) A century later, in 1512, Sir John Spencer was granted licence to impark 300 a. of land and 200 a. of wood at Wicken: (fn. 79) even if these figures are notional, they suggest a considerable enlargement of the medieval park and also point to the survival of woodland in this part of the parish, as the survey made for Charles Hosier in 1717 also indicates. (fn. 80) In 1604 Robert Lord Spencer received a confirmation of the grant of 1512, which was confirmed again in 1639. (fn. 81) In about 1651, however, the 2nd earl of Sunderland disparked Wicken, when Sir Peter Temple Bt., an ancestor of the dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, purchased the deer for his new park a few miles away at Stowe (Bucks.). (fn. 82) By 1717 much of the park had been divided into closes, although a large area of lawn survived to the north of the keeper's lodge, as well as the woodland to the west, and a broad avenue which ran roughly south-east from the lodge for over a mile, through the park and the common-field arable near the Ouse to the parish boundary, crossing both branches of the road to Buckingham. (fn. 83)
Charles Hosier, who bought the Wicken estate in 1716, commissioned a detailed survey the following year, when he also built a new house adjoining the keeper's lodge in the former park. (fn. 84) Either Hosier (who died in 1750) or his immediate successor Thomas Prowse (died 1767) re-established a park around the house, on less formal (and possibly less extensive) lines than its predecessor, with stretches of grassland (some of it recovered from closes taken out of the old park), extending on all sides from the house. A broad belt of woodland was retained to the west of the mansion but the avenue was completely swept away. (fn. 85)
Few changes appear to have been made to the park between the early 19th century and the Second World War, when much of the land was ploughed up and remained in agricultural use after 1945. (fn. 86) After the war the mansion, including outbuildings and grounds, were let to a private school. (fn. 87)
There 