be contented to give, I doe as in all cases of purchase, ground myselfe uppon the markett, which is twentie shillings for every Deere above a Fawne ... the purchaser being att all the charges of taking and bringing away, & thirtie shillings a piece to have them delivered to me att Quainton. I shall expect the full indevor of the Keepers to holpe me in the taking of them, and to paie my money when I receave them.
Further on we read of two of the deer at Claydon getting drowned and of others sickening in the winter, and of the steward's distress thereat. In the spring of 1660 ' Cousin Winwood ' was negotiating for Sir Ralph Verney the purchase of the deer from Fawley Court as above mentioned. The deer are again referred to in 1665 and 1681.
Ditton Park. Ditton Park is about three miles from Stoke Park; and in a description of Windsor Forest and its Liberties, by Norden,[1] Surveyor of Woods to James I., it is stated that 'Ditton Parke hath about 220 deere, about 50 of antler, and 2O buckes,' and contained 'about 195 akers good ground.' Deer ' of antler ' would mean the young males, the ' buckes ' being those of four years and upwards.
Doddershall House, in Quainton parish. The deer park here was converted into arable and meadow on the death of the Dowager Countess Say and Sele, whose second husband (of three) was John Pigott, Esq., in 1789.
Hartwell House.A print in my collection is labelled 'Hartwell House Buckinghamshire,' engraved by S. Middiman from an original drawing by Metz, published 1793. Five deer are shown close to the front of the house; black spots on some seem to indicate fallow deer, but the horns are too small and conventionally drawn to afford any indication of species.
Quainton Park. Has been mentioned under the heading of Claydon Park. The Winwoods' house was partly demolished, and the remainder converted into a farm, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Salcey Forest. Chiefly in Northamptonshire, but as a small portion is in Hanslope parish it must be mentioned as a former habitat of deer in Bucks. It has been disforested within living memory, and I have seen small fallow deer horns from animals formerly inhabiting it.
Thornton Hall.In Memoirs of the Verney Family, ii. 160, Lady Sussex, writing in July 1643, says:
Sr edwarde terell was a little fearfull; prince robort [ = Rupert] hade bene hontinge att his parke [i.e. Thornton], . . .; he kailde fife buckes, shote them and his doge boy poullede them down, he dide not ride att all.
Turville Park.Fallow deer were perhaps introduced when the present house was built by William Perry, shortly after 1735. They were got rid of probably between 1858 and 1863, during which period there were several changes in the ownership of the property. Mrs. Stafford O'Brien Hoare informs me that an old farmer named Pitcher, of Ibstone, who died two or three years ago, told her that he had helped to drive the deer from here to Stonor Park in Oxon, only about three-quarters of a mile distant. A track from one park to the other was temporarily prepared and fenced. Langley mentions this as a deer park.
West Wycombe Park.Sir Robert J. Dashwood, Bart., the owner, kindly showed me a 'Survey made by John Richardson, 1767, of the Manor of West Wycombe, then belonging to Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Baron Le Despencer,' in which several deer are figured in the park, and a man out of all proportion in size, is shooting at one at extremely short range. An oil painting of a view of the house now in one of the bedrooms, shows deer in the park. The dress of a lady in the picture seems to mark the date at about 1790. Without much doubt the deer were fallow, but Sir Robert knows nothing as to the date of their introduction or removal. Langley observes that ' though the wood has not yet acquired the venerable appearance of a more ancient deer-park, yet it is making considerable advances,' etc. Langley's work was published in 1797, and it would seem therefore that deer were only here for a comparatively short time.
[The Roe Deer. Capreolus capreolus.
BellCapreolus caprea.
The roe has long been exterminated from this county, and its remains are scarce. We obtained several bones in the pile village at Hedsor of Romano-British date, and there are two or three unlabelled horns in the Museum at Aylesbury, probably from the latter neighbourhood, and of uncertain date, but apparently ancient.]
[Wild Cattle.
Wild Cattle or some kind inhabited the Chiltern forests in late Saxon and early Norman times, [2] but there is no record of a
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