Trent Park once formed a small part of Enfield Wood, a huge common land forest. The forest belonged to no one, and was therefore used freely by the people of all the surrounding villages, including Enfield. The inhabitants of these villages hunted wild game, brought their cattle there to pasture, fattened their pigs on beech mast and acorns, collected honey to brew mead, cut timber for building and gathered wood for fuel.
In the ninth century, all common land became private property when Manorialism was enforced on the peasantry. However, landowners allowed them to continue using the land, understanding that their
own prosperity relied on the commoners’ wellbeing. They therefore continued to have rights of passage and could use the vital resources that the woodland provided for them.
The earliest known lord of the estate was Ansgar, staller to Edward the Confessor, who had inherited Enfield Wood from his Danish ancestors.
After the Norman invasion of 1066, it passed to Geoffrey de Mandeville and his descendants, who included his infamous grandson, Geoffrey de Mandeville the 1st Earl of Essex (see appendix). It was he who first established a boundary around Enfield Wood in 1136, converting the area into a hunting park. Officers and keepers were appointed and the park was stocked with fallow deer. Commoners were allowed to continue using the land, but were strictly forbidden from taking the deer. Around this time, the recorded names for the area included ‘The Park’, ‘The Great Park’, ‘The Park of Enfield’ or ‘Enfield Wood’, and was onlyfirst recorded as a ‘Chase’ in 1322.
At the time of its deforestation, Enfield Chase spanned an area covering 8,349 acres (34km2). Only four stretches of the original Chase now survive: Monken Hadley Common, Fir and Pond Woods, Whitewebbs Wood and Trent Country Park.
After the de Mandevilles, the estate passed by marriage to the de Bohuns. Mary de Bohun, daughter and co-heir of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, was the first wife of Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV in 1399. In 1419, the estate passed into the hands of his son, Henry V, and from 1421 was administered by the Duchy of Lancaster.
Enfield Chase had passed into royal ownership.
For over 350 years the Chase served as a royal hunting forest. Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I all enjoyed hunting there. There is a record from 1557 that tells a story of a young Princess Elizabeth being escorted from Hatfield House to Enfield Chase by a retinue of twelve ladies in white satin, on ambling palfreys, and a hundred and twenty yeomen in green on horseback, so that she might hunt the hart. On entering the Chase, she was met by fifty archers in scarlet boots and yellow caps, armed with gilded bows, each of whom presented her with a silver-headed arrow, winged with peacocks’ feathers. When a buck was captured, the Princess had the privilege of cutting his throat.
During the 1650s, the Cromwellian government started selling off plots of Enfield Chase, in order to clear arrears in army pay. However, as the rights of the commoners were not taken into account, they revolted, breaking into farms, smashing up the houses, and destroying hedges and ditches. By 1660, the Republican Government had come to an end and The Royal Chase was restored.
However, over the years, it proved more and more difficult to maintain order in The Chase, with poachers and unauthorised colonists settling within the boundary, and valuable timber being felled for unauthorised profiteering. The increasing population also meant a growing need for more farmland.
In 1777, George III deforested the 8,349 acres (34km2) that made up The Chase. Many areas were assigned to surrounding parishes and farms. The remaining area was divided into ‘lots’, which were leased off for agricultural improvement to augment the revenue of The Crown.
One of the clauses of the Enclosure Act stipulated that an enclosed miniature hunting park be set up in the midst of the former Chase, and lots 21 and 22 were selected for this purpose. The lease for lots 20 (an agricultural lot), 21 and 22 were given to Sir Richard Jebb, physician to the royal household, for his services earlier that year to the Duke of Gloucester, the King’s younger brother. He had travelled to Trento, a city in northern Italy, where the King’s brother was staying in an attempt to recover from mental illness.
Dr Jebb’s efforts apparently brought him back to full health, greatly pleasing the King. In remembrance of this deed, it is thought that Dr Jebb, or possibly even George III himself, named the new estate Trent Place (later renamed as Trent Park by Robert Bevan during the 19th century). It was Sir Richard Jebb who built the first house on the site where the mansion now stands.
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