Flitteriss Park is an ancient deer park in the English Midland counties of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

and

Rutland Rutland is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Leicestershire to the north and west, Lincolnshire to the north-east, and Northamptonshire to the south-west. Oakham is the largest town and county town. Rutland has a ...

west of Oakham. It is a modern livestock farm today but has a rich history.

History

Flitteriss Park was enclosed by royal grant as a

Medieval deer park In medieval and Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, a deer park () 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. The ditch was on the ins ...

and royal hunting ground in 1250. Henry III granted

Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall Richard (5 January 1209 – 2 April 1272) was an English prince who was King of the Romans from 1257 until his death in 1272. He was the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême. Richard was nominal Count of P ...

the right to enclose the park with a ditch and hedge. This was to be enclosed within the Royal forest of Leighfield. However, an inquest two years later found that "the wood is outside the said forest bordering the county of Leicester" The park remained with the Earl and formed part of his

Dower Dower is a provision accorded traditionally by a husband or his family, to a wife for her support should she become widowed. It was settlement (law), settled on the bride (being given into trust instrument, trust) by agreement at the time of t ...

to the family of

Isabel Marshal Isabel Marshal (9 October 1200 – 17 January 1240) was a medieval English countess. She was the wife of both Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford and 5th Earl of Gloucester and Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall (son of King John of England). Wi ...

, his wife. Thereafter a succession of absent landlords made illegal hunting a rife practice in the park. In 1372, William Flore was paid to provide a palisade for the park. The same Flore's House still exists today in

Oakham Oakham is a market town and civil parish in Rutland (of which it is the county town) in the East Midlands of England. The town is located east of Leicester, southeast of Nottingham and northwest of Peterborough. It had a population of 12,14 ...

. In 1373 the first mention is made of a hunting lodge at Flitteriss. The problem of absentee landlords was in part down to the fact that the park was stated to be held by the castle and manor of Oakham, but since the boundary territory was disputed, little care was taken with the parkland. By the end of the fourteenth century, the park was still maintained as a royal hunting park and the last record of such is in 1459 when

Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, 6th Earl of Stafford, 7th Baron Stafford (15 August 1402 – 10 July 1460) of Stafford Castle in Staffordshire, was an English nobleman and a military commander in the Hundred Years' War and t ...

used this and one other nearby park. The park however remained in the ownership of the Marshal family. The park was passed to the Noel family in the early part of the sixteenth century through marriage. It remained within the Noel line until the last Noel resident, Charles Noel, 2nd Earl of Gainsborough. The orchard at Flitteriss was established in 1530 according to Squires. There are examples of

Quercus petraea ''Quercus petraea'', commonly known as the sessile oak, Welsh oak, Cornish oak, Irish oak or durmast oak, is a species of oak tree native to most of Europe and into Anatolia and Iran. The sessile oak is the national tree of Ireland, and an un ...

and

Juglans regia ''Juglans regia'', known by various common names including the common walnut, English walnut, or Persian walnut amongst other names, is a species of walnut. It is native to Eurasia in at least southwest and central Asia and southeast Europe, ...

of a great age. There is also an ancient

Fagus sylvatica ''Fagus sylvatica'', the European beech or common beech, is a large, graceful deciduous tree in the Fagaceae, beech family with smooth silvery-gray bark, large leaf area, and a short trunk with low branches. Description ''Fagus sylvatica'' i ...

with evidence of carvings. The hunting lodge remained intact for 550 years until it crumbled in 1920 and today only patchy ruins exist where it once stood. Original farm buildings still stand to the east of the existing farm. The stone used for construction was quarried on site. The remains of the house was used to build a house in the nearby village of Knossington. Today the Park is permanent pasture farmland and little wooded area remains between the ancient woodlands of Ladywood and Cold Overton Park.

County high point

The highest point in Rutland is within the historic park, southwest of Glebe Farm radio mast, at 197 m (646 ft) above sea level, and topped with a

trig point A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The station is usually set up by a map ...

. Grid Reference: SK8271708539

Notable residents

* Charles Noel, 2nd Earl of Gainsborough

Other Examples

Flitteriss Park lends its name to
pedigree racehorse
winning many UK and US races.

References

{{coord , 52, 39, 48, N, 0, 46, 58, W, type:forest_region:GB-RUT, display=title Parks and open spaces in Leicestershire Parks and open spaces in Rutland Oakham