Page 61 HISTORY OF DECOYS.

HISTORY OF DECOYS.




Decoys in use. Boarstall.	Decoys not in use. Winchendon. Wotton Claydon.

BOARSTALL DECOY.
This Decoy lies a quarter of a mile north of Boarstall, in Bucks, a village of 250 inhabitants, and 8 miles NW. of Thame. The Manor of Boarstall was formerly part of the ancient forest of Bernwode (disafforested in 1623), and is said "to have its name of one Nigel, a forester of Bernwode, who, having killed a wild boar in the forest, had given him by the King, as a reward of his courage, a hyde of arable land called Deerhyde, on which he built a mansion, and called it 'Borestale'. . . . However this may be, it is said that Boarstall was given by one of the Williams to Nigel aforesaid, together with the ranger-ship of the forest of Bernwode, by the livery of a horn, which is still preserved as a curious piece of honourable antiquity." (Kennett's Par. Ant. Vol. II. p. 518, Ed. 1815.) The chief object of interest in the village is the ancient Tower which (according to Lipscombe) Sir John de Handlo was licensed to fortify and embattle in the year 1312. This Tower, with the adjoining house, was garrisoned in 1644 for the king and was strongly fortified; it stood several sieges. The Manor was then the property of the Dynham family, and Lady Dynham resided there in 1650. It passed to Sir John Aubrey, the second Baronet, jure uxor, and he died there in 1700. The Aubreys lived at Boarstall House until Sir John Aubrey, the sixth Baronet (who died in 1826), pulled it down, leaving the Tower standing, and went to reside at Dorton House, 3 miles distant. On the death of Sir Thomas Aubrey, the seventh Baronet, in the year 1856, the estates passed to his niece Elizabeth Sophia, the wife of Charles Spencer Rickets, Esq., and on her death, in the year 1873, to Charles Aubrey Rickets, her son, who thereupon assumed the name of Aubrey, and is the present owner of the Boarstall, Dorton, and Brill estates, and proprietor of the Decoy. There is no record of the age of the Decoy. Kennett says, "There is observable in this Lordship of Borstall a fine Decoy for wild ducks, a matter of great ingenuity as well as curiosity." (Vol.11. p.518, Ed. 1815.)