Deer hay wind
These structures have existed for many centuries and after falling out of use and their function having been forgotten the more substantial earth or stone examples have attracted names such as Roman Trenches, Old Fortifications, etc.
[14] Imparkment developed from the 12th to the 14th centuries, reaching its peak in the early 1300s at which time around 3,200 parks in England covered up to 2% of the total land area representing about a quarter of the country’s woodland.
[22] Thirty-seven parks or hays are listed in Domesday Book, and of these nine belonged to the king, five by bishops or monastic houses and twenty three by Norman knights, etc.
[24] Both wattle fencing and nets may have been employed in the 'wynding of the deer hay' and it was also important that the animals could be separated into small groups to reduce the chance of them goring each other by accident.
[30] Stone lined pits and boulders once heated in fires have been found in association with elricks which may have been used to cook or render the venison from the newly slaughtered animals.
[36] The local historian John Smith circa 1895 examined them and also identified what he regarded as an Ancient British Stockade which had been taken following a siege by Roman troops during which the 'Roman Trenches' were built.
[39] In 1428 it is recorded that John Stewart of Darnley near Glasgow held a deer park with a ditch, bank and pale in the Tarbolton area.
[42] Once known as 'Quillisfield' the estate was given to the monks of Melrose Abbey by Sir John de Graham of Dunduff, Lord of Tarbolton in the 13th century.
[44] The RCAHMS describes these features on the old Coilsfield Estate as an "irregular series of artificially-cut ditches run roughly parallel in a SE-NW direction down a gently W-facing and wooded slope at c70m OD.
"[45] Taylor has associated the local place names of Wyndford and Windy Gill at Parkmoor with an early 16th-century reference to the winding of the hay yard to catch deer at the Nuthill Estate in Fife and has suggested that this made reference to the construction of wattle fencing and nets along the line of the trench banks in preparation for catching deer and that the system of trenches may have been known as a 'wynd'.
[51] This feature is considered to have been used to capture deer from the Lomond Hills by corralling them and then taking suitable hinds and stags to the nearby royal hunting park.
[52] The Falkland Treasurers Accounts of 1505 refer to a payment of 14 shillings to "John Balfour for ranging through the countryside with bloodhounds to drive the deer to the park" and for the "winding of the hay yard to catch them".
The glen or gill then acts as a natural channel that runs towards the old Falkland Deer Park and the Lomond Hills lie above.
[62] Elricks have been identified at Dalkeith and others may have existed at the Glen of the Bar in Galloway, on Rùm and Jura where in one case stone walls may have channelled the deer into a corral.
[63] An unusual 'deer trap' may have been the function of a structure with foot high walls at Wet Sleddle Slack near Shap in Cumbria.
