Deer park (England)

[13] James I was an enthusiast for hunting and had an extensive deer park created at Theobalds Palace,[14] but it became less fashionable and popular after the Civil War.

These later mostly gave way to profitable agriculture dependent on crop prices, with large parts of the workforce having been attracted elsewhere following increasing industrialization.

However, where they have survived into the 20th century, the lack of ploughing or development has often preserved other features within the park,[17] including barrows, Roman roads and abandoned villages.

[20] Owners would grant to their friends or to others to whom they owed a favour, a signed warrant for a specified number of deer, usually one only, specified as buck or doe, which the recipient would present to the park keeper who would select and kill one and hand the carcass to the grantee.

It was perhaps at the very time of William's appointment to that position at court that the King promised him the honour of a licence to empark 500 acres of his manor of Dyrham in Gloucestershire, which is to say to enclose the land with a wall or hedgebank and to establish a captive herd of deer within, with exclusive hunting rights.

This grant is witnessed by a charter on parchment, to which is affixed a rare example of a perfect great seal of Henry VIII, now hanging in a frame beneath the main staircase of Dyrham Park.

The charter is of exceptional interest as it is signed as witnesses by men of the greatest importance in the state, who were at the King's side at that moment, at the Palace of Westminster.

The text of the document, translated from Latin is as follows:[21] Henry by the grace of God King of England and France and Lord of Ireland sends greetings to his archbishops, bishops, abbotts, priors, dukes, marquises, earls, barons, judges, sheriffs, reeves, ministers and all our bailiffs and faithful subjects.

Let it be known that we, motivated by our especial grace and certain knowledge of him, have granted for us and our heirs to our faithful servant William Denys, esquire of the Royal Body, to him, his heirs and assigns, the right to empark 500 acres of land, meadow, pasture and wood together with appurtenance at Le Worthy within the manor of Dereham in the county of Gloucestershire and enclose them with fences and hedges in order to make a park there.

High dry-stone walls, typical of Gloucestershire, still survive around parts of the present parkland, which is still stocked with a herd of fallow deer.

The king when on royal progress throughout his kingdom was accompanied by an enormous entourage which needed daily feeding and entertainment, both of which functions were achieved by holding driven game shoots, in which an area of ground several miles in area would be surrounded and any deer within would be driven towards a specified exit where the king and his favoured courtiers would be awaiting with bows and arrows to kill them.

The French ambassador Charles de Marillac in his despatch of 12 August 1541 described this process as King Henry VIII went on royal progress to York: The King's fashion of proceeding in this progress is, wherever there are numerous deer, to enclose two to three hundred in the trees and then send in many greyhounds to kill them, that he may share them among the gentlemen of the country and of his court.

Early historical records are replete with instances of noblemen breaking into each other's parks and killing deer therein, often as a result of a local territorial dispute or vendetta or merely from high spirits.

For example, in 1523 Sir William St Loe (d. 1556) of Sutton Court, Chew Magna, Somerset, together with 16 others, armed with bows and arrows, crossbows and swords, broke into Banwell Park in Somerset, attached to Banwell Abbey, a residence belonging to Bishop of Bath and Wells William Barlow, and killed 4 bucks and other deer.

[23] In 1955 W. G. Hoskins 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".