More information : (Marginal). The Deer Park of Stafford Castle (SJ 92 SW 2) was disparked since 1735. (1)
Area SJ 9022. No trace of a park pale found during field work. (2)
A deer park at Stafford (presumably the Great Park) is first mentioned in 1284 (3a). In 1521 it was said to contain 400 deer and to have a boundary almost 3 miles long, although it is likely that its area expanded and contracted frequently: for example, in 1434 the Stafford Manor Accounts record no rent received for Castle Meadow `because it has been included in the Park at My Lord's command'. The precise location of the park is not known, but it has been suggested that it corresponds to lands around Stafford Castle still owned by the Stafford family in 1788, as shown on a series of estate maps. These maps include the field names Near and Far Parks, and others containing the element `Lawn' meaning an area of open grazing for deer (3b). Although not disparked until 1735, the park seems to have lost its deer by the seventeenth century for in 1607 land called the Lawnd was let out (3c). Milln has suggested that the park contained a deer course - a long straight enclosure where dogs chased deer (3d).
The possible boundaries of the park as suggested by auth 3b were perambulated during fieldwork connected with RCHME's survey of Stafford Castle, but no earthworks resembling a park pale were seen. (3)
(Area SJ 908 228). Research on the Stafford family papers by Dr Deborah Marsh for Stafford Borough Council, indicates that in the medieval period Stafford Great Park is likely to have covered a far greater area than that suggested by the 1788 maps, extending out to Derrington in the west, Doxey in the north, and the River Sow in the east. It also bordered Stafford Little Park (SJ 82 SE 16) in the west. This suggests that the two fields known in 1788 as Near and Far Parks lay within the Little Park, not the Great Park. Further details on the history of the park, together with a map showing its possible extent, are contained in the site report of RCHME's Stafford Castle Survey (4a) held in the NMR. (4) |