214 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. 



Ch. X. 



particularly the venison caught (venatio- 

 nem captam), in Hopton; a proof that 

 the range of deer was not then confined to 

 the forests. Besides the ancient park of 

 Hopton, there were others of later date 

 imparked by Sir John Townley, the first 

 comparatively of small extent, consisting 

 of old enclosed lands, for which the license 

 bears date twelfth Henry VII., but the 

 second, which was almost a complete 

 enclosure of the open fields and wastes of 

 the township, did not take place till the 

 year 1514 or I5IS> as appears by the 

 license. This consisted of no less thaii 

 1,100 Lancashire acres, and after Knowes- 

 ley appears to have been the largest park 

 in the county. The deer of this park had 

 been destroyed before the year 1615, 

 though it was not divided into tenements 

 before the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury.' 



Within the contiguous demesne of 

 Habergham, is an hollow in the ground, 

 which, adds Whitaker, tradition points 

 out as a pit-fall, dug for impounding the 

 stray deer when the two families of Town- 

 ley and Habergham lived upon terms of 

 bad neighbourhood together. Near the 

 summit of the park, and where it declines 

 to the south, are the remains of a large 

 pool, through which tradition reports that 

 the deer were driven by their keepers in 

 the manner still practised in the park at 

 Lyme. ' It is impossible,' is the remark 

 of Dr. Whitaker, ' not to be struck with 

 the mixture of ancient simplicity and 

 splendour in this once favoured residence 

 of the family, where from the windows of 

 their castellated mansion, high and bleak, 

 with no eyes for landscape, and little feel- 



' Whilaker's Whalley, p. 271. 

 ^ lb. p. 277. 

 = lb. p. 342. 



ing of cold, they could survey with undi- 

 minished pleasure, vast herds of deer, 

 sheep, and cattle, grazing in a park of ten 

 miles in circumference, where like the 

 " old courtier who never hunted but in 

 his own grounds," they could enjoy the 

 pleasures of the chase without interruption 

 or intrusion, and whence they derived 

 inexhaustible supplies of that plain hos- 

 pitality which never consumed a great 

 estate."" 



The license for enclosing the old park of 

 Townley, which lay west from the house, 

 bears date, as per Inquisition, in the sixth 

 of Henry VII.' 



Near Bolton and Bury is Raddiffe, the 

 original seat of the great family of that 

 name; it is described by Whitaker as 'a 

 fertile domain of the finest grazing ground," 

 once a park, upon the south-west bank of 

 Irwell;'^ adjoining it was the Pa^k of 

 Pilkington, which, with those of Myd- 

 dleton, Barton, Holme and Trafford, 

 is laid down in the Surveys of Saxton 

 and Speed. The park at Middleton, 

 belonging to Sir Ralph Ashton, is noticed 

 by Leigh in his ' Natural History of Lan- 

 cashire ' (p. 3) as containing at that period 

 (1700) wild cattle, supposed to have been 

 brought from the Highlands of Scotland. 

 Trafford is an existing park of about 

 500 acres, with a herd of 300 fallow-deer. 

 Near Wigan were the following ancient 

 parks: Hulton not impaled, Atherton, 

 Bryn, Ashton, Newton, Bradley, and 

 Bewsey. To the north-west is Lathom, 

 where there were two parks, one called 

 ' New Park.' This park is stated in 181 8 

 to be nearly four miles in circumference, 

 finely wooded, and well stocked with deer.' 



* Whitaker's Whalley, p. 412. 



'• Neale's Views of Seats, 1818, vol. i. 



