Abstract

The legitimate means of populating a deer-park in the medieval period were principally by imparkment of woods already containing deer coverts, a royal grant of live deer, or the use of salters (deer-leaps) licensed by the monarch. Salters encouraged and enabled deer to enter parks through modified pale fence systems, but impeded their egress. Private parks within or close to forests were scrutinised to identify and control unauthorised salters entrapping royal deer.Using medieval accounts, Chancery documents, postmedieval park maps, antiquarian sources and place-name evidence, the paper reviews salter licensing and control by the Crown. Salter and pale fence designs are described and classified, and two salter types and associated fencing are defined: lowered pale fences, and ramped revetments providing a drop into the park, each with its characteristic groundworks, earthworks and topographical settings. Salters may also be associated with short offsets in the pale course.Contemporary maps showing salters are very uncommon. In 1608, a dispute between the Duchy of Lancaster and the owner of Leagram deer-park within the Duchy’s forest of Bowland, Lancashire, led to the making of an accurate, scaled map by local surveyor Roger Kenyon. Kenyon marked sixteen salters in the pale, which have been used to predict the locations of relict salters in the park boundary. An exploratory field survey, employing salter identification guidelines developed from the historical review, subsequently discovered and characterised probable salter groundworks at six of the sites.