Ch. IX. 



CHESHIRE. 



205 



preservation, and appear also to have 

 been very unequal in size, as well as in 

 number, in the various lordships where we 

 find them established. In one place in 

 this county (Edulwintune, Adlington, in 

 the Hundred of Macclesfield) no less than 

 seven hayes and four eyries of hawks are 

 mentioned. 



The Earls of Chester being in fact the 

 local sovereigns of the county, held, after 

 the manner of their royal superiors, the 

 forests or chases in their own hands. Of 

 these there were three — De la Mere, Wirral, 

 and Macclesfield — situated, respectively, 

 the former in the more central part of the 

 county, south of the Mersey, the second 

 between the Mersey and the Dee, and the 

 latter on the eastern borders of Cheshire, 

 on the confines of Derbyshire and Staf- 

 fordshire. In the forest or chase of De 

 la Mere are two elevated points on the 

 side which overlooks the Mersey and the 

 vale of Chester, ' The new pale,' enclosed 

 in the seventeenth century, 'The old 

 pale,' enclosed by virtue of a precept now 

 remaining in the Exchequer of Chester, 

 directed to John Done in the eleventh 

 year of Edward III., commanding him to 

 make a ' chamber in the forest ' for the 

 preservation of vert and venison. In this 

 pale is the site of a lodge which bears 

 that name, and where the foresters occa- 

 sionally resided. In 1617, it appears by 

 the account given of the progress of 

 James I. through this county, that the 

 chase or forest of De la Mere contained 

 'no small store of deer both red and 

 fallow ;'' both are now extinct, though the 

 woody character of the forest remains. 

 In the twenty-seventh of Edward I., 

 Walter de Langton, Bishop of Coventry 



• Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. ii. p. 50. 

 " Cal. Pat. Rolls, p. 60. 



and Lichfield, obtained a license to im- 

 park his wood of Tervyn, contiguous to 

 this forest.* The place is now called 

 Tarvin on the western angle of Delamere 

 Forest. Immediately south of it is Oulton, 

 the existing park of Sir Philip Egerton. 

 It is an area of about 350 acres, with 

 a herd of 300 fallow-deer, and was en- 

 closed with a brick wall about the year 



1743- 



West of the Forest of Delamere on the 

 outlying tongue of land between the Mer- 

 sey and the Dee, is the hundred of Wirral, 

 the whole of which was formed into a 

 forest by Randle Meschines, third Earl of 

 Chester. Five ancient parks are marked 

 within this district in Saxton's Survey of 

 the county, engraved in 1577, three on 

 the banks of the Dee at Shotwick, Pud- 

 dington, and Neston; and two towards 

 the north at Bydston, and Hooton. 



The Royal Castle and Park of Shotwick 

 is noticed as early as the fifteenth of 

 Henry VI., when the king granted to 

 William Troutbek, and John his son, the 

 office of park-keeper of Shotwyk, for their 

 joint lives and that of the survivor. 

 Shotwick was sold by the Crown in the 

 seventeenth of Charles II., to Sir Thomas 

 Wilbraham. It has been long disparked.' 



King, in his 'Vale Royal,' speaks of the 

 'goodly ancient House and fair park of 

 Hooton,' the seat of the Stanleys, and the 

 park belonging to the 'fair ancient seat' of 

 Pool adjoining. The last is not given in 

 Saxton's Survey. 



North of Delamere Forest, on the banks 

 of the Mersey, were the large parks of 

 Halton Castle and Rocksavage. The 

 former was held under the Duchy of Lan- 

 caster, and in the fifteenth year of the 



' Ormerod, vol. ii. p. 314. 



