I«2 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. VIII. 



right in these anticipations. According to 

 the Reports of the Commissioners of the 

 Land Revenue of the Crown, there were 

 in 1 6i 6, 1263 head of red-deer in Sherwood 

 Forest ; in the year 1722 they had greatly 

 diminished, and the last of the race were 

 destroyed about the year 1773, except as 

 regards Thorney AVood, claimed by Lord 

 Chesterfield, in consequence of a grant to 

 his ancestor, John Stanhope, in the forty- 

 secbnd year of Queen Elizabeth (100 head 

 of deer being kept for the use of the queen). 

 There were in 1789 about 500 head of 

 deer in that part of the forest ; which long 

 since that time have entirely disappeared, 

 the Royal rights in Sherwood Forest hav- 

 ing been sold in the year 1827. To the 

 above notice of Beskwood Park, and in 

 illustration of the rights of the Crown in 

 Royal parks, it may be added that Lord 

 Willoughby (de Eresby), having a grant 

 in the year 1664 of the Custody Herbage 

 and Pannage of Beskwood Park, Sir Jef- 

 frey Palmer, then Attorney-General, gave 

 his opinion thereon as follows : — ' I con- 

 ceive that by this grant the Lord Wil- 

 loughby hath an interest in the ofKce of 

 keepership, with all the usual fees belong- 

 ing to it, and hath an interest in the sur- 

 plusage of the herbage, over and above 

 the sustenance and feeding of the game, 

 so long as the park continues a park ; but 

 the king may increase the deer, and if 

 there be no surplusage, he that hath the 

 herbage cannot put in any beasts ; and if 

 the king do dispark the park (as he may), 

 both the office of custody, and the interest 

 in the herbage, will thereby determine ; 

 yet in such cases it hath been held reason- 



• Ninth Report on Woods and Forests, 8vo. 



P- 549- 

 '^ Lambeth MSS., No. 709. 



able to give compensation for the custody 

 and herbage." 



North of Beskwood was the Royal park 

 of Clypston or Clipston, estimated in 1609 

 to contain 1,583 acres, and in 1604 no red 

 and 60. fallow-deer.^ • In the first of Ed- 

 ward III., as we are told by Thoroton,' 

 ' The Hunters or Huntsmen of the Town 

 of King's Clipston might have Common of 

 Pasture, and Fugeria and Folia (Fern or 

 Gorste-grass, and leaves) in the said park, 

 paying 13.?. 4^. p' annum : Robert de Clip- 

 ston in the second of Edward IILhad the' 

 care of the park, and was bound to keep 

 the manor in repair at the king's cost, and 

 the park pale at his own, receiving for the 

 reparation of the said pale, timber of the 

 dry wood there, and taking every day for 

 himself the palers and makers of the said 

 pale 7^' 



Clipston Park, as I have had occltsion 

 to notice before,^ was totally destroyed 

 during the Usurpation ; it was at that 

 time held by WiUiam Cavendish Duke of 

 Newcastle, and is described as being 

 seven miles in compass, and before the 

 Civil Wars well stocked with deer and 

 game. The timber, valued at 20,000/., 

 was cut down at this period, ' there be- 

 ing not one timber tree left in it,'° 



Nearer Nottingham was the Royal park 

 of Bulwell, besides that which was at- 

 tached to the Castle of Nottingham. The 

 former contained in 1609 326 acres, the 

 latter 1 29. Bulwell, according to Thoroton, 

 was granted in the thirty-second of Henry 

 VIII., together with Ne^stead Priory, to 

 Sir John Byron. The park belonging to 

 Nottingham Castle was restocked and 



= Notts, p. 435. 



* See p. 49. 



' CoUins's Noble Families, p. 42. 



