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Summary

Oval enclosure, more likely to be a pillow mound, a post-medieval earthwork for rabbits, and/or an ornamental feature in the grounds of the house called Danesbury

Monument Types

• OVAL ENCLOSURE (Unknown date)
• MILITARY CAMP? (Early Medieval - 410 AD to 1065 AD)
• PILLOW MOUND? (Medieval to Post Medieval - 1066 AD to 1900 AD)
• CRICKET GROUND (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)

Full description

Danesbury Cricket Ground is shown on the 1881 OS map <1> occupying a regular oval surrounded by an embankment, immediately west of a house named Danesbury. Warren Park Road, then Warren Park, approached the oval enclosure in a curve and ran along the western embankment. There is no evidence of a 'Danish camp', but the earthwork lay on high ground overlooking a steep scarp down to the river Beane and had an unusual shape, an ovoid raised platform surrounded by a low rampart and possible ditch. It lay in 'Warren field' <1>. The place name 'Danesbury' is usually antiquarian speculation, without basis (applied when it was fashionable to speculate on possible traces of 'Danish' rather than Roman remains). The shape of the earthwork and the field name imply a rabbit warren, a pillow mound <2>. These are usually early post-medieval. Alternatively, it was entirely ornamental, the eastern arm serving as a curving approach to the house. The oval shape is so regular that it looks 'improved'.
The cricket ground and the site of the house were built over with new houses in the later 20th century.

Clark, George T, 1884, Medieval military architecture in England, vol. 2, - p121 (Bibliographic reference). SHT6965.

<1> OS Records (Index). SHT8223.

<2> Williamson, Tom, 2006, The archaeology of rabbit warrens (Bibliographic reference). SHT9739.

<3> OS 25 inch map, 1st edition, 1881 (Cartographic material). SHT8116.

Sources and further reading

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