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OTELANDS

Volume 15 · 271 words · 1823 Edition

or Oatlands, in England, in the county of Surrey, near Weybridge, was formerly a royal palace, wherein Henry duke of Gloucester, third son to King Charles I. was born; and had a deer park, which in the civil wars was by the parliament laid open, and the house demolished. In 1673 there was a brick wall remaining, which encompassed ten acres; but there were then small traces of the chief pile, besides the gardener's lodge, wherein was the silk-worm room raised by King James I.'s queen. It is now a most magnificent building, and commands a most extensive and beautiful prospect. In the park there was a paddock, where Queen Elizabeth used to shoot with a cross-bow. It is now the property of his royal highness the duke of York, who purchased it for £4,000l. of the duke of Newcastle, 1789.

**ORTFORD**, a village in England, in the county of Kent, which stands at the bottom of a hill. In 793 there was a battle at this place, between the two Saxon kings, Offa of Mercia, and Alrick of Kent, who was killed by Offa; and another in 1016, wherein the Danish king Canute was routed by King Edmund Ironside. The said Offa, to atone for the blood he had shed in that battle, first gave this place to Christ-church, Canterbury (as the deed says) *in pastua porcorum*, "for the support of the archbishop's hogs;" and so it remained in the archbishop's liberty, till exchanged with King Henry VIII. for other lands. There was a chantry founded at the Ryehouse in this parish. The church was once a chapel to Shoreham.