Today, the park includes the remains, often only showing as ground markings, of the different uses the land has been put through over the last several thousand years. Delving back through the centuries it is possible to unravel the clues left behind.. It is not immediately obvious, for instance, that the reason for the existence of such large areas of bracken in the park is the fall of the price of wool in the Middle Ages. Nor does it spring to mind that Bushy would probably not be a park at all if Richmond Palace had not burned down five hundred years ago, or if Oliver Cromwell had not found the idea of deer hunting in keeping with his position as Protector of the Commonwealth.
