PMP2000 > Places > Charnwood History

ESTATES AND PARKS

MEDIEVAL DEER PARKS IN CHARNWOOD:
Not a great deal is known about the earliest Medieval Parks in Britain - what references we do have are found in Domesday Book of 1086. Hunting Parks were without doubt introduced into England by the Normans and in 1086 there were 36 full parks in the country. However, there are no parks recorded in CHARNWOOD as early as this.

As well as full parks, there were also many hedged deer enclosures called "hays". Such areas were carefully managed to maintain a constant supply of game for hunting.

A medieval hunting park was usually well wooded to provide shelter for the deer. They would normally be found at the edge of a Lord's manor, where the soil was too poor or the terrain otherwise unsuitable for agriculture. The park would be surrounded by a deep ditch, outside of which a correspondingly tall bank would be built. On top of this was a strong fence, usually made of split oak paling. These three defences together were called "the PALE". Inside this secure area, the deer would be kept in a semi-wild state, to be hunted only by the Lord and his guests. Deer poaching was severely punished.

There were EIGHT MEDIEVAL PARKS in the CHARNWOOD area. These were at BARROW AND QUORN; BEAUMANOR; BRADGATE; BURLEIGH; GARENDON; LOUGHBOROUGH; ROTHLEY and SHEPSHED (OAKLEY PARK). CHARNWOOD FOREST itself was ringed by no fewer than ten parks, but only those above were in what is now CHARNWOOD BOROUGH.

BARROW AND QUORN PARK:
The earliest recorded PARK in CHARNWOOD was the park of BARROW, alias QUORNDON PARK. This is mentioned before 1135, also making it the earliest documented deer park in Leicestershire. It seems to have been created by HUGH, Earl of Chester as one large park of about 360 acres, occupying the whole of BUDDON WOOD and much of the surrounding land. By 1240, it covered 360 acres and contained pasture worth 40 shillings (£2.00).

In 1273, the park was inherited by four daughters and was sub-divided. These continued as parks but were much reduced in importance. Earthworks show that there was a moated lodge in the northern portion of the park, probably built shortly after 1273. There was a court case in 1379 when thieves made off with a huge amount of wood and twenty cart loads of underwood from the park!

It is thought the park had ceased to exists by 1481 as an account of the Manor of that year makes no mention of it. The outline of the park remained preserved in field boundaries until the 19th century.

Quarrying at BUDDON WOOD continues to destroy the original QUORNDON PARK but parts of it survive as the grounds of QUORN HOUSE and QUORN HALL.

BEAUMANOR PARK:
Immediately after the NORMAN CONQUEST of 1066, the Manor which included BEAUMANOR was granted to the EARL OF CHESTER by WILLIAM I.

The estate of BEAUMANOR was created for HUGH LE DESPENSER by HENRY III prior to 1232 from the uncultivated waste land of the Manors of LOUGHBOROUGH and BARROW/QUORN. There was certainly a deer park here in the 13th century and in 1427 the park contained twelve acres of pasture and wood. The area of Parkland was enlarged in the 16th century but it's importance as a deer park was in decline by the end of the early 1600s.

Records indicate that BEAUMANOR had a wall, rather than a fence as it's PALE and Red and Fallow Deer were kept in separate enclosures. As the importance of deer receded, park land slowly converted to agricultural use. Deer would still graze here, but there would also be other livestock and some "ridge and furrow" arable cultivation as well. Timber was another very important crop, both as building materials and coppiced for charcoal.

BRADGATE PARK:
During the whole of the medieval period, the land that was to become BRADGATE PARK belonged to the Manor of Groby. In the reign of EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, the land was owned by ULF, after whom ULVERSCROFT is named but there are no other records of this man. After 1066, the manor was given to HUGH DE GRANTESMAISNELL as part of his substantial reward for helping WILLIAM I during the Conquest.

CHARNWOOD FOREST was divided between the earls of Leicester and Chester early in the 12th century and the lands around BRADGATE were enclosed as a park for hunting before 1247. As well as the hunting, BRADGATE also supported hawking and coursing in addition to it's other important function as a timber resource.

BRADGATE PARK was a typical small medieval hunting park, first recorded in 1241. It first covered 820 acres, enclosed by a 4.5 mile long stone wall but was later expanded to over 1,000 acres. It is the only large area of land in the County which has not been ploughed or cultivated since the Norman Conquest. It has also not been built on during at least the last 150 years. It is part of the same range of volcanic rock as BEACON HILL and has a similar mix of heath, bracken and grassy slopes, with rocky outcrops and area of woodland.

The King's antiquary, JOHN LELAND, said of the area in the early 16th century that it was still "well wooded"... From BRADGATE to GROBY, a mile and a half, much by woddenlande". The park had been considerably expanded to the south by THOMAS GREY in 1499 and LELAND described it as "a faire large parke... six miles in cumpasse".

BURLEIGH PARK:
BURLEIGH PARK was in existence in 1330 and still being used for hunting in the 1640s. It lay between the parks of GARENDON to the north and LOUGHBOROUGH to the South and was originally owned by the GREY family, before their fall from favour in the 1550s. It then passed to the HASTINGS family and was described in the reign of ELIZABETH I as containing "no great tymber all scrubb and ronte okes and some small tymber trees very thynne growen whereof there may be sold Two thousande..." The park was leased to JOHN DAVENPORT in the seventeenth century and ceased to exist as a deer park during the Civil War, when the original BURLEIGH HOUSE was burned down. It had been "disparked" by 1656 and was sold off in several lots, including one with 75 acres of woodland. There is now just one small wood left of the original BURLEIGH PARK.

GARENDON PARK:
The precise date of foundation of this park is not known, nor is the exact location. The Abbot of GARENDON certainly owned a park containing deer at DISHLEY in 1282 so this could well have been the site recorded on a map of 1576 by Saxton. A commission of 1640 reported that GARENDON contained 13,350 trees of various sorts, the value of which were estimated at £5,648. During the Second World War, the deer on the estate were removed and the land ploughed up to help with the wartime food supplies. The Park as it exists today has been much reduced by the growth of SHEPSHED and LOUGHBOROUGH and probably bears little resemblance to the original Park.

LOUGHBOROUGH PARK:
This was one of the largest Deer Parks in CHARNWOOD and began in 1229 when HUGH LE DESPENSER was given deer to stock a park of 146 acres. In the next four centuries, the park expanded into the area between Forest Lane, the OUTWOODS and BEAUMANOR PARK. It was then owned by the GREY family, before their fall from favour in the 1550s saw it passing to the HASTINGS family. It contained rabbits in 1557 and deer until at least 1577 but a document of 1614 calls it " the late parke at Loughborough", clearly showing that it no longer operated as a park at that date. The land had been turned over to agriculture except for the OUTWOODS, which continued as a deer park for some time. It is unknown when it ceased being a deer park but it passed out of the HASTINGS family in 1730. The park had to be sold off at the end of the Civil War to meet the huge fines levied on the family by the new Republic. THE OUTWOODS is now all that survives of LOUGHBOROUGH PARK.

ROTHLEY:
There is just one reference to a deer park in the western part of ROTHLEY parish in 1322 but it's precise location is unknown. All that is known is that is contained underwood to the value of 40 pence per year. It may have been the forerunner of the later park around ROTHLEY TEMPLE.

SHEPSHED:
The deer park at SHEPSHED is first recorded in 1339, when it contained "underwood worth 2 shillings" (10p). It probably occupied what is now OAKLEY WOOD and is referred to in 1480 as OAKLEY PARK. This was the last mention of the park and details the granting of custody of OAKLEY PARK to "various persons". The only remaining traces of the Park are OAKLEY WOOD and possibly PIPER WOOD.