Ch. X. 



NOR THUMBERLAND. 



22g 



NOR THUMBERLAND. 



Eight ancient parks are noticed in Sax- 

 ton's Survey of this county, which was 

 engraved probably about the year 1576, 

 though the date is not given. None of 

 them are mentioned in Leland's ' Itinerary,' 

 though probably all were in existence in 

 Henry VII I. 's time, the period of that 

 venerable antiquary, who merely remarks, 

 ' In Northumberland, as I heare say, be 

 no Forests except Chivet Hills, and there 

 is greate plenty of redd Dere and Roo 

 Bukkes." 



The most important parks were those 

 which appertained to the Castle of Alnwick, 

 belonging to the Earls of Northumberland. 

 There were two principal parks, called 

 Hulme Park, and Cawledge or Callie 

 Park, on either side of the town of Aln- 

 wick. From the account of the deer 

 belonging to the Earl of Northumberland, 

 taken in the fourth year of Henry VIII., 

 in the year 1512, and preserved in the 

 ' Northumberland Household Book,' it 

 appears that there were at that period 

 879 fallow-deer in the former, and 586 in 

 latter. These parks appear to have been 

 disparked and destroyed after the Resto- 

 ration of Charles II., by whose authority 

 a warrant was issued to Robert Child and 

 William Bowles, Master of the Toils, to 

 order the taking of fallow-deer in the parks 

 of the Earl of Northumberland, and to 

 conveythem to the Royal Parks.* Hulme 



' Leland's Itin. vol. vii. p. 66, fol. 81. 

 » S. P. O. Domestic, July 7, 1662. 

 ■ Northumberland Household Book. 



Park originally contained 3,500 acres; it 

 was for many years let into farms, but 

 part of it was restored and reimparked in 

 the year 1 824. The present park contains 

 134 acres of old grass, and 89 of moorland. 

 There is a herd of 180 fallow-deer, and 22 

 white German deer or stags. 



There was an ancient park also at 

 Warkworth Castle in this neighbourhood, 

 which contained in 1512, 150 fallow-deer; 

 and also dXAcklington, another old Percy 

 park, not far distant, where there were at 

 the same period 141 fallow-deer.' This 

 park of Acklington appears to have been 

 established by a license granted to Richard 

 de Horsley in the thirty-fifth year of 

 Edward I.* At Widdrington Castle in 

 this part of the county, James I. is re- 

 corded to have- hunted, or rather to have 

 killed two deer on his first progress into 

 England, in April 1603. Sir Robert Cary 

 was the owner of Widdiington at that 

 time.' . 



Further south I find parks mentioned 

 in Saxton's Map at Cockley Tower, Bottle 

 or Botthall Castle, the New Chapel, and 

 Mitford, all in the neighbourhood of 

 Morpeth. 



At Dilston, near Hexham, an ancient 

 seat of the Radclyffe family, was a deer 

 park which is given in Saxton's but not 

 in Speed's Survey. It appears to have 

 been destroyed and disparked long before 



« Gal. Pat. Rolls, p. 67. 

 ' Nichols's Progresses, vol. i. p. 68 ; see also 

 ante, p. 44. 



