growing timber trees and coppice together. It was considered that fifteen oak trees, of sufficient size to produce 80 to 100 ft. of timber, would occupy an acre of land.[1]
A much longer report was made to the same Board by the celebrated Arthur Young in 1799; he was then acting as secretary to the Board.[2] In the section on Woods and Plantations (212–222) he speaks of the success attending the planting in the fens of 'the berry-bearing poplar,' which thrives very greatly, and much exceeds the growth of the Lombardy poplar, attaining to 18 or 20 feet in six years. At Osbournby, to the south of Sleaford, he noticed small plantations of the Dishley willow doing very well, and realizing twelve guineas an acre. Sir Cecil Wray had planted 260 acres, chiefly with Scotch firs, between 1760 and 1794, with profitable results. The Duke of Ancaster's woods (about four or five hundred acres) were cut at eighteen years' growth, realizing from £14 to £16 an acre. The Earl of Exeter's woods about Bourne paid him by underwood and timber about 20s. per acre per annum.
Particular information is supplied with respect to Sir Joseph Banks' woods (Revesby), which had been very carefully managed since 1727, in a rotation of twenty-three years. The produce per acre of timber, bark, poles, and brush was estimated at an average of £45 7s., cut once in twenty-three years, or £1 19s. 5d. per acre per annum. It was considered that the same land would not produce in an arable farm more than 10s. or 12s. an acre.
Lincolnshire now possesses the following seven deer parks:[3]—Brocklesby Park (the Earl of Yarborough) has an acreage of 1,000 acres, and is about three miles in length by one in breadth. It is well-timbered, and is bordered by various plantations. The fallow deer number about 350.
Belton Park (Earl Brownlow), near Grantham, which encloses about 800 acres, was formed under royal licence of 1690 out of lands in Belton, Londonthorpe, and Telthorpe, and enclosed with a wall five miles in circumference.[4] It contains some good timber and plantations, as well as two fine avenues. There is a herd of about 300 fallow deer.
Grimsthorpe Park (the Earl of Ancaster) is of ancient origin. Saxton, in 1576, marks here two parks, called respectively 'The Red-dere pk' and 'The Fallow-dere pk.' The great park, which lies chiefly to the south-west of the castle, embraces nearly 2,000 acres, and is 16 miles in circumference. The actual deer park, with some 400 fallow deer, is about 800 acres. There are also about fifty red deer, said to be the descendants of the original race that for centuries graced this ancient park. Much of the centre of the park is bare of trees, but elsewhere there is an abundance of good oaks and hornbeams, as well as many fine old mistletoe-bearing hawthorns.
Haverholme Priory Park (the Earl of Winchilsea), on the borders of the fen country near Sleaford, was enclosed between 1786 and 1790. It includes about 401 acres, and has a herd of 250 fallow deer. It is well wooded; the principal trees are oak, elm, horse-chestnut, ash and hawthorn. The park contains a willow tree (salix alba) supposed to be the largest in England; it has a girth of 26 ft. at 5 ft. from the ground. Haverholme was one of the best wooded parts of the county at the time of the Domesday Survey.
Normanby Park (Sir B. D. G. Sheffield, bart.), in the parish of Burton-upon-Stather, was enclosed in 1804. It has an acreage of 320 acres, and a herd of about 120 fallow deer. Most of the park is well timbered, but about 60 acres are covered with bracken, and serve as a rabbit warren.
Scrivelsby Park (F. S. Dymoke, esq.) covers about 300 acres, and feeds some sixty fallow deer. It is well wooded.
Irnham Park (Mrs. Wobrige-Gordon) contains 223 acres, and a herd of about seventy fallow deer. It is well planted, and possesses some exceptionally fine elm trees. This park is marked on Saxton's map.
There is also a large finely-wooded park at Syston (Sir J. H. Thorold, bart.), and one of smaller extent at Easton (Sir M. A. R. Cholmeley, bart.), equally well timbered; both of these were deer parks when Mr. Shirley wrote in 1867. There were 440 acres of woodland at Easton at the time of the Domesday Survey.
Six other parks, all fairly timbered, should be named—Aswarby, and Stoke, in the Kesteven Division, and Revesby, Ormsby, Hainton, and Riby in Lindsey.
The chief scientific planting in Lincolnshire during the eighteenth century was that accomplished by Sir Joseph Banks at Revesby. But this has been far surpassed in the nineteenth century, both in quantity and in tabulated results by successive earls of Yarborough. On the Brocklesby and Manby estates, in 119 years, namely, from 1787 to 1905 inclusive, upwards of 23¼ millions of trees have been planted. During the whole of this period an accurate record of every detail of
- ↑ T. Stone, General View of Agriculture, Lincoln (1794), 23, 34, 91–4.
- ↑ A. Young, General View of Agriculture, Lincoln (1799), an octavo vol. of 450 pages.
- ↑ The brief information given of each of these parks is chiefly taken from Shirley's Deer and Deer Parks (1867), 85–7 and Whitaker's Deer Parks of England (1892), 94–6, supplemented by local information.
- ↑ Saunders, History of County Lincoln, ii, 309.
