Place record MDO47982 - Minterne Magna

It has been suggested, based on a reference in an historic document of 1238 , that there may have been a deer park in the vicinity of Hartley. This is now considered unlikely.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 167-170 (Monograph). SDO97.

Wilson, J D, 1978, The Mediaeval Deer-Parks of Dorset XV; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 32 (Article in serial). SDO13958.

‘HARTLEY (20). Hartley, in Minterne Magna parish half a mile north of High Stoy hill, was included in the list of Dorset parks by virtue of a reference in the Close Rolls of 1238. It records a gift of oak trees from ‘the King’s wood of Hartley, outside the park’. (Cal. CR. Henry III, 1237-1242, p.31). This is enigmatic, since no other reference to a park here has been found and there are no characteristic earthworks in the locality. Moreover, Col. Drew demonstrated that Hartley formed the remaining nucleus of the Forest of Blackmore after Edward I drastically reduced it in 1299-1330, and the perambulation which he quoted makes no mention of a park (Drew, p. 34). It therefore seems unlikely that a medieval deer-park existed at Hartley.’

Record last edited

Feb 18 2025 2:51PM