudley Castle, belonging to the same 

 nobleman. 



At Sand-well, the now deserted seat of 

 . the Legges Earls of Dartmouth, there 

 appears to have been deer in 1735 ; and 

 at Bentley, once the seat of the family of 

 Lane, in the parish of Wolverhampton, 

 were two parks, as we find on the autho- 

 rity of Sir Simon Degge. One of them 

 was existing and ' stored with deer ' in 



1735- 



Shenston Park, on the borders of War- 

 wickshire, can lay claim to great antiquity. 

 It was first enclosed in the twentieth of 

 Henry III. by one of the Grendons, and, 

 was three miles in circumference, and in 

 the time of Henry VIII. stocked with 

 deer and game. It was disparked in the 

 reign of Charles II.' Erdeswick charac- 

 terises it as ' a goodly manor and park,' 

 and Leland observes, ' Shenston, a park 

 of the Kinges, and 3 miles about, well 

 deered.' * 



At Drayton-Basset, near Tamworth, 

 there was probably a park from a very 

 early period. It is recognised by Saxton 

 and all the ancient surveys. It was dis- 

 parked at the latter end of the last 

 century. 



Fisherwick, the seat of the Skeffingtons, 

 and afterwards of the Chichesters Earls 

 and Marquesses of Donegal, was a park 



' Harwood's Erdeswick, p. 421. 

 ' Itin. vol. iv. p. 116, fol. 186*. 



