&sq=crain_ford&lang=en&file=File:Medieval_Hunting_Park.JPG)
&sq=crain_ford&lang=en&file=File:Deer_park,_Powderham_Castle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1416619.jpg)
&sq=crain_ford&lang=en&file=File:Deer_fencing,_Charlecote_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1568928.jpg)
In medieval and Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, a deer park (Latin: novale cervorum, campus cervorum) was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank, or by a stone or brick wall.[1] The ditch was on the inside[2] increasing the effective height. Some parks had deer "leaps", where there was an external ramp and the inner ditch was constructed on a grander scale, thus allowing deer to enter the park but preventing them from leaving.[3]
Deer parks could vary in size from a circumference of many miles down to what amounted to little more than a deer paddock.[4] The landscape within a deer park was manipulated to produce a habitat that was both suitable for the deer and also provided space for hunting. "Tree dotted lawns, tree clumps and compact woods"[5] provided "launds" (pasture)[6] over which the deer were hunted and wooded cover for the deer to avoid human contact. The landscape was intended to be visually attractive as well as functional.
- ^ Dry stone wall at Dyrham Park
- ^ Rackham, Oliver (1976). Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. Archaeology in the Field Series. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. p. 150. ISBN 0-460-04183-5.
- ^ Muir, Richard (200). The NEW Reading the Landscape. University of Exeter Press. p. 18.
- ^ Rotherham, I.D. (2007). "The ecology and economics of medieval deer parks" (PDF). Landscape Archaeology and Ecology. 6: 86–102. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2014. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
- ^ Muir, Richard (2007). Be Your Own Landscape Detective: Investigating Where You Are. Sutton Publishing. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-7509-4333-8.
- ^ Rackham, Oliver (1976). Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. Archaeology in the Field Series. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. p. 146. ISBN 0-460-04183-5.