A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



A considerable revenue was now received from the letting of pasturage. In 1413 the herbage 

 of the woods and parks of Myerscough, and the pasturage of Bleasdalc, Calder, Grizedale, and Little 

 Cadley in Fulwood were leased to Robert de Urswick, knt., for 52 marks per annum."" The very 

 considerable number of salaried officers appointed to keep the forests, parks, underwoods, and pastures 

 testifies to the attention bestowed upon the management of the deer parks, woods, and pastures. 



The same year (14 13) Robert Urswick, the master forester, was directed to deliver a sufficient 

 amount of timber and stone to the masons and carpenters working at Lancaster castle ; and the 

 following year William Harington, master forester of Quernmore, had orders to deliver from time to 

 time to the receiver as much fuel, probably charcoal, from the park as might be required to smelt the 

 lead required by the workmen at the castle.'*'* In 1416 the warden of Croxteth Park delivered 

 six oaks to Gilbert Haydock, knt.'"' In 1421 the herbage and pasturage of Myerscough and 

 Fulwood, thirteen vaccaries in Wyresdale and seven in Bleasdale were let to farm to Thomas Urs- 

 wick, esq., for ten years at a yearly rent of £ji 8s. 4J., which Robert Urswick, knt., had previously 

 paid, and an increment of 20 marks. In 1442 the lease was renewed to Urswick for a term of 

 twenty years at the same rent, ^84 15^.^'** 



Under the system of leasing for profit portions of the forest to private individuals, which had 

 commenced in the latter part of the fourteenth, and rapidly extended in the succeeding century, the 

 character of the forest gradually changed ; the deer were reduced in numbers and confined to closer 

 limits in parks, the area under timber became much reduced, and inclosure, cultivation, and settle- 

 ment by husbandmen changed the aspect of the whole forest region. After the disafibrestation by 

 Henry VII early in the sixteenth century, it is probable that the deer were confined to small portions 

 of ground in Bleasdale and Wyresdale, and to the deer parks at Quernmore, Myerscough, Leagram, 

 and Toxteth."*^ 



When Croxteth Park was demised to Thomas Molyneux, esq., in 1473, it was described as 

 ruinous and destitute of wood in or near for the repair of the pale and inclosure thereof, but the 

 grantee undertook to dike and set quick wood about the park, sustain the pales and keep the deer 

 within it. In I 507 Simonswood was said to be in part overgrown with wood of little or no value and 

 in part consisting of a watery, moorish, and mossy ground with little or no grass growing thereon."* 



Leland, writing of the woodlands in Lancashire in his time (1534-1543), says — 



Up toward the hilles by Grenehaugh be iii forests of redde dcere, Wyredale, Bouland and Blestale. 

 They be partly woody, partly hethye. The ground bytwixt Morle [Morleys in Astley] and Preston 

 [is] enclosed for pasture and come, but where the vast mores and mosses be, wherby as in hcgges rowes by 

 side grovettes ther is reasonable woodde for building, and sum for fier, yet al the people ther for the 

 most part burne turfes . . . Al Aundernesse (Amounderness hundred) for the most parte in time past 

 hath beeneful of wood and many of the moores replenished with hy fyrrc trees. But now such part of 

 Aundernesse as is toward the se is sore destitute of woodde."" 



In a report of the state of the lands late belonging to Furness Abbey, made about 1537, it was 

 noted that ' the woodes in Furness Fells had need to be well looked as ther is iii smydis survaid to /20 

 (a year) that they tak no woods but siche as hathe byn accustomed, as byrche, aller or other fallin 

 woods, and that evare bayle (bailiff) suffer not the woods to be inclosed.'"** 



At this time the officers of the forest found the task of preserving the king's deer one of increas- 

 ing difficulty. There are various complaints of the keepers of Quernmore and Myerscough on 

 record at this time of the trespasses committed by the gentry of Lonsdale and Amounderness.'" 



In 1556 the state of the woods and underwoods in Leagram Park was surveyed by com- 

 missioners, who found no ' Sapleyn ' timber but only some 60 hollow oaks, good neither for ' house 

 boote nor pale boote,' and of underwood only a few old ' hoUins and hasilles' of no profit if sold and 

 fit only for ' Tynsell and fire boote ' for the queen's farmers there. They found no deer abiding 

 or bred within the park, nor had there been any for many years past.'" In 1584 John Rigmayden 

 was removed from the office of master forester of Wyresdale and Quernmore for permitting the 

 wholesale destruction of deer both in and out of season. From the queen's accession in 1558 to 

 the date of his removal from office 320 deer had been taken within these forests, and of this number 

 70 head out of 193 had been taken since 1569 out of season."' 



"" Duchy of Lane. Misc. Bks. xvii, 3^. i<« Ibid. 7, 20^. '« ibid 4.7 



"« Towneley's MSS. Chetham Lib. C,, i3,». 530 ; De/>. Keeper" j Rep. xl. App. 536. 



"" Baines, Hist, of Lanes, (ed. 1836), i, 178. ""Croxteth D. F. 1-2. 



I'* Leland, Itin. (3rd ed. Heame), iii, 98. >■« Rentals and Surv. 9-73, fol zb 



^^^ Lanes. Pkad. (Rec. Soc.),xxxii, 115, 229; xxiv, 28. 



"' Ibid, xl, 2 1 5 . Mr. William Harrison has collected many interesting particulars relative to the 'Ancient 

 Forests, Chases and Deer Parks in Lancashire,' which were published in the Trans, of the Lanes. andChesh Antia 

 Soe. xix, 1-37. ■ '' 



' Duchy of Lane. Sp. Com. 381. 



446 



113 



