Monument record MDR14122 - Ashbourne deer park (suggested site of), Ashbourne

The extent of Ashbourne medieval deer park, as suggested by Wiltshire & Woore [2009]. In about 1546, a map was drawn up to settle a dispute over enclosure of common pasture between Thomas Cokayne and Matthew Kniveton. The Cokayne family held land in Ashbourne under the Duchy of Lancaster from the 14th until the 17th century. The c. 1546 map shows a paled park leading from Thomas Cokayne's house. The Cokayne family were keen hunters; and Thomas Cokayne wrote a treatise on hunting on his tomb, 1537, in Ashbourne Church, part of which describes him impaling three parks. It is considered likely that one of these parks was at Ashbourne. From the c. 1546 map it is clear a park existed, and documentary evidence from 1600 places it at Clifton and Compton, perhaps centred on Lodge Farm. Here a convincing plot can be traced on OS mapping, covering much of what is now a housing estate, Keepers Ley, and Ashbourne Golf Course. Interestingly, an adjacent plot is shown as a moat on the Sturston Tithe Award, perhaps the site of an early manor house. (1)