The Medieval Deer Parks of Wrotham

ArticlesVolume 128

25 Jun

Written By KAS

jayne semple

There were over 3,000 deer parks in England in medieval times. They varied in size from as little as 20 acres to over 1,000 acres, and most were between 100 and 200 acres.¹ They were owned by all ranks of gentleman and above and fed the passion for hunting which ran through the upper and lower classes.

The manor of Wrotham was one of many belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury. He was a rich and powerful magnate owning twenty-three deer parks, two of which were at Wrotham in west Kent (Fig. 1).² Here, deer were hunted by the archbishop and his friends or kept until killed for the table.

Wrotham with its church, manor house and demesne lands lay on the spring line of the North Downs scarp slope around the 125m contour line. The West Park lay half a mile distant to the south west and the East Park a similar distance to the south-east, both between the 95m and 105m contour lines (Fig. 2). The area between Wrotham and Borough Green was badly drained making cultivation difficult. To devote some of this land to deer parks was a sensible alternative to agricultural use. The 304 acres which made up the deer parks still left the archbishop over 6,000 acres of land to exploit in Wrotham.

Both parks were enclosed by high hedges and pales to keep the deer in and the poachers out. Within the parks was a mixture of sandy heath land, open grazing and clay woodland with pools and lakes. Oaks, ashes, alders and beeches sheltered herds of deer. Cattle and horses also grazed there from Easter to August when the grass was plentiful.

How long the parks had been in Wrotham is unknown as no licence to impark has been found. The Crown granted the privilege of imparking to the archbishops in the later twelfth century.³ The Wrotham parks were in existence by 1283 when they are referred to in Archbishop Pecham’s survey of estate lands and of the customary duties owed by his tenants. However, no labour services were exacted in connection with these Kentish parks. (Nationally it was common for tenants to labour in deer parks.) Ninety-seven acres of wood are noted in ‘Easthay’ or East Park. Tenants called Beadle and Mason claimed a highway through the middle of the park and the sons of Roger the Reeve, among numerous tenancies, held ‘a certain lake and a certain encroachment at East Heye’ and eight named tenants held six acres ‘at the park’.⁴ One hundred and thirty-two acres of meadow were noted under the heading ‘demesne’. Although not called ‘West Park’ this is certainly what the meadowland was, as the same number of acres occurs again in a fifteenth-century summary of the custumal where it says ‘Wood. In the park there are 132 acres, in Easteye 98 [sic] acres’.⁵

The 1283 survey notes land allocated to a huntsman. ‘John son of Dunstan holds 7ac. of the land for the steward, the huntsman and the beadle’.⁶ The presence of a huntsman confirms the existence of deer at that time.

It is possible that the parks originated before the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxons indulged in hunting as much as the Normans and recent research suggests that the Anglo-Saxon nobility went to as much trouble as the Normans in constructing enclosures to safeguard their deer and to provide sporting landscapes.⁷ The Domesday Book of 1087 reveals the existence of 37 deer parks nationally belonging to certain important tenants.8 This is a massive under-recording and makes the point that the lack of precise early documentation for a park does not exclude the possibility of its pre-Conquest existence.

Domesday Book records deer enclosures as either ‘parks’ or ‘hays’, ‘parks’ being the Norman term and ‘hays’ the English. Robert Liddiard concludes that for practical purposes the two terms are interchangeable but that the use of the term ‘hay’ has pre-Conquest implications.9 In Wrotham the East Park is referred to as ‘Easthay’ in 1283 and ‘Easteye’ in the fifteenth century. The use of the term ‘hay’ is not conclusive of a pre-Conquest existence but taken with other clues might be indicative.

Both Liddiard and Rackham consider the coincidence of a park boundary and a parish boundary to be an indicator of antiquity.¹⁰ Rack-ham writes ‘If the park existed before about 1180 the parish boundaries may follow the pale’.¹¹ The parish boundary of Wrotham and Ightham followed the southern boundary of the West Park in 1283. Its 132 acres of meadow¹² corresponds closely to the field acreages shown on the detail of an estate map of 1620 (see below); the park boundaries remained unchanged for four hundred years. Roughets Wood (meaning Scrub Wood) diverts the boundary through two right-angled turns. The wood must have been in existence for many years before 1283 and is still there today (Fig. 3).

In fact there was a small increase in the park acreage between 1283 and 1620 which affected the boundary. The barred area on the map of about 6 acres round the moat was added to the park land (Fig. 3) to make up the sum of 138 acres in 1620. The moat probably marks the site of the lodge (see below) which at 105m would command a view over the park. The site must have been ‘captured’ from the holding to the south either to build a lodge from new when deer were introduced or because there already existed a lodge from a once larger park.

The ideal shape for a park is a circle as it produces the shortest boundary for enclosing and maintenance. The East Park is a rough rectangle with rounded corners. The West Park is semi-circular (Figs 2 and 3) which suggests a missing equivalent area to the south called here, for argument’s sake, ‘West Park South’. The two together would have produced the desired near-circular shape.¹³

When might a halving of a larger West Park have taken place involving the disappearance of ‘West Park South’? The answer involves the parish boundary of Ightham which had its own church before the Conquest.¹⁴ The separate parish of Ightham was fashioned out of the archbishop’s extensive parish of Wrotham, perhaps in the tenth or eleventh century (Fig. 4).

The new parish of Ightham inherited as its western boundary the old Wrotham parish boundary with the exception of Woodlands and Pellesholt which became detached from the mother parish. The complex eastern boundary, which separated Ightham territory from the ancient parish, follows ancient field boundaries and contours. It was clearly designed to give a quota of good agricultural land to a parish which was 50 per cent heath, wood and common land: all characteristics of the terrain for early deer parks. The long north-western extension of Ightham parish runs across the fertile Vale of Holmesdale. The north-eastern intrusion into Wrotham parish embraces the valley of the River Busty and the church and village of Ightham. On the northern tip of the intrusion lies the medieval park with its suggested southern extension. Parish and manor at this date are often coterminous. When Ightham’s transition from being a Domesday fee of the archbishops of Canterbury to being a separate sub-manor of Wrotham took place is unclear but it was probably in the twelfth century.¹⁵

The new parish had its church but the manor of Ightham, whenever it was created, may have had no manor house. The usual site for a manor house was beside the church but at Ightham the manor-house, Ightham Court, is seven hundred yards away from Ightham parish church and village (Fig. 3). Whoever became the first lord of the manor, at whatever date, may have been attracted to ‘West Park South’ as an agreeable place to build a house. The archbishop, as lord of Wrotham and overlord of Ightham, was free to sacrifice half a park to accommodate a manor house for a tenant if he wished. ‘West Park South’, if it existed, was contained within existing field boundaries still visible on current ordnance survey maps and the tithe map of 1840 (Fig. 3). These field boundaries remained stable because most of them were defined by watercourses and as such are probably ancient. In turn, the streams dictated the position of the manor house at 100m on dry land above them.

The first documentary reference for the names of ‘West Park’ and ‘East Park’ is in Roger Beresford’s farmer’s (lessee) account of 1382.¹⁶ West Park was also known as Ightham Park. An estate map of 1620 shows that East Park had expanded from its 1283 size of 97 acres to 166 acres (Plate I).

West Park had grown slightly to 138 acres (Plate II). Some of the field boundaries match boundaries on the tithe map of 1840. Although the park boundaries are not shown as such on the tithe map the old park boundaries are easily discerned and the 1620 acreage of 138 acres matches the park area on the tithe map exactly.

The expansion of East Park resulted in the loss of cultivable land for the tenants. William James’ reeve’s account of 1490 records seven rents which he could no longer collect because the properties had been taken into the East Park. They amounted to 35¼ acres and had been worth a total of 10s. 10½d. In 1499 the farmer, Richard Hunt, claimed an allowance on his rent because an eight-acre piece of Hunt’s demesne land had been given to Reginald Pekham, who had had eight acres of his own land enclosed in the northern part of the park.

The Parker

The amenities provided by a deer park were the noble sport of hunting and the consequent consumption of game, both indulged in by the upper echelons of society. The parks were managed and maintained by a park-keeper, or parker, appointed by the archbishop or his steward. He supervised all aspects of the hunt, the maintenance of the park, the selling of wood and timber and the well-being of the herds of deer in his care. He was always of the rank of gentleman.

Accounts were kept by the parker and presented annually to the archbishop’s auditor. He was assisted in his duties by the ‘farmer’, or lessee, of the demesne lands who might live in the manor house. The farmer also kept accounts which occasionally featured park expenditure. Further information about the parks can also be found in the annual reeves’ accounts. The reeve was in charge of agricultural organisation on the manor and thus became involved with the parks.

The accounts of these officers, or ministers as they were called, are the principal source of information on the Wrotham parks. Topics covered include finance, topography, woods, buildings, repairs, wages, park maintenance, deer, grazing for other animals and clay digging. The Wrotham accounts run from 1382 with occasional gaps till 1536.¹⁷

There are four ministers’ accounts from the late fourteenth century. The first is by farmer Roger Beresford who, in 1382, wrote a reeve’s account which deals entirely with the parks. He was the acting Wrotham parker for Henry Castelayn who had been appointed parker for life in the whole archbishopric. In this post he received an annual salary of £10, a robe, or 13s. 4d. in lieu, from the manor of Bexley, free pasture for a number of animals and a right to trees blown down by winds ‘as long as it was not an excessive storm’.¹⁸ He died c.1407 and his memorial brass in St Mary’s church, Bexley, shows his pendant hunting horn, a prized badge of office.¹⁹

The Wrotham parks were heavily wooded but neglected. Castelayn cleared many trees from the Wrotham parks in his first year. One hundred and twenty hollow oaks from the East Park were sold for 13s. 4d. and one hundred beeches for 20s. Another hundred and twenty hollow, rotten oaks from the West Park, were sold by Castelayn for 11s. The loppings of 19 lesser oaks were sent to Otford manor for 3s.

The picture of parks in disarray is confirmed by an account ten years later when sixty-six ‘almost worthless’ oaks were sold for 7s. 4d. A total of one hundred and eight other timbers sold for 11s. Sixty-five croppings of oak in the West Park sold for 3s. and thirty-two beech croppings sold for 4s. Whether there was an accepted price for croppings or whether the parker took what he could get is unclear. Quality and quantity cannot be assessed from the information in the accounts.

Castelayn was succeeded as parker at Wrotham by William Marchaunt in 1393 and 1394. There is then a gap in the records until 1419 when John Chepsted held the office until 1430; he was also a farmer of Wrotham. He was followed by Reginald Pekham, 1431-1440, lord of the manor of Yaldham in Wrotham. Thomas Arcall served for thirty two years from 1441-1473. He was followed by Thomas Bulteham, 1475-1484, James Wekys, 1487, and Thomas Swanne with Ralph Armstrong in 1488. Reginald Pekham, grandson of the earlier Reginald Pekham, was the longest serving parker with thirty three years from 1489-1522; John Gonne 1523-1525, James Clerke 1526, Thomas Darcy 1527, Darcy and Clerke 1528-1531 and Thomas Darcy from 1532 to 1536 when the accounts end. Darcy kept his appointment as keeper of the East and West Parks until his death in 1556.²⁰

It was essential to have an honest parker – one who colluded with poachers or illegal timber fellers could cost the archbishop dearly. To reduce temptation, parkers were paid wages in kind and a yearly stipend of 10s. Between 1419 and 1489 the parker’s wages were six quarters, four bushels of wheat and three quarters, two bushels of barley, expressed in terms of the current price, so he may actually have been receiving the money equivalent. The cost of these cereals fluctuated with good and bad harvests. Thus in 1438, for example, his wages were £6 9s. 2d. instead of the more typical £3.

In 1489, on Reginald Pekham’s appointment as parker, payments in kind were abandoned and he received instead 30s. a year for the custody of the East Park, 24s. for the West Park, and 6s. 10d. by order of the lord, making a total salary of 60s. 10d. This remained unchanged until the death of keeper Darcy in 1556.²¹

According to William Harrison, writing in 1570 in his Description of England, for every deer killed the keeper also got a fee ‘and the skin, head, umbles, chine and shoulders, whereby he that hath the warrant (licence to kill) for an whole buck hath in the end little more than half, which in my judgment is scarcely equal dealing’.²² All this meat, offal and hide must have been a valuable perquisite.

The long periods of service by Wrotham parkers show both that the keepership was worth having and that the archbishop was satisfied with their performance. The job was not a sinecure. A wide range of country knowledge was necessary from the care of animals to the culture of trees and the knowledge of local men such as the Pekhams, Chepsted and Arcall must have been invaluable.

Park Boundaries

The parker’s constant duty was to maintain the parks’ boundaries in order to keep the deer in. Straying deer could cause enormous damage to crops and bad relations with tenants. A secondary, and often less successful, aim was to keep the poachers out.

Until 1438 the Wrotham parks were surrounded by a bank with a fence or high hedges growing on the top and by a ditch on the internal side. Maintaining these was a year round task which appeared in every parker’s account. It provided paid employment for tenants and their servants. Ditch digging was paid at 2d. a perch (5½ yards). Fencers or hedgers earned 1d. a perch. Carters were paid 1s. a day for carrying oak and thorn saplings for hedges. These could have been to maintain internal compartments in the parks as well as boundaries.

An extract from John Chipsted’s account for 1428 was typical of any year and reads:

Care of the enclosure of West Park

Ditching 88 perches divers places where needed 14s. 8d. at 2d. per perch.

Hedging 82 perches along old ditches divers places 6s. 10d. at 1d. a perch.

Carter three days delivering to the hand of the encloser 3s. at 12d. per day.

Man two days stopping repairing 8d.at 4d. a day.

Sum 25s. 2d.

Care of the enclosure of East Park

85 perches of new ditches where needed 14s. 2d.at 2d. per day.

Hedging 70 ½ perches old ditches 5s. 10½d. at 1d. per perch.

Carter two days delivering to the hand of the encloser 2s. at 12d. per day.

Labourer one day mending divers defects round the park 4d.

Sum 22s. 4½d.²³

The circumference of each park was about two miles. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century maps show stylized parks in the shape of a circle or a rounded rectangle (Plate III).

The Pales

In 1438 the decision was made by parker Reginald Pekham to surround the West Park with pales. This date was confirmed in 1503 by his parker grandson Reginald, by a memo on the back of his account:24 ‘The fuest pale that was sett uppe about the west park was betwene michelmas 18th year Henry VI and michelmas 19 year Henry VI’.²⁵

To begin with, two oaks were felled to make a furlong of pales which were of cleft oak embedded in the ground and attached to a rail (Plate IV). The purchase of croppings for the making and setting of pales and rails continued for many years.²⁶ At 4d. a perch, paling was twice as expensive as hedging or fencing. In 1490-91 the reeve, William James, installed six furlongs, or three quarters of a mile, of pales for 40s. It cost 4s. 8d. to transport 3,000 pales.²⁷ Another 1½ furlongs were erected in 1491 for 28s. by William Bocher who in 1492 was paid 4d. for a day’s work ‘Betyng the pales’, which was presumably going round and inspecting them.²⁸ Work continued on a similar scale until 1516 when Reginald Pekham’s carpenter repaired 1,500 pales at a cost of 23s. 7d. From this date the West Park was leased to someone for 4s. 8d. and the pales were recorded no more.

The accounts for the East Park do not record pales, but a pale must have existed at some time because the map of 1620 (Plate I) shows a 4-acre field on the western boundary called ‘The Litlemead by the Parke pale’.

Pales were also used to make internal compartments in the parks. William Hunt, the farmer in 1492, records the payment of 3s. 4d. for putting up ten furlongs of pales around the pound in one of the parks. As the standard rate for erecting pales was 6s. 8d. a furlong someone made a mistake and ‘ten furlongs’ should read ‘half a furlong’. The pound might have been for controlling deer for the hunt. It could also have been used for securing stray or confiscated animals.

The only evidence we have for the internal arrangement of the Wrotham parks is on the map of the West Park (Plate II). The eastern side is divided into a long 15-acre parcel watered by streams on three sides called ‘The Lawne’. This is a common feature in medieval deer parks sometimes appearing in the archaic form of ‘Laund’. It was an open grazing area for the deer, a remnant perhaps of the 132 acres of meadow which constituted the West Park in 1283. The boundaries of the 21 fields are irregular and the acreages are small. They may reflect the compartments that were made to protect hayfields and growing woodland from the damage done by deer and other animals grazing in the park.

The East Park by contrast has only 13 fields with boundaries in straight lines bearing the mark of the surveyor, John Hine (Plate I). Only the perimeter boundary and the siting of the lodge have survived from the medieval layout.

Park Gates

The parks were accessed by seven gates, of which four were in the East Park (Fig. 2).²⁹ A private road ran through the East Park from the London Road to the north, to the Sevenoaks - Maidstone Road to the south. It was barred by North and South Gates. Finding the site of the East Gate is more difficult. There is evidence from the 1568 rental and from the tithe map of 1840 for three lanes running to Nepicar Street from the eastern park boundary; Vowlesmeade Lane from A, Greenes Lane from B and Hooke Lane from C. Any of these points could have been the site of East Gate. The West Gate must have stood at Chepsteds Corner (Fig. 2 D). A footpath still leads from the clay-pits to the Borough Green to Wrotham road and crosses the park boundary here.

In 1393-4 the North Gate was refurbished for 15d.; it took one and a half days and new locks were fitted to all four gates for 2s. 8d. In 1423-4 it had to be repaired at a cost of 3s. for six days work for a carpenter. In 1441 the parker, Thomas Arcall, bought four locks for fastening four gates and a sawyer spent one and a half days mending one of the gates. In 1444-5 the East Gate had to be repaired at a cost of 3s. 4d. with a new lock for 8d.

The accounts contain similar information for the West Park. In 1429 a gate was made in the south part of the park which took two and a half days. This was probably at E where a lane ran south to Cricketts farm (Fig. 2). In 1435 two oaks were felled in the West Park to make a new door for ‘Goodwyngate’ at the western boundary of the town. A footpath leaves the park in the direction of Wrotham at G and this is probably the site of Goodwyngate. In 1487 ‘ye greet gate towards Wrotham’ was repaired and a ‘new gate made on ye ffenne side’ at F.³⁰

Park Lodges

Within both parks was a lodge – the working headquarters of the parker from which he organized hunting. One, or perhaps both, had guest accommodation for visiting huntsmen. In 1438 Robert Kyffe, the reeve, paid 20s. to John Kyng, one of the three farmers, for wheat purchased for the lord’s guest house. In 1478-9 £7 6s. 8d. was given to Master Thomas Wylkynson, treasurer of the lord’s hospice, to buy forty quarters of wheat at 7s. 4d. a quarter for the guest house in the park; which park is not recorded. By December 24 the price had risen and Mr Wylkynson had to pay £4 3s. 4d. for another ten quarters of wheat at 8s. 4d. a quarter, for the same destination; an impromptu Christmas party?³¹

The East Park lodge was where the present house called Wrotham Park stands. Dead game was stored at the lodge before dispatch to the kitchens or being presented to friends. The roof of a lodge could be used as a viewing platform to watch a hunt taking place in the surrounding park. A drawing of the lodge in the East Park of 1759 shows a substantial building with a platform at roof level which might have been used in this way (Fig. 5).

The records of lodge repairs in the accounts give details about the types of building, the workmen and their wages. Repairs to the West Park lodge were made every twenty-five years. It was mentioned in the account of 1394-5 when a new sill and partition had to be made. A carpenter was paid 6s. 8d. and 5d. was spent on nails and pegs. Two men worked for a whole day collecting willow for weaving a wattle partition at a cost of 6d. A carter spent a day carrying timber to the carpenter and seeking clay for daubing the partition. One man spent eleven days daubing the partition and doing other jobs. Twenty five years later the next surviving account of 1419-20 shows the sill in trouble again along with the walls and the roof. A carpenter spent five days repairing sills and walls; the roof needed a thousand flat tiles with a thousand pegs and a quarter of lime for a total cost of 7s. 5d.³³

The East Park lodge presumably needed repairs as often as the West Park lodge but none is recorded until 1473 when a wall was repositioned and underpinned.³⁴ In 1491-2 in the account of William Hunt, farmer, timber was carried from the West Park to the East Park for repairs to the lodge which, with the carriage of thatching straw, cost 20s. 10d. altogether.

It is from the evidence of building activities in the accounts that we can deduce that a building or buildings stood on the site of the East Park lodge in the early fifteenth century. These embraced not only a lodge but workshops for processing timber, in which Wrotham was rich.

Timber

Quantities of wood were felled in the late fourteenth century under Keeper Castelayn. Wrotham continued to be self sufficient in wood and timber and was able to export a surplus to other archiepiscopal manors such as Maidstone, Northfleet, Otford, and as far away as Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire. The most distant buyer was ‘John Stonyng of Sunderlond’ who bought 65 cartloads of ‘Crokyd Tymber’ for 32s. 6d. in 1491.³⁵ In 1394 one hundred and forty oaks were felled in the parks. One hundred and nineteen were sent to Maidstone, another four to Otford. Four went to repair the lodge in the West Park. Seven were delivered to the reeve for making a new gate next to the church. One was destined for a new ‘harre’ (door stile) for the Northgate in the East Park and five were sold. The croppings of the one hundred and forty oaks fetched 24s. Local orders in 1427-8 included using 21 oaks to make shingles for Northfleet chancel, and 1,600 pales for Otford manor. An oak was sawn into planks to repair the barn at Northfleet and two more were used for making gates for the West Park; 1,250 feet of sawn board was sent to Northfleet manor plus one hundred laths for shingles. All these orders were delivered to their destinations from Wrotham, which kept the local carters busy.

Oaks are the commonest entries in the accounts. They appear forty-five times compared with twenty entries for beeches, ‘hallers’ (alders) and ashes. The oaks were used for fencing, making pales and buildings. They are first mentioned in 1429 when sixty three were felled in the West Park for post and rail fencing. After 1429 hallers are often sold in baker’s dozens of 13 or multiples of 13.

Oak trees for building construction were cultivated in the parks. They grew as big isolated specimens producing the sturdy trunks and curved branches needed by carpenters to form tie-beams and principal posts. Unless the wood was exported it was turned into end products in the parks. Posts, rails, pales, shingles, laths, planks and gates were made to order and then delivered.

In 1427 the accounts have the first evidence for timber-framed building construction at workshops in the parks. Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, was then building an almshouse and chapel at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire (Plate V). One hundred and fifty-four oaks were felled in the Wrotham parks to make the roof. There was much employment for carters, sawyers and labourers. The roof timbers were loaded onto 81 carts and transported to the Thames at Northfleet and thence to Higham Ferrers at a cost of £8 2s., accompanied by the carpenter in charge, William Mote, who was paid £7 6s. 8d. for his building work there. In the following year 40 more oaks were turned into rafters and boards for Higham Ferrers.

In addition to manufacturing building materials the carpenters made other things. In 1427-8 John Chychele, steward and nephew to the arch-bishop, organised the making of a new pillory, shelvyngstool (ducking-stool), stocks and gallows for Wrotham. A carpenter was hired for two days for 8d. to fell four oaks in the East Park. Then four carpenters worked for fourteen days on the various constructions at 6d. a day each. Thirteen alders were also felled in the East Park of which four spars were used for the pillory and two ‘paunchunys’ were made for the ducking-stool.³⁶ (Alders are resistant to immersion in water.) The steward ends his account with a payment of 12d. for the carriage of all the components from the East Park to its destination. The whole operation is confined to the East Park workshops. Sadly, Chichele did not specify the destination so the sites of the stocks and pillory are unknown. The market place by the church is the most likely location.

Coppice

The management of timber in the parks was a major preoccupation but the parker was also responsible for other demesne woods outside the parks. These comprised Beechenwood on the manor’s eastern boundary, Frythwode at Stansted and woods at Rusthall near Tunbridge Wells, a detached part of the manor. These woods were mainly coppice woodland. This was renewable woodland with a wide range of uses from firewood to house building. The price of coppice per acre was 4-6s. in the fifteenth century rising to 10s. an acre in 1512. Purchasers were mostly local men buying small quantities, from one acre to as little as 2 ‘daywerks’, which is a sixteenth of an acre. The exceptions were John Sexteyne, a local man and John Wylshire. They seem to have had contracts with the parker. In every year where there are records between 1460 and 1482 Sexteyne bought 500 cartloads of firewood for 73s. 4d. Wylshire bought 11 acres of wood each year for 78s. 8d.³⁷ Sexteyne was perhaps supplying the expanding firewood market in London. Wylshire must have been a timber merchant. Other named buyers included John Poole and John Cappe, tile makers, and Thomas Baker, William Abraham and Walter Hadman, potters, buying fuel for kilns. Sales of coppice wood varied in value annually from £3 3s. in 1512 to 8s. in 1489.

Agistment

Tenants in search of extra grazing could rent pasture within the parks for a fixed term in the spring when grass was plentiful. Agistment was the term used, and the rents from agistment were a significant source of income for the parker.

The first animals to be mentioned were three horses in 1393 grazing in the East Park between the feast of St George (April 23) and the feast of St Peter ad Vincula (August 1) for 4s. 6d.³⁸ The next time specific animals are mentioned, rather than sums of money received for them, is in 1424-5 when six horses were pastured for 8s., seven bullocks for 7s. and two young bullocks for 20d. between Hokeday (second Tuesday after Easter) and St Peter ad Vincula.³⁹ Terms are always for this period when the grass was lushest. For the rest of the year grazing was reserved for the deer. The following year there were seven horses for 9s. 4d., six oxen for 6s. and three young bullocks for 2s. 6d. Horses are 16d. each against oxen which are 12d. each.

In 1427-8 the cost of agisting a horse had risen to 2s. while oxen remained at 1s. This may reflect the growing popularity of horses as opposed to oxen. The last time oxen are mentioned is in 1435. There are many years when only a sum of money is mentioned when oxen may well have been in the parks, but there are twenty separate years, when animals are specified, where there are horses in plenty but no oxen.

For strength oxen were unsurpassed. Heavy clay land such as the Weald could only be cultivated with ox teams to draw the ploughs. The land in Holmesdale and the Bourne valley was not so intractable, but for moving timber from the woods and transporting it, oxen were better than horses. They made heavy demands on grazing since they only ate grass. They grazed in the summer and ate hay in the winter. Horses on the other hand ate oats as well as grass and could be used as riding animals. Joan Thirsk has mentioned the growth in horse breeding in the sixteenth century and the Wrotham parker’s accounts may reflect this.⁴⁰

In 1487 there is an agistment account in English for the West Park when twenty-seven animals produced fees of 18s:⁴¹

Account kept by Jamys Wekys keeper of ye West Park of Wrotham

Received of William atte ffenne for sornyng of two colts 3s. 4d.

Received of Walter ffuller for sornyng of 2 colts ye hole seson 3s. 4d.

Received of John Benet for sornyng of 1 colt hole seson 10d.

Received of Walter Sexten for sornyng of 9 bullocks hole

seson 12 moneth old 6s. 0d.

for 2 twelve mothyng of Richard Miller by half ye term 8d.

for 9 twelve mothyng of Robert Coteler by half ye term 3s. 0d.

for a two yareyng of John Revys ye hole terme 10d.

Sum total 18s. 0d.⁴²

From 1423-1430 the West Park was leased out for 24s. a year. The lessee of the West Park was then free to agist to individuals himself if he so wished, thereby perhaps making a profit on his 24s. A hundred years later in 1527 the West Park was leased to Thomas Darcy for 26s. 8d. The last recorded agistments in the West Park were in 1513-14.

Pannage

Pannage was the income derived from admitting pigs into the park to fatten on acorns and beech mast in the autumn. Since in some years there were neither acorns nor mast, pannage income was intermittent. The best year was 1440 when 101 pigs, 123 sows and 33 piglets produced 63s. 10d. in pannage. In only five years are pig numbers noted and only nine years produced a record of the money raised. The lowest sum recorded was 6s. 4d., and from 1447 until 1536, when the accounts cease, there are only occasional ‘nul’ pannage entries. It is hard to believe that pigs ceased to be raised in Wrotham after 1447. Perhaps the pigs foraging in the park had become too intensive, competing with more profitable livestock, so that even when there was a good crop of mast and acorns they were excluded.

The Deer

Deer lived in both parks throughout the period of the accounts. They were probably fallow deer which were used to stock most medieval deer parks. They are first mentioned in 1382 when hay was bought for them in the winter for 2s. In 1394 their hay cost 6s. 8d. They next appear in 1422-3 when two ‘dams’ were sent from Wrotham to Croydon and three dams, whose transport cost 3s., were sent to Lambeth.⁴³ Between 1422 and 1431 twenty deer were sent from Wrotham to Maidstone, Lambeth, Otford, Dartford and Mortlake. It cost 12d. to send a deer to Lambeth which was a day’s wages for a carter. Whether they travelled dead or alive the accounts do not say.

From 1434 our only knowledge of the presence of deer in the parks is when their shelter and winter feeding appear in the accounts. In time of snow, buying hay on the open market was expensive. Thomas Arcall became parker in 1441 and tried to plan winter fodder supplies in advance of bad weather. The next year a meadow of 1 acre 3 rods was bought from John Barbour, farmer of Wrotham, for 5s. 3d. at 3s. an acre. Three rods of the meadow were mown and grass was sown there to make hay for the deer in winter at a cost of 2s. 4d. A total of 11s. 4d. was spent on the deer’s future hay supplies. Even so, four loads of hay were bought that winter. In 1444-5 John Gardiner, carpenter, was paid 13s. to build a small haystore in the East Park for the deer that were destined for the lord’s table. In 1467 it was re-thatched at a cost of 2s. 6d. and hay costing 21d. was bought for the deer. In 1445-6 we learn of the existence of a deer house, which was in need of thatching. The thatching straw cost 14d., three hundred shingles cost 7d. and 800 lath nails cost 8d. A tiler and his servant took 6 days to roof the house costing 5s. Hay continued to be bought for winter feed on numerous occasions.

Drinking water for the deer was plentiful. Both parks lay below the spring line and had streams, ponds or pits full of water. The 1283 survey noted a lake in the park. The pits in the East Park were formed by potters and tilers digging for clay. Clay-pits full of water still exist there today. In the parker’s account for 1443-4 Thomas Swartlyng earned 6s. 8d. working on the pits and bridges in the East Park and on the bridges in the West Park. Whether they were real bridges or causeways is unclear. In 1475-6 a pond near the lodge in the East Park was cleaned out for 4s.⁴⁴ In 1471 parker Bulteham spent 10s. cleaning a pond in the West Park specifically to have clean water for the deer and other animals.

Then in 1489, in the first account of the second Reginald Pekham to become parker, there appears a complete inventory of the deer in the two parks (Plate VI).⁴⁵ In the East Park there were 36 beasts of the chase and 10 fawns born that year. Five of the 46 had been killed. One sowre (a buck of the fourth year) went to Sir Thomas Bourghchier. A sowrell (a buck of the third year) died of murrain. A doe was killed on the lord’s orders for John Burgoyne, legal advisor. One sowrell was killed by the hunters, and one buck was distributed at Farnyngham by order of the lord.

In the West Park there were 57 beasts of the chase and 11 fawns remaining from the previous year. A buck was killed for the lord’s guest house at Lambeth. Another buck was killed for Mr J. Pympe and Mr Tuttesham, local property owners with royal connections. A sowre was distributed to his tenants by the lord. Two deer died of murrain and one doe escaped from the park. The ratio of deer killed for consumption to the total number of deer in the parks is 1:14.

In 1517 on a voucher at Lambeth Palace library appears another stock-taking of the deer, in English:⁴⁶

In the Est Parke of Wrotham

2 doo sent to Knoll [Knole]

I doo kellet (killed) by my lord of Burgavenny [neighbour at Birling]

2 bucks kellet my lord beying there.

murrains 1 sower, 1 sowrell, 3 doys, 4 fawns.

Der beyng alive - threscoor and twelve [72]

In the West Parke

1 buck to mistress Joyce Pekham by my lord’s warrant

1 buck delivered to master bedyll his servant by warrant

1 doo to Knoll

1 doo kellet by Mr Cheyney⁴⁷

1 doo kellet for Mistress Moyle by my lord’s command

murrains 1 bok 1 doo 4 fawns

Der being alive - 3 score and 14 [74]

Joyce was the wife of parker Reginald Pekham and the buck was perhaps an appreciation of his services. Mr Cheyney was worth cultivating because the head of his family, Sir Thomas Cheyney [of Shurland, Sheppey], was a favourite of Cardinal Wolsey. The ‘doo kellet for Mistress Moyle’ was a present for the archbishop’s immediate neighbour at Addington manor which lay on the eastern boundary of Wrotham manor.

In the early sixteenth century the two Wrotham parks were fully functioning deer parks supplying the lord’s table in various places, providing gifts for friends and hunting for guests. In 1517 the stock of deer in the East Park had risen by about 50 per cent. West Park deer numbers were six more than in 1489. Out of a total of 146 deer in both parks, ten went to somebody’s table and fifteen died. The yield of deer for consumption is about 1:14 the same as in 1489.

Poaching

None of the deer in the accounts was recorded as unlawfully killed or stolen. Deer poaching does not appear in the accounts or the court rolls since cases would have been heard at the assizes or quarter sessions.

What do appear in the local manorial courts are cases of people contra-vening the statute of 1389-90 which forbade anyone to keep a greyhound for hunting unless he held land to the value of 40s. per annum.⁴⁸ This legislation followed the Great Revolt of 1381 when it was assumed that common folk used hunting parties as a cover for conspiracies to rise against their lords; thus the right to hunt must be denied to those without sufficient estates, as a means of preserving public order. Forty shilling land holders might be expected to be law-abiding. However, hunting was a passion with all classes, for sport and for the pot and there is plenty of evidence that gentlemen and aristocrats were often the ringleaders in poaching gangs.⁴⁹

In the face of a determined attack on a deer park there was little defence that could be offered. In 1314, 1328 and 1333 there were complaints by the archbishop that his parks at Wrotham and Ightham had been entered by evildoers who felled trees and hunted and carried away the deer.⁵⁰ In 1423 malefactors came from a distance and executed a planned raid. Thomas Perot of Hertfield, Sussex, yeoman, and Roger King of Penshurst, Kent, husbandman, and certain other ‘peacebreakers and malefactors arrayed in manner of war’ broke into the parks of the said Archbishop … at Otford and Wrotham, Kent, hunted in them without licence, took and carried away his deer and beat and assaulted his men and servants.⁵¹

Some of the petty local crime was doubtless tolerated. A ‘nosey parker’ might see too much and complicate his daily life with the local peasants. If a park owner wished to pursue poachers in the courts he would have to lay a charge of trespass or unlawful hunting at the Assizes or Quarter Sessions. There was an ambivalence in society about the lawful and unlawful killing of game and the ethics of enclosing wild animals, which made the law difficult to enforce.

There were contemporaries who regarded deer parks as immoral. The Essex clergyman, William Harrison, writing in 1570, disapproved of parks calling them ‘devourers of people’. He deplored enclosing land to exclude agriculture, which would have supported families, in favour of ‘wild and savage beasts, cherished for pleasure and delight’.⁵² He guessed that a twentieth part of the realm was given over to deer and conies (rabbits). Oliver Rackham estimates that in 1300 two per cent of the country was covered with around 3,200 parks.⁵³

In 1570 Lambarde noted that parks were disappearing but warrens were increasing.

Parkes of fallow deere, and games of gray conies, it (Kent) maintaineth many, the one for pleasure, and the other for profit, as it may well appear by this, that within memorie almost the one half of the first sorte be disparked, and the number of warreyns continueth, if it does not increase daily.⁵⁴

Economics

Was Lambarde right? Were the Wrotham parks a rich man’s indulgence? Or were they profitable agricultural enterprises that contributed to the archbishop’s income? The parker’s accounts ought to give some indication but teasing out the information is not straightforward. The accounts are records of the monies received and expended by the parker and they attach no monetary value to products consumed within the archbishop’s estates, namely timber and deer.

The trees that were felled for internal consumption were listed by species and number but were not valued in cash terms. The only felled timber that had a value attached was that supplied to third parties. Nor was venison ever valued although, like the trees, the deer or carcasses that left the park were recorded. As Harrison observed, ‘Venison in England is neither bought nor sold as in other countries, but maintained only for the pleasure of the owner and his friends’.⁵⁵ The full-time deer-stealing gangs who supplied the black market could presumably have put a value on the archbishop’s venison if asked.⁵⁶

The numbers of deer provided by the parks for human consumption seem small. It may be that only exports were recorded and that regular supplies to the manorial household were taken for granted and not written into the accounts but no evidence exists for this in the Wrotham accounts and the value to the lord’s kitchen cannot therefore be estimated.

The accounts were not intended to show profit and loss as we understand those terms today. These were not concepts that mattered, at least in the short term, to a rich landowner such as the archbishop of Canterbury. In the long run considerations of alternative uses for the land made themselves felt and the land was used for other purposes. But indicating whether the parks were paying their way was not the purpose of the parker’s accounts, which were drawn up to audit the cash passing through the parker’s hands to ensure that at the year-end the account would balance.

Occasionally financial adjustments had to be made between the parker, the reeve and the farmer. Areas of responsibility could overlap and officers had to reimburse each other for work done or materials supplied. This complicates an understanding of the accounts.

The parker received money for sales of timber, firewood, coppice, clay, agistment and pannage. He expended money on wages, building materials, fodder for deer and food for guests. The parker’s wages were included in the costs of the park. Where there was a shortfall, money was drafted in from another account. This is clearly shown in the account for 1493. Income from agistment, wood and clay sales was 31s. 6d. Expenditure on hay, boundary maintenance and parker’s wages was 74s. 9d. A ‘foreign receipt’ from the reeve of Wrotham for 43s. 3d. balanced the account. In most years the account shows the parker either with money in hand or with a deficit. Arrears are carried forward to the next account.

In the years when the cash account was in surplus it was nearly always due to timber and firewood sales to third parties. These included the valuable contracts with Sexteyne and Wylshire already mentioned. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1542 values wood sales at £5 in a total value of the manor of £56 7s. 7¼d.⁵⁷ Agistment was only worth 26s. 8d.

Along with the deer, the hunting and the venison, the other unpriced benefit to the archbishop was the value of the substantial quantities of timber felled for building work on the estate.

Tree fellings are recorded in twenty of the accounts between 1382 and 1516. In the other years either no trees were felled or we have no record of felling. In some of those years there is plenty of evidence of pales, posts and rails being produced. Oak was best worked when green therefore trees must have been felled in those blank account years. There was no necessity to mention them in the accounts since they were not sold.

The total of oaks, beeches and alders recorded as felled in those twenty accounts is six hundred and forty one. Three hundred and forty-nine of these are accounted for by three major deliveries:

Maidstone Archbishop’s Palace 119 in 1394-5⁵⁸

Higham Ferrers almshouse 189 in 1427-8-9⁵⁹

Northflete Church and Manor 41 in 1482⁶⁰

This leaves two hundred and ninety-two, or an average of fifteen a year, to be felled for the maintenance of the fences and gates of the two Wrotham parks, and for similar work in the Archbishop’s parks at Otford and Maidstone and building repairs in Wrotham, Otford, Maidstone and Northfleet.

A reeve’s account of 1529 gives some rudimentary pricing of whole trees.⁶¹

To Arthur Purson divers parcels of coppice 26s. 8d.

J Gonne divers parcels of coppice 13s. 4d.

Arthur Purson 12 oaks 10s.

Hugh Cornford 1 beech 8d.

Reynold Peckham 10 beeches 20s.

John Norpokke and John Collyn 8 oaks and 4 beeches 3s.

This can hardly be taken as financially sound evidence but it gives a range of tree prices of 3d. to 2s. a tree, the price varying with the quality of the tree. It suggests a rough average price of perhaps 1s. per tree.

At the time a carpenter was paid 6d. a day so 1s. represents two days work. A carpenter today earns around £300 for 2 days work. A local timber merchant would today expect to pay about £300 for a standing oak suitable for building work which seems consistent with the price of 1s. suggested for 1529.⁶²

On this assumption, then, the value of the timber supplied to the High-am Ferrers, Maidstone and Northflete building projects would have been 349s. or £105,000 in today’s money. Similarly the annual felling of about 15 trees would have been worth 15s. or £4,500 today.

For the period 1382-1516, 53 legible parker’s accounts survive and, of these, 37 include the wages and stipend of the parker. The average annual cost of maintaining the East and West Parks in these 37 years is 102s. and of this 60s. 9d. or 60 per cent is accounted for by the salary, in money and kind, of the parker. Most of the remaining 41s. 3d. was spent on wages paid to men employed part-time on maintenance of the hedges, palings, ditches and gates of the parks and on repairs to the two park lodges, the deer shelters and fodder stores. When money was spent on the purchase of goods as distinct from wages, such as hay for the deer, tiles for the replacement of a roof or hinges for a gate, we can treat them as if they were a labour cost since they were all locally made items and labour was the main component of their cost.

For the same 37 years the average income from the two parks was 71s. 7d. This suggests an annual average deficit of 30s. 5d. so the 15s. value of the average annual felling of fifteen trees reduces the deficit but does not balance the books. Setting aside the question of the value of the deer, it is only in the bumper years of major building projects that the parks pay their way in financial terms.

The wages paid vary from 3d. per day for unskilled labouring to 6d. per day for a carpenter, with the majority concentrated around 4d. per day. If we take this as an average then the 41s. 3d. annual wages bill for the parks amounts to less than 20 weeks work for one man in each year. There are peaks of activity in 1419, 1438 and 1439 but even in the most expensive of these, 1419, the cost of 115s. excluding the parker, amounts to a little more than one man working full-time.

The archbishop’s parks were not therefore a significant source of employment for local people although a few people, notably dealers in firewood, potters and tilers found them a useful and legitimate source of loppings, coppice wood and clay for their own businesses.

Ownership of the parks in the sixteenth century and later

The deer parks changed economically and politically in the sixteenth century. Deer became less important than cattle and wood, and after generations of archiepiscopal rule, the manor was seized by Henry VIII in 1538, and many changes of ownership and land use followed.63 Until then, the East Park continued to be run as a park and accounts were kept which ceased in 1536. The herbage of the West Park was leased out from 1516 and in 1524 Archbishop Warham leased all of the West Park to Sir William Rede, his niece’s husband, in return for past and future favours. It consisted of ‘the lodge and all the hole lands enclosed within the parke pale and closure … called the West Parke of Wroteham ... wherin ... be nomaner of dere, with all maner of commodities and emolyments growing ... and also the herbage and pawnage of his parke called the East Parke of Wrotham ...; from 25 March next for 80 years at 26s. 8d. p.a. The farmer may dig, fell and grub up all trees, thorns, briars, bushes and underwood in West Parke and sell burn and dispose of them, in order to improve the pasturage but not oaks and beeches. The farmer shall maintain the buildings in the West Park and keep pasture in the East Park for up to 100 deer’.⁶⁴ Deer needed 1-2 acres of grazing per animal.⁶⁵ They never appear again in any document after 1524 so how long the deer herd lasted is unknown.

Leases of the manor and the parks changed hands several times in the next 50 years. Lambarde says that both parks were disparked by 1570. Robert Byng was the owner of Wrotham manor and the East Park from 1557 and it is probably Byng who divided the East Park into the twelve fields shown on the 1620 map (Plate I). In c.1649, ninety-two years of Byng ownership were terminated when Wrotham manor and the East Park were sold to William James of Ightham manor.⁶⁶ His son Demetrius James sold them on again in 1660 to George and Ann Bate.⁶⁷

The later history of the West Park and its lodge is intertwined with the development of Ightham Court which was rebuilt by Thomas Willoughby between 1560 and 1585. Although the property was called ‘Ightham Court Lodge’ this was always the manor house of Ightham, never a hunting lodge. The custom of calling a manor house ‘Court Lodge’ is common in Kent. The deer park, although so close to Ightham Court, did not belong to the lords of the manor of Ightham Court until 1640 when Nicholas Myller left one half of Ightham Park to his grandson Demetrius James.⁶⁸

The site of the West Park lodge was almost certainly at the highest point of the park, at 105m, within the moat shown in Fig. 3. Lodges were usually sited on an eminence from which the parker and huntsmen could survey as much of the park as possible. They were often surrounded by a moat for added security against poaching gangs who often laid siege to keepers in their lodges before raiding the park. A moat may also have enhanced the aristocratic mystique of a park.⁶⁹ In Plate II, a detail from the 1620 map, it is shown as a large pond but not a moated site. However, this is 70 years after the disappearance of the West Park lodge and any island or building would have been irrelevant to the mapmaker’s purpose. On the modern Ordnance Survey map the pond appears in the same location but as a moated site.⁷⁰ It may be the same moated site that is depicted on a Kip drawing of 1719 of Ightham Court (Fig. 6). Its formal gardens lie north of the house within the bounds of the old deer park. The track running from the moat to the road at the bottom of the picture is on the east-west line of the old deer park boundary. The moated island is in approximately the same position as the pond in Fig. 2 and Plate II. The whole area between the pond and the road is tree-covered, broken by paths. Other ponds and mounds are nearby and today, with the modern tree-cover, it is difficult to tell if the remains are eighteenth-century garden landscaping or sites of deer park buildings. They may be both.

Conclusion

To walk the deer parks today is to see only the ghosts of former enclosures. They are being eroded by sand pits to the south and the M 26 motorway cuts through them both to the north. But signs of the past still survive. In the East Park wood anemones at Chepsteds Corner recall ancient woodland where the deer once lived. In the same place, ridge and furrow strip cultivation runs from the road to stop where the old park boundary once stood. Water-filled pits mark where the potters came to dig their clay. And dotted through both parks are oak trees to recall the timber felled for medieval buildings still standing on the manor today. The deer have gone but the Laund where they once grazed remains bounded on three sides by water. From the Laund can be seen the tower of Wrotham church where the Pekham parkers are buried. The second Reginald Pekham, out of love of the chase and professional pride, has a memorial brass of a badge of three hunting horns (Plate VII).

Medieval deer parks existed as a national, cultural and economic phenomenon. This examination of two of them reveals details which illuminate their place in the local landscape and community and shows their involvement in wider commercial activities in the supply of timber and wood.

acknowledgements

Grateful thanks to Paul Barnwell, Edward Lade, Professor R.W. Hoyle, Sarah Pearson and Mary Tasker for help and advice and to Terence Lawson for editorial guidance. Thanks also to staff at the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, for assistance over many years.

endnotes

¹ Cantor, L., The Medieval Parks of England - a Gazetteer, Loughborough, 1983, 3.

² Ibid., pp. 42, 50, 72, 74, 76.

³ Du Boulay, F.R.H., The Lordship of Canterbury, New York, 1966, 284.

⁴ Witney, K. (ed.), The Survey of Archbishop Pecham’s Kentish manors 1283-5, KAS, Kent Records, Vol. 28, 2000, 287, 305, 306, 308.

⁵ Ibid., 370.

⁶ Ibid., 289.

⁷ Liddiard, Robert, ‘The Deer Parks of Domesday Book’, Landscapes, vol. 4, no. 1, 2003, 19, 20.

⁸ Ibid., 4-23.

⁹ Ibid., 18.

¹⁰ Ibid., 18.

¹¹ Rackham, Oliver, The History of the Countryside, 1986, pp. 125, 145.

¹² Witney, 2000, p. 287.

¹³ Liddiard, 2003, 10, 11. In this respect West Park resembled the pre-Conquest Benington Park, Herts., where a parish boundary follows part of the park boundary before changing direction to bisect a once larger park.

¹⁴ Ward, G., ‘The list of Saxon Churches in The Textus Roffensis’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xliv (1932), 29-59.

¹⁵ The manor of Ightham probably equated to the fee of Farman in the Domesday Book, see Domesday Book, Kent, Phillimore, 1983, 2, 10. In the twelfth century Ightham belonged to the barony of Eynsford, which also administered Wrotham for the archbishop, Du Boulay, 108-110.

¹⁶ Centre for Kentish Studies, CKS U55 M63.

¹⁷ They are to be found in the Centre for Kentish Studies, Lambeth Palace Library Estate Documents (LED) and the Public Record Office. CKS U55 M63-M66 (1382-93); LED 1152, 1154, 1155 (1419-27); CKS U55 M69 (1422-35), M70 (1435-1445), M71 (1446-67, 1488-90); LED 1240 (1453); TNA: PRO SC6 1130-1-10 (1469-82); LED 1247, 1249 (1484-87); TNA: PRO SC6 Hen VII 332-337 (1491-1502); CKS U55 M72 (1503-16); LED 1253-4-5-7-9 (1507-1522); TNA: PRO SC6 Hen VIII 1685-1698 (1509-36).

¹⁸ Du Boulay, 276.

¹⁹ Archaeologia Cantiana, xviii (1889), 373, 374; xcix (1983), 259-261.

²⁰ CKS U55 M20, court rolls.

²¹ Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR), 4 Edw VI, part II, 197.

²² Harrison W., The Description of England, Dover 1994, p. 269.

²³ CKS U55M69.

²⁴ CKS U55 M72.

²⁵ 29 September 1439 - 29 September 1440.

²⁶ CKS U55 M70.

²⁷ CKS U55 M71.

²⁸ TNA: PRO SC6 Hen VII-332.

²⁹ CKS U55 M70.

³⁰ LED voucher 1249. Vouchers were day to day working notes of expenses which often yield more detail than the finished accounts.

³¹ LED Voucher 1130-7.

³² CKS U681 P8.

³³ LED 1152.

³⁴ TNA: PRO SC6 1130-4.

³⁵ TNA: PRO SC6 HEN VII-332.

³⁶ OED paunch. This was an anti-chafing device, a wooden shield fixed on the foreside of a ship’s mast to preserve it from chafing when the masts or spars are lowered or raised. The seat of the ducking stool was presumably pulled backwards and forwards along a beam by means of ropes. When bearing the weight of a person there would be wear and tear on the main beam.

³⁷ TNA: PRO SC6 1129-8, 1130-1-10.

³⁸ CKS U55 M63.

³⁹ CKS U55 M69.

⁴⁰ Thirsk, J., ‘Horses for early modern England: for Service, for Pleasure, for Power’ (1977), reprinted in Thirsk, The Rural Economy of England (1984), 385-6.

⁴¹ LED voucher 1249.

⁴² ‘Sornyng’ means enforced hospitality. ‘Mothyng’ means ‘months old’.

⁴³ CKS U55 M69. A dam is a doe of the fallow deer.

⁴⁴ TNA: PRO SC6 1130-6.

⁴⁵ CKS U55 M72.

⁴⁶ LED voucher 1257.

⁴⁷ Archaeologia Cantiana, xxii (1897), 161, xxiii (1898), 86-93, xxiv (1900), 122-127.

⁴⁸ Statutes of the Realm, 13 Ric II, st. 1, c.13; SR ii 65.

⁴⁹ Manning, Roger B., Hunters and Poachers, A Social and Cultural History of Unlawful Hunting in England, 1485-1640, Oxford, 1993, pp. 135-170.

⁵⁰ CPR Edw II 1313-1317, 245, Edw II 1327-1330, 295, and 6 Edw III Part III, 391.

51 CPR 1 Hen VI Part IV 1422-1429, 124.

⁵² Harrison, Description, p. 256.

⁵³ Rackham, Countryside, p. 125.

54 Lambarde, Perambulation, p. 5.

55 Harrison, Description, p. 255.

⁵⁶ Manning, Hunters and Poachers, pp. 165-168.

⁵⁷ TNA: PRO E344-1.

⁵⁸ CKS U55 M66.

⁵⁹ CKS U55 M69.

⁶⁰ TNA: PRO SC6-1130-10.

⁶¹ TNA: PRO SC6-Hen VIII-1693.

⁶² Pers. comm. Orlestone Oak, Shadoxhurst, Ashford, Kent; and Wealden Oak Ltd., Edenbridge, Kent.

⁶³ Letters and State Papers Foreign and Domestic, vol. 13 Part I, pp. 570-1, number 1519.68.

⁶⁴ Du Boulay, F.R.H., ‘Calendar of archbishopric demesne leases 1503-1532’, Kent Records, vol. 18, 1964, 284, 72 fol. 243.

⁶⁵ Roberts, E., ‘The Bishop of Winchester’s deer parks in Hampshire, 1200-1400’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club Archaeological Society, 44, 1988, 79.

⁶⁶ Hasted, E., 1797, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Vol. 10, 2nd edition, p. 12.

67 CKS U830 T6-1

68 CKS U31 T53 (U5).

69 Stamper, P., ‘Woods and Parks’, in The Countryside of Medieval England, G. Astill and A. Grant (eds), Blackwell, 1988, 142.

⁷⁰ NGR TQ 45 5960 5780.

Fig. 1

Location of the manor of Wrotham.

Fig. 2 Former sites of the Wrotham deer parks, based on the tithe map of 1840.

Fig. 3 The map of West Park is based on the tithe map of 1840 and the estate map of 1620. It shows the post 1283 extension around the moated lodge site between the parish boundary and the park boundary. ‘West Park South’ is the hypothetical southern part of an earlier larger park.

Fig. 4 The map of the parishes of Wrotham hundred is based on the tithe map of 1840. Ightham was carved out of Wrotham at a late date. The parish boundary formed the southern boundary of West Park and perhaps bisected a greater park.

PLATE I

Detail of East Park taken from an estate map of 1620. (By kind permission of Warners, Solicitors, Tonbridge.)

PLATE II

Detail of West Park taken from an estate map of 1620. (By kind permission of Warners, Solicitors, Tonbridge.)

Detail from John Speed’s map of Kent, 1631, showing stylized parks near Wrotham in the shape of a circle or rounded rectangle surrounded by pales. Courtesy of the Kent Archives service from the collections at the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone

PLATE III

PLATE IV