When the great 'Greville' wool producing family sold The Forden to John Prinn (the elder) in 1701 it consisted of the house, parkland and Home Farm, totaling some 70 acres. The magnificent Dutch-style ornamental water and knot gardens, stocked with fish and fed by Forden Brook running off Charlton and Ravensgate Commons were probably already there. This last assertion is based on the fact that John Prinn kept a detailed 'day book' from 1709 in which he noted various work he did to the house and gardens, including tree planting and hedging with 'Crab quick'. Because there is no mention of the Dutch-style water gardens it is assumed they were already there, having been put in by the Grevils during the 17th century. Deer (with their own deer house situated where the East Glos Club is today) then roamed a totally fenced Charlton Park. William Hunt Prinn in particular seems to have maintained and further transformed it into a classic example of an English Country Gentleman's seat, as several generations of the Prinns each left their own mark upon the park. In pre-electric times this included the building of the underground ice-house in 1784 into the side of the depression west of the central waterfall, which besides other domestic uses, allowed Dodington Hunt and those following to add ice to their drinks; something we take for granted today but which was then a statement of wealth, prestige and sophistication, over a century before the first electric fridges became available in the 1920s. It saw an imposing pair of sculptured 'Eagle Gates' placed at the park's carriage-drive entrance on Sandy Lane (see 1843 map and Robins' painting). The gates were moved to the lower end of Hollow Way, on the east side of the house c1784 (when the public road still ran past the house) and they are still visible at this location on the 1843 map. The erection of newer convent-school buildings and related road widening near the mansion after 1935 seems to have been the reason for their final (c1939) move to the top end of  the main entrance drive (Hollow Way) at its junction with the Cirencester road. Many of the park's largest trees were blown down during destructive gales of 1851 and 1861 and others have succumbed to disease. Today a few of the surviving trees are over two centuries old, with some having to be felled in recent years, being replaced as and when possible.

© Cotswold ImagesAnother mature sycamore that witnessed so much change in Charlton Park finally succumbs to disease (honey-fungus)