Site of Henley Great Park

1 The Great Park of Henley, although so called, was actually situated in Beaudesert. It lay immediately N and NW of the Henley boundary, that is of a line running from the old weighing-machine house down the back of Henley-in-Arden High Street to the Bear Lane and then SE to where it touches Ullenhall parish. The land occupied by the present Park Farm (SP16NW) must have been included in it. The Great Park is first mentioned in 1296 in connection with deer that were hunted there illegally, and in 1326 it was said to include 300 acres of wood. It was for a long time empaled for deer and in 1535 deer were still kept there, but in 1547 it was described as disparked and in the King’s hands for the ‘sustenation of his foals and mares’. It is not marked on Saxton’s maps of Warwickshire (1603).
2 Noted.
3 Although no extant remains of the pale were found, the course probably followed the Beaudesert-Wootton Wawen parish boundary.
4 Photocopied maps of the area showing the possible course.