A survey taken while Princess Elizabeth was living in the Old Palace in 1551 shows a total of 145 deer. These were probably fallow deer. When Robert Cecil was building Hatfield House in 1610, he purchased 14 red deer from Lincolnshire, and thereafter the parks held both fallow and red deer. In medieval times, deer parks were used mainly as venison farms and for hunting. By 1624, the number of deer had risen at Hatfield to 626 animals. Fallow deer are known as bucks and does, whilst red deer are stags and hinds.

Sadly, due to necessity, most of the herd was culled during the First World War. However, the family were keen to see deer back again at Hatfield and in the mid-1990s, a new deer park was created on the South Front. The first consignment of deer arrived in January 1997 from Buxted Park in Sussex, followed by others from Surrey, Cumbria and Norfolk. Today, the deer herd averages around 160 in number.

All the deer are of a variety known as menil fallow. This strain has been used in deer parks for centuries due to their beautiful light colouration. By selecting animals from all over England, we were able to provide a diverse gene pool for the future.