17C Manor House deer parks, gardens & orchards

17C Manor House deer parks, gardens & orchards

Land slowly devolved from royal control. Ownership of deer parks, once the prerogative of the monarch, became more widely permissible.

Belton Park (HE Grade I) (Image: Steffie Shields)

Thanks to Stukeley’s biography of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726) we know the story, and how the famous apple tree Malus ‘Flower of Kent’  on view from his bedroom study at Woolsthorpe Manor (National Trust), inspired the discovery of the force of gravity.

Stukely wrote: ‘After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden, & drank thea (sic) under the shade of some apple trees, only he, & myself.’

Woolsthorpe Manor (Image: Steffie Shields)

A specimen of Malus ‘Flower of Kent’ (Image: Steffie Shields)

It seems likely that the east-facing walled enclosure at nearby Easton Walled Gardens (HE Grade II) also once sheltered an orchard.

Relatively few orchards remain in Lincolnshire. The whole Colsterworth area, once filled with orchards, was described by Stukeley as ‘the Montpelier of England’.