A HISTORY OF RUTLAND of 2s. td. ' paid Thomas Ransom for a boy watch- ing the gates in buck season.' In Lord Notting- ham's will occurs this clause : ' I would have her (Lady Nottingham) have venison out of ye park as she has occasion . . . and though I intend to take ye whole park into my hands, yet I think it will be best yf you lett such parts of it as are now in tennants hands but grant no liberty of ploughing any part thereof.' The park-like grounds of over i,ooo acres have, however, since this date, been much more subdivided and in parts cultivated. The deer have long ago vanished. There are at the present day two fine deer parks in the county, those of Exton and Normanton. Exton Park, the seat of the Earl of Gains- borough, was inclosed by licence of Charles I in 1639. The park has an area of 923 acres, in- cluding 69 acres of inclosed wood. It is now (1908) stocked with a large herd of about 450 fallow deer, 52 red deer, and 23 Japanese deer. The red deer were introduced in 1887 from Lowther Castle. The park of 923 acres is splendidly timbered with every variety of forest trees ; some of the oaks are exceptionally fine. A plantation of 14 acres, chiefly birch, has been recently planted. A wood of 69 acres, chiefly oak, in the middle of the park, is sometimes called Bohemian Wood. The Queen of Bohemia, sister of Charles I, at one time lived here, and used to walk round this wood through a path which still exists and is known as the Queen's Walk.^' Normanton Park, the seat of the Earl of Ancaster, incloses 400 acres and is stocked with a herd of about 350 fallow deer." It is well timbered in clumps ; there are also some very fine single oaks and elms. Rutland has not shared in the general rise throughout England in the amount of woodland due to the greater attention that has been given to modern and improved methods of arboricul- ture and forestry. Nevertheless the falling off has been but trifling. The total acreage in Rut- land of woods and plantations in 1888 was 3921 ; this total had dropped in 1891 to 3,838. The latest woodland return was drawn up in June 1905, when the total was still further reduced to 3,819. The separate (unpublished) parochial returns of woods and plantations of 1905 show that eighteen out of fiftv-seven parishes have no woodland. Exton has 680 acres, Burley 505, Empingham 398, whilst three other parishes exceed 300 acres. '^ From information kindly supplied by Mr. Maurice Berkeley. " These numbers are taken from Whitaker's Dur Paris of 1892. 258
