THE ZOOLOGIST 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol. XV.] MARCH, 1891. [No. J 71. 



THE LYME PARK HEED OP WILD WHITE CATTLE. 

 By Chakles Oldham. 



The white cattle of Lyme Park, Cheshire, have gone the way 

 of all flesh, and the very memory of them bids fair soon to be 

 lost, or at best to be numbered with the many legends and 

 traditions already associated with Lyme, and the Legh family, 

 in whose possession this property has been for nearly four 

 hundred years. 



Mr. James Croston states that, according to popular tradition, 

 the white cattle were brought from the Lancashire forests by 

 Sir Peter Legh, who was appointed Steward of Blackburnshire 

 in 1505;* but it is more probable that the park animals were 

 descended from those which formerly roamed over the wild 

 country constituting the ancient Forest of Macclesfield, and which 

 were imparked, together with the Red-deer, at the end of the 

 fourteenth century, f 



Bewick, writing in 1790, mentions the herd, but gives no 

 particulars of it. The following account is from Hansall's 

 * History of Cheshire,' which was published in 1817 : — " In Lyme 

 Park, which contains about one thousand Cheshire acres, is a 

 herd of upwards of twenty wild cattle, similar to those in Lord 

 Tankerville's park, at Chillington (sic), chiefly white, with red 



* ' Croston, ' Historic Sites of Lancashire and Cheshire, ' p. 338. 



f Lyme was granted by letters patent, dated at Chester, Jan. 4th, 1398, 

 to Sir Piers Legh and Margaret his wife, for services rendered by Sir Thos. 

 D'Anyers, Margaret's father. See Croston, op, tit., p. 295. 



ZOOLOGIST. — MARCH, 1891. H 



