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Summary

This was the site of a four-sailed wooden post-mill which stood on a large mound. An ice-house was constructed on the mill mound in the mid C18th.

Monument Type(s):

• WINDMILL MOUND (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• MOTTE? (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• ICEHOUSE (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Events:

• RCHME survey, Wimpole Park, 1998
• Wimpole Park Test Pitting Project, Wimpole 2013 (phase 1) (Ref: WPLWIP13)

Full description

R1, Mound on a site occupied by a post mill in 1638 (BM Maps 6, c 55); it seems, however, unusually large to have been constructed as a mill mound and it is just possible that it may have been a small motte. In appearance and size it resembles a mound at Knapwell (Monument (11), and its siting recalls that of a circular moat at Papworth Everard (Monument (7). The mound occupies the level summit of a chalk spur 500yds NW of Wimpole Hall and 215ft above OD and is circular, 100ft in diameter and 3ft to 4ft high, with a flat top 65ft across and a hollow 35ft across and 2.5ft deep in the centre. It is surrounded by a dry ditch, 22ft to 30ft wide, 3ft deep and 11ft to 15ft across the flat bottom, crossed on the NW by a causeway 8ft to 10ft wide which seems to be an original feature, since the ditch narrows and terminates in cupped ends on either side. There are very slight traces of an outer bank 15ft to 20ft wide and 6ins high. Ridge and furrow respects the mound, which was reached by an access way on the NW.

O2, The mound is as described above and now supports several trees. It is not readily apparent as to whether it pre- or post-dates the ridge and furrow but it is located next to an old road and is set mainly in one strip system and partly encroaches another which tends to suggest a later date. No foundations are visible on top. Published 25in survey revised. The size, general construction and topographical situation of this feature all suggest it to be a mill mound; field name evidence supports this classification. Public access.

R3. The mound was surveyed in 1984. The mound sits in the park on the hill north-west of Wimpole Hall, at the northern end of a flat-topped spur. It is a prominent circular feature, 26.0m in diameter, up to 1.2m high with a top 19.0m across. It is encircled by a broad ditch, averaging 5.0m across its flat bottom, and up to 0.9m deep; this presumably is the source of material for raising the mound. The ditch is crossed by a well-defined causeway in the north-western corner. The windmill was placed at the junction of three former arable furlongs, but more specifically in the corner of one of them. The surrounding arable could have remained in cultivation after its construction. On the 1638 map a four-sailed wooden post-mill is depicted, standing on a large mound. Its relationship to the arable furlongs and headlands confirm its original function as a mill mound, and it is extremely unlikely to be a small motte supporting a timber castle, as proposed by RCHME in 1968 (above): in form and scale it is entirely in line with other examples of small mill mounds in the East Midlands. The post mill probably ceased to operate as a manorial corn mill in the later C17th or early C18th when the land was no longer farmed in common and the park was developing. Subsequently the mound became a convenient site for an estate ice-house.

4. A domed ice-house was built in a circular clump of trees at the N end of the "Fir Walk". A drawing for it, among the Hardwicke papers in the British Museum, may possibly be in Flitcroft's hand. See RN also 03536 for Wimpole Hall.

5. The mill mound became a convenient site for an estate icehouse. It is depicted as such on Robert Greening's design for the North Park, c. 1752 and may date from this time, a typically circular chamber with short access tunnel reached from the surviving causeway across the ditch, and is specifically labelled on Robert Withers' map of the Wimpole estate of c.1815. The central hollow in the mound is therefore, not the result of the removal of the post-mill cross-trees, but followed dismantling of a brick-lined ice chamber. Like many icehouses its semi-remote location is not unusual, in this case overlooking the source of ice in the lakes at Wimpole a few hundred metres away. A final use for this mound was purely as an ornamental tree clump, and it remains as such today.

6. The windmill mound is visible as an earthwork on 2008 LiDAR imagery.

7. Test pitting in the Park in 2013 included a number of test pits within the mound area. Area 2B was on the western uplands of the park where a post-medieval mill mound and ditch is located and the source of the mound was from the surrounding ditch which could be seen through the test pits.

9. Re-examined in January 1997 as part of a wider survey of Wimpole Park by the RCHME on behalf of the National Trust. Documentary research revealed that the windmill was disused towards the end of the 17th century as the landscape park developed. Thereafter, an icehouse was inserted into the mound, probably in the later 17th or early 18th century, and shown on Robert Greening's design plan for the north part of the Park c 1752, and again on Robert Withers' plan of Wimpole Park c 1815. The large hollow, some 6m across and 0.7m deep, in the centre of the mound is the site of the brick-lined ice chamber. In the later part of the 19th century, the mound was planted as a parkland feature, and remains so today. A full report with survey plans is available in the NMR archive.

RCHM, 1968, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Cambridgeshire. Volume I. West Cambridgeshire, 225(illus) (Bibliographic reference). SCB18049.

Hare, B., 1638, Parish of Wimpole (Map). SCB10023.

Pattison, P. and Garrow, D., 1998, Wimpole Park, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Unpublished report). SCB17870.

Jackson - Stops G, 06/09/1979, The Park and Gardens at Wimpole 1, Country Life (Article in serial). SCB6637.

Pattison, P. and Garrow, D., 1998, Wimpole Park, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Unpublished report). SCB17870.

<6> SW Cambridgeshire project 2014 (NHPP), 2016, CUCAP Wimpole Lidar DTM 04-SEP-2008, 369030 (Geospatial data). SCB51393.

<7> Cambridge Archaeological Unit, 2006, Bradwell's Court, Cambridge (Material archive). SCB33983.

<8> Seaman, B.H., Field Investigator Comments (Verbal communication). SCB61886.

<9> Pattison, P. & Barker, L., 2003, Wimpole Park, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire Medieval Settlement, post-medieval park and gardens (Unpublished report). SCB60615.

Sources and further reading

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