Medieval deer park

A medieval deer park was an enclosed area containing deer. It was surrounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden fence (known as a pale) on top of the bank. The ditch was on the inside, thus allowing deer to enter the park, but making it more difficult for them to leave.

History

When William the Conqueror swept over the isle of Great Britain (1066), he seized the existing game reserves, forming the first British hunting forests and parks. It turned out to be a forerunner of the deer parks that became popular among England's landed gentry.

Deer parks flourished under the Normans, although some at least were established before the Conquest and they are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Charters. After 1066, they began to proliferate and thirty six are recorded in Domesday. Initially, the Norman Kings maintained an exclusive right to keep and hunt deer. They established forest law for this purpose. In due course, they also allowed members of the nobility and senior clerics to maintain deer parks. At their peak in the 13th century, they may have covered 2% of the land area of England.

James I was an enthusiast for hunting, but it became less fashionable and popular after the Civil War. The number of deer parks declined, but during the 18th century, many deer parks were landscaped, and the deer then became a feature of a country gentleman's park.

Deer parks are interesting landscape features in their own right. However, where they have survived into the 20th century, the lack of ploughing or development has often preserved other features within the park^[1], including roman roads, barrows and deserted villages.

Status

To establish a deer park, a licence was required from the King - especially if the park was in or near a royal forest. As a result of their cost and exclusivity, deer parks became status symbols. Since deer were almost all kept within exclusive hunting reserves used as aristocratic playgrounds, there was no legitimate market for venison^[2]. Thus the ability to consume venison or give it to others was also a status symbol. Consequently, many deer parks were maintained for the supply of venison, rather than hunting the deer.

Appearance

The landscape within a deer park was manipulated to produce a habitat that was both suitable for the deer and also provided space for hunting. "Tree dotted lawns, tree clumps and compact woods" ^[3] provided pasture over which the deer were hunted and wooded cover for the deer to avoid human contact. The landscape was intended to be visually attractive as well as functional.

Discovering former deer parks

Hoskins (the father of English landscape history) remarked that "the reconstruction of medieval parks and their boundaries is one of the many useful tasks awaiting the field-worker with patience and a good local knowledge"^[4]. Deer parks were typically egg or pear shaped with curving boundaries. These boundaries produced significant earthworks that survived into the 20th century "in considerable numbers and a good state of preservation"^[5]. Even if the bank and ditch do not survive, their previous course can sometimes still be traced in modern field boundaries^[6]. The boundaries of early deer parks often formed parish boundaries. Where the deer park reverted to agriculture, the newly established field system was often rectilinear, clearly contrasting with the system outside the park.

Examples

Flitteriss Park, Leicestershire

Chetwyind Deer Park, Newport, Shropshire

Notes

1. ^ Maurice Beresford, History on the Ground (Sutton Publishing, revised edition 1998, p187)
2. ^ Oliver Rackham, The History of the Countryside (Phoenix Giant Paperback, 1997, p125)
3. ^ Richard Muir, Be Your Own Landscape Detective (Sutton Publishing, 2007, p241)
4. ^ WG Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (Penguin, 1985, p94)
5. ^ OGS Crawford, Archaeology in the Field (Phoenix House, 1953, p190)
6. ^ R Liddiard, The Medieval Park: new perspectives (Windgather Press, 2007, p178)