Читать книгу Knole and the Sackvilles онлайн

21 страница из 45

It would appear that the park, now entirely under grass, was once ploughland, for there is at Knole a deed of the time of Richard Sackville, fifth Earl of Dorset—that is to say, the middle of the seventeenth century—which accords to four farmers “the liberty to plough anywhere in the Park except in the plain set out by my Lord and the ground in front of the house, and to take three crops, and it is agreed that one-third of each crop after it is severed from the ground shall be taken and carried away by my Lord for his own use. The third year, the farmers to sow the ground with grass seed if my Lord desires it, and they are to be at the charge of the seed, the tillage, and the harvest.” Later on, in the time of Charles I, hops were grown, not only around the park, but also in it. Women employed in picking the hops were paid 5d. a day, but for cleaning and weeding the ground they only received 3d. At this time also cattle were fed in the park during the summer, and belonging to the same date (about 1628) are the bills for “Moles caught, 1½d. each”; “Mowing the meadows,” at the rate of 1s. 6d. per acre; “Making hay,” also at 1s. 6d. per acre; “Carriage of hay from the meadows to Knole barn,” ssss1s. 4d. per load; “one hay fork and 2 hay forks together,” 1s. 8d. For “hunting conies by night and ferret by day” 4s. was paid; the expenses involved by the “conies” for one year were exactly £10, which included £5 5s., a year’s wages for the “wariner”; but, on the other hand, this was money well expended, for the revenue from “conies sold” covers no less than a fifth part of the year’s total income. The “wariner,” although his £5 5s. a year hardly seems excessive, did better than the “wood-looker,” who, for his woodreeveship for a year, was paid only £2.