© Copyright Friends of Belper Parks, St Johns Chapel, The Butts, Belper, DE56 1HX, U.K. Site update 1st September 2008
Background aerial photograph courtesy of Amber Valley Borough Council
Each park was surrounded by a wooden fence, designed to keep cattle out but allow deer to move in and out freely. Some had hunting lodges, where the nobles could gather and at least one had a "chase" where deer and other game might be channeled into a narrow passage to be attacked by the hunters in full view of spectators on a hill above. Belper Park was the smallest and seems to have functioned as a breeding ground. It also had the "Great Larder", where deer were killed and salted for venison, for the whole Frith. The boundary was roughly kidney shaped, included part of the Coppice Brook, where deer could drink, and the area now known as the Coppice as well.
View of Park Side and Coppice Brook from inside the park circa 1900.
You can see two walls, the inner wall was the actual park boundary and the outer wall was the limit of the “freeboard”. The Freeboard was a no-man’s land between the park and the outside world, so there could be no dispute about poaching and to allow maintenance of the pale.
You can also see the Water Gate across the brook, which is another feature of deer parks, intended to stop animals entering or leaving via the stream.
