Clipstone Park

The deer park was enclosed in 1180 with a fence 7 miles in length.  To ensure plenty of deer, the fence had a ditch on the inside making it high enough to stop deer jumping out but at several points leaps were constructed that let the deer jump in. A length of the ditch and jump can still be seen in Kings Wood at Warsop Windmill.

Even after the palace fell into disuse the Park was maintained, changing little until about 1640. In 1630, Robert Butler, steward to Willam, Duke of Newcastle wrote ‘ the wood within the paling, the outwood and a little addition would pay the upkeep of  the park itself’.  The Civil War years saw the park plundered to provide timber and charcoal. At the restoration of the monarchy the Duke, who had been in exile after taking the royalist side during the civil war, returned to the country and set about restoring the park.

Parliament Oak 

Records suggest that three parliaments were held at Kings Clipstone,  The most important was in 1290 when Edward I summoned his lords and nobles. The parliament was a huge undertaking, altogether 251 pleas with petitions were presented to the King. Clerks and others were lodged at nearby Warsop so accomodation must have been very stretched at the palace.  The parliament gathered in November so the legend that says that its meetings were held under the tree seems far fetched. Some historians think that the tree was planted at the time to commemorate the parliament.
It was at this time that Clipstone first obtained the royal part of its name when the Queen’s Remembrancer wrote Clipstone Regis.

Churn Oak is a distortion of Church Oak and was used as meeting place.

 St Edwin’s Cross and Hermitage

The cross, erected in 1912, marked the site of the chapel and hermitage of St Edwin, the King of Northumbria, who had become the first Christian king in Britain when he married  King Ethelbert of Kent’s  Christian daughter. He was slain at the battle of Hatfield in 633 by the pagan King Penda of Mercia. Legend says that Edwin’s body was then carried deep into the forest . The battle may have been at Hatfield chase near Doncaster but there is strong evidence that it was near Hatfield, a tiny hamlet close to Cuckney, just a few miles north-west of the chapel. In 1951 excavations under Cuckney Church found the mass grave containing the remains of about 600 bodies, all male.

The Hermitage of St Edwin is well documented during the time of the Plantagenets. In 1201, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Derby paid 20s to the chaplain of Clipstone. In 1212 King John started regular payments for ‘there ministering for the soul of King Henry’, his father. Similar payments by succeeding kings were paid until the time of Henry VIII.

 Cavendish Lodge

The Duchess of Oxford, who was rebuilding Welbeck at the time, wanted a quiet place to escape to during the week.  The house, or cottage as she called it, had a small hall, an octagonal dining room, a drawing room, a bedchamber and dressing room. These room where added to an existing house, which became the servants quarters. The Duchess’s extension was built with stone taken from Clipstone Hall, which in turn had been built with stone taken from the palace. Lots of other recycled materials were used as it was only intended as a temporary arrangement. The duchess wrote ‘ as the roads around it are always good, I shall spend half the week there, taking only a maid and a footman with me’.

Beeston Lodge and the Spa Ponds

In 1316 at a time of  great famine and much turbulence in the country, Edward II gave instructions for the building of a pele as a defence against his archenemies the King of Scots and the Earl of Lancaster. A defensive wooden wall was erected with a strong stone tower. The Maun, which meandered below the pele, was diverted to make a pond. 198 acres of land were enclosed from the park to make new pastures and arable land.  The stone gatehouse with walls 3 feet thick guarded the entrance to the pele and sat on a hill above the Spa Ponds.

In 1327, after four good harvests and less unrest in the country, Edward III gave orders to Roger de Clipstone to remove all the buildings in the pele, except the stone gatehouse which became known as Beeston Lodge and was still in use in 1670 when Mr Gosling, attorney at law lived there. The name of Peafield Lane derived from pele field and two field names are still in use that date back to this time, Peafield and Holmdale. 

The Spa ponds, which are now a local nature reserve, are fed by a strong clear spring. In a  letter dated  23^rd December 1749  sent from Welbeck  by the Countess of Oxford  to her friend Lady Mary Montague, she wrote ‘There is a mineral spring no further away than in Clipstone Park which restores some to health but does not agree with me’. It is most likely that the ponds were formed when the pele was built. Old stone culverts and sluices which have been uncovered on the site indicate a dam had been constructed.