FORESTRY was in Eltham and Lee, 336 acres. The deer of all three parks had been destroyed by the soldiers and common people during the preceding summer, and much of the park palings broken down and destroyed. In the first two of these parks, the Commonwealth surveyors marked 2,200 of the best trees to be reserved for the navy ; the trees left standing numbered 1,386, and were valued at £sS6. In Home Park, where most of the 2,620 trees were old and worn out, none were marked for the navy ; their value was estimated at -^917. The whole estate must have been splendidly wooded, for 3,700 trees on the Eltham demesnes were marked for the navy in addition to those in the parks. * Evil befel the timber of Eltham during the Commonwealth period, apart from that felled for navy purposes. Mr. Shirley cites from a book, published in 1660, called The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause, to the effect that ' Sir Thomas Walsingham had the Honour of Eltham given him, which was the Earl of Dorset's, and the Middle Park which was Mr. White's ; he has cut down ;f5,ooo worth of timber, and hath scarcely left a tree to make a gibbet.' - Greenwich had from early days been a royal residence, but there is no record of a park here until 1433, when Henry VI licensed Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, to inclose 200 acres of land pasture and wood at Greenwich to make a park. Within the park the duke erected a tower termed Greenwich Castle, now the observatory, and a spacious residence on lower ground. All this reverted to the Crown on his death in 1447.^ It became a favourite residence of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth. Hentzner, when travelling in England in 1598, makes this mention of Greenwich : ' Near this place is the Queen's Park, stocked with deer ; such parks are common throughout England, belonging to those that are distinguished either for their rank or riches.' * James I was often resident at Greenwich, and here were born his children. His queen, Anne of Denmark, took particular pleasure in Greenwich Park, and there laid the foundations of the ' House of Delight,' which afterwards served as the ranger's lodge. When Greenwich palace was turned into a hospital for aged and disabled seamen in 1694, the park was disjoined from the palace and still continues vested in the Crown. The park was walled round by James I, and includjs 188 acres. It contains some fine timber, particularly elms and Spanish chestnuts. There is a herd of about 100 fallow deer ; on Bank Holidays and special occasions, when there is great public resort to the park, the deer are confined to a small paddock. The chief episcopal parks of Kent were those of Otford and Aldington. The manor of Otford belonged to the see of Canterbury from the close of the eighth century onwards. The manor-house of Otford was a favourite residence of many of the primates, and here Archbishop Winch elsey died in 131 3. There were two parks on the estate, distinguished as the Great and Little, but the latter was disparked during the reign of Edward VI. The keeper of the Great Park, which was 700 acres in extent, had a yearly fee of £6 3/. ^d., and the keeper of the Little Park £6 is. Sd. Archbishop Cranmer exchanged Otford for other property with Henry VIII. It is of the Great Park of Otford that Lambard has put a foolish tale on record as to St. Thomas of Canterbury : — ' As Thomas a Becket walked on a time in the Olde Parke (busie at his prayers), that he was muche hindered in devotion by the sweete note and melodic of a nightingale that sang in a bushe beside him, and that therefore (in the might of his holy- nesse) he injoined that from henceforth no byrde of that kynde shoulde be so bolde as to sing thereaboutes.' * The vast manor of Aldington, by far the largest in the county and lying chiefly within the forest or Weald, was also one of the earliest endowments of the see of Canterbury. Here the primate had a great park adjoining the manor-house. The Hundred Rolls of 1275, among a list of many irregularities, show that Master Richard de Clifford, the escheator, sold wood in the Archbishop's park at Aldington, at the time of the vacancy of the see of Canterbury, to the value of 66s., and took twenty deer and more in the same park.^ This estate was also alienated by Archbishop Cranmer to Henry VIII, who coveted every possible hunting ground within reasonable reach of London. There are several brief records as to the inclosing of parks in the woodlands of Kent among the Patent Rolls. William de Say, in 1262, gained the licence of Henry III to impark his wood of Hanger within the bounds of the forest of Pembury.'
- Pari. Surv. Aug. Off., cited in Hasted's Kent, i. 52-3.
2 Shirley, Deer and Deer Pjrks, 70. ^ Hasted, Kent, 1. 19. < Lysons, Environs, i. 519. 6 Lamh:ird, Perambulation of Kent, ^j.
- Furley, op. cit. ii. 137. ' Pat. 46 Henry III, m. 20.
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