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 was presumably a keeper's lodge in the medieval park, which was evidently rebuilt in the early 17th century, since the surviving building, later used as stables and in modern times converted into flats, bears the Spencer arms and the date 1614 on the porch. (fn. 88) The former lodge is built of coursed rubble limestone with a plain-tile roof and brick end-stacks on stone bases. It is T-shaped in plan, of two storeys and attics, four bays wide.
Charles Hosier's new house of 1717 appears to have consisted of a seven-bay, two-storey range, in plain limestone ashlar beneath a hipped slate roof. (fn. 89) In February 1765 Thomas Prowse, an amateur architect, prepared plans for additions to the house, including three garrets and probably also the wings, and ordered the existing building to be repaired and the roof re-tiled. (fn. 90) The new roof and the shell of the new building were finished by August that year, (fn. 91) although fitting-up of rooms and work in the grounds continued until at least 1793, during whic