Stoke Park.In addition to red deer, Mr. W. Bryant, the owner, kindly informs me that there are at present about 100 fallow deer here. Whitaker (1892) stated the number at about 200.
Stowe Park. In addition to red deer, it is stated by Whitaker (1892) to contain about eighty-six fallow deer. Lipscomb's plate of this house shows deer in the park. Whaddon Hall. Up to 1840, deer, apparently red as well as fallow, existed in a wild state in Whaddon Chase, some 2,200 acres; but now the chase is enclosed and in great part cultivated, and the deer destroyed. Only some fifty head of fallow deer remain in the park. Evidence of the existence of the Chase and of the ' venison ' contained therein, as early as the reign of William Rufus is furnished by Lipscomb. [1]
Besides the above mentioned deer parks, deer were formerly living at the following places, and I do not suppose this list is a complete one.
Bernwood Forest. Originally the western portion of the great Chiltern Forest. It doubtless contained red deer as well as fallow, though only the latter are actually mentioned in inquisitions recorded in the chartulary of Boarstall, where in 1363 and 1364 three persons were severally accused that each ' interfecit unam damam.'[2] Bernwood was disforested in the reign of James I., though very likely fallow deer at any rate remained later at Boarstall, where another estate called 'The New Park' is mentioned in 1654. [3]
Bulstrode Park.In Hedgerley parish, containing about 800 acres, is mentioned by Lipscomb as 'stocked with a great number of deer,' and is included in Shirley's English Deer Parks, published in 1867. A print in my collection, labelled ' Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire,' engraved by Walker from an original drawing by Corbould, published 1794, shows numerous deer in the park; three in the foreground are drawn with unmistakable red deer horns, though of course this evidence as to species is quite untrustworthy. In a paper in the Records of Bucks, v. 330, the late Rev. Bryant Burgess stated that the last Duke of Portland who lived here, apparently meaning the third duke, as the fourth duke sold the property in his lifetime in 1814, directed in his will that the fine herd of deer in the park should be killed and buried. The executors faithfully carried out this direction, but the venison was dug up again before it had become high. If this story is true deer may have been subsequently reintroduced.
Claydon House.In the third volume of Memoirs of the Verney Family are quoted several attempts of Sir Ralph Verney to purchase deer for the park at Claydon. In 1657 we are told that ' Sir Ralph's next project was to have a deer-park.' Apparently the idea was put into his head by acting as agent or ambassador for his cousin, Richard Winwood of Quainton. On 28 December of that year (?) (misprinted 1688), Sir Ralph induced his uncle, Doctor Denton, to accompany him to the Fleet prison, to bargain with Lord Monson, an Irish peer, one of the regicides, for his herd of deer at Grafton Regis Park, just over the Northants border west of Hanslope, which ' Cousin Winwood ' was anxious to buy, ' where ' (as Sir Ralph wrote next day):
at first my Lord, having almost forgot my Uncle, seemed somewhat shy, and carelesse of parting with his Deere, but as soon as hee caled him to minde, confessed clearly they cost him money, and yeelded him neither profit, nor pleasure, and was very inquisitive what his Friend would give (for you were never named), and at last told him, hee knew not what to aske, but intreated him . . . to get as much as hee could for a Poore Prisoner.
The negotiations begun with Lord Monson in the Fleet prison for the purchase of deer stretched over a considerable time. Doll Smith (Dorothy Hobart, who married W. Smith of Akeley, afterwards Sir William) wrote (27 October 1657) of some deer offered to her husband from Lord Gray's park (apparently in Herts, somewhere near St. Albans):
. . . but non but dows, & fawnes, and prickets & prickets sisters . . . twenty shillins a peece for all thees, one with another, & that he must be tyed to take twenty brace of them for else they will not bestow the making of a cops to take them.
About the same time Thomas Stafford was procuring deer for Sir Ralph from Mr. Dodesworth of Harrold Park in Beds, about five miles north-east of Olney.
In June 1658 (?), after an infinite amount of negotiation, Lord Monson was ready to accept an offer for his deer at Grafton Park; Sir Ralph intended to buy them all and then to divide them with ' Cousin Winwood.' On 1 January 1659 the latter wrote:
Because you desire to know what price I can
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