Ashdown Forest was first enclosed as a royal hunting park in the thirteenth century. The “pale” fence enclosed an area of over 5000 hectares within which red and fallow deer were hunted. Over the centuries, the red deer have disappeared and the population of fallow deer has fluctuated between none at the end of the 17th century, when the pale was no longer maintained, to the very high numbers we see today. Deer are no longer the property of the Crown but are wild animals, without ownership. If they are on your land, they are your responsibility.