3.7% VOL
1 pint = 2.1 units of alcohol
A refreshing, dry, sharp and thirst-quenching light ale with a citrus tang.
A. Gilbert de Clare (1243-95).
THE HISTORY OF MALVERN CHASE
Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I, married the Red Earl and the genie was out of the bottle:
The marriage had given the Red Earl ownership of land known as Corse Lawn and although this then extended to Bushley near Tewkesbury, the Red Earl was not content; he had suddenly discovered that territory was fun. He proceeded to gain rights to neighbouring lands from the bishop of Worcester, leasing the chase of Bishop’s Wood at Welland and Little Malvern. Greed pushed him into a new warren at Staunton, but more land meant more to defend. He tried to weaken the hand of the sheriff and in 1288 he became a neighbour from hell to William le Power. No, you can't do what you like with your park at Farley in Mathon because I say it might be bad for Malvern.
The Red Earl was getting bored. He drew up a new shortlist for conquest: only three commons at Cradley, Mathon and Farley, plus the Colwall Purlieu (all the hill along Jubilee Drive), plus four woods to the south, namely Lady, News, Birch and Gullet. The woods furthest south were within the chase of the bishops of Hereford, who had enjoyed hunting rights there since Saxon times.
The bishops owned lodges and parks at Eastnor and Colwall up to and after the Reformation. They enjoyed their hunting with hounds in Colwall; from Holy Rood Day to Candlemas they chased doe, then from midsummer they chased hart or buck. However, 1274 saw the Red Earl appropriate lands between Farley and Clenchers Mill to Malvern Chase, much to the bishops' indignation. In Westminster, shortly afterwards, a case by Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe of Hereford was heard, leading to a compromise in January 1278. The Red Earl was forced to remove his officers so that the bishop may hunt on the disputed land again, with the Crown taking possession while a local jury decided the rightful owner. They quickly voted in favour of the bishop.
In 1287, after nearly 10 years of bitter defeat, Earl Gilbert de Clare was getting increasingly frustrated with the bishops. He began arguing with them that his game were wandering from Malvern into Colwall and Eastnor and not being returned. His crafty solution was to create a ditch along the hilltop, eight miles long, known to this day as Red Earl’s Ditch. Being on the Malvern side of the ridge, the ditch prevented his own deer from jumping out uphill, but did not prevent the bishop’s deer from leaping down and getting trapped in Malvern. The earl claimed he had only dug the ditch to prevent trespassing on the bishop's property, but the Bishop Godfrey Giffard retorted that this wretched ditch meant the earl had encroached upon land owned by the bishop of Worcester at Little Malvern.
In 1291, another compromise was reached, with the earl being ordered to pay a nominal annual rent of two bucks on the Eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, plus two does on the Eve of Christmas; to be delivered to either the episcopal palace at Kempsey or to be collected from Hanley Castle by the prior of Worcester. In 1300, the lingering sourness of the earl's attitude to this order was illustrated; he had let the payment lapse and begrudgingly ordered the constable of Hanley Castle to deliver the deer in arrears.
The castle at Hanley remained the seat of the chase administration. Today only three sides of a muddy moat mark the site of the castle that king John built between 1207 and 1212. The much maligned monarch visited regularly between 1209 and 1213 to enjoy the hunting in his beloved Worcestershire, but did he ever catch as many deer as Red Earl's Ditch?