More information : Hadleigh Park was [...] closely associated with the castle and formed an important part of its immediate landscape. As well as acting as a hunting reserve, source of timber and other woodland products and grazing area, the park also acted as a buffer and meant that the castle could not be seen from beyond the park, thereby providing a considerable degree of privacy.
It was located to the north of the castle, around the site of Park Farm, stretching across the hillside in full view of the castle. It was first documented in 1235 and in 1274, an extent of the manor of Hadleigh described the park thus:
'There is there one park whose perimeter scarcely amounts to one league. In which a hundred greater and lesser animals can be sustained per annum, and the pasture is surveyed at 40s per annum, and the pannage of the same park is worth in ordinary years 2s' (NA E142/80/4).
In 1314 Queen Margaret complained that `divers persons had entered her parks, free chases and free warrens of Hadley and hunted therein without her license. Also in like manner entered her closes, there broke her houses, walls and fences, fished in her stew and free fisheries, carried away her trees and fish and took deer from her park and hares, rabbits, pheasants and partridges' (ERO T/P128/8/3). In addition to illustrating the wealth of resources available from the park, this also shows that security seems to have been a problem for the absent landlady.
In a survey of 1362, the park pale is mentioned and the allowances of the parker:
`Hugo Parker ... shall have, every day, herbage for 5 animals, and 5 pigs-worth of pannage, and all timber felled by the wind and branches ditto, and all the tops of trees felled for use in the castle or sold, and shall have one shoulder from every deer caught in the park and shall have the necessary fencing for mending fences and all the bracken growing in the park' (NA SC12/7/42).
Timber from the park is recorded as being used for several purposes including supplying the king's works at the Tower of London in 1275 (Rackham 1986, 19), repairing the royal water-mill in 1357-8 (NA E101/464/5), and building Henry VIII's ship `Henry-grace-a-dieu' in 1513 (Sparvel-Bayley 1881, 206).
An interesting document from 1293 orders the making of two trenches through the middle of Hadleigh Park, with the trees growing within the clearings to be cut down, and the area made into arable land (Rippon 1999, 26). These areas may have been alongside roads through the park (Rackham 1986, 19), perhaps one leading to the park lodge from the north, and another from the park lodge to the castle.
Within the park was a vineyard, which was apparently built in 1362 (NA E 101/464/6) and which was being maintained in subsequent accounts dating from 1362 to 1365 (NA 101/464/6 and E101/464/8). There were also several enclosures; a new enclosure of 50 perches was made in 1363-5 (NA E101/464/8) and further works to enclosures were carried out between 1366 and 1371 (NA E101/464/11 and E101/464/12). These enclosures were probably built in order to protect coppiced areas and to divide up the parks into areas with differing management regimes.
At Hadleigh Park the lodge was called `Park House¿ in documents of the 14th century, and was located on the site of the present Park Farm. In the 1860s, foundations of a lodge building were discovered beneath a grass plot in the grounds of a `Mrs Wood¿s residence¿ described as a quarter of a mile distant to the castle on the opposite hill towards the north-east (King 1889, 77). From the 1861 census, it appears that Mrs Wood and her family lived at Park Farm, and this is therefore likely to be a description of the original lodge on this site. The ground plan was a simple rectangle divided into two apartments, each 14ft square (ibid). The map of 1647 (Figure 16) depicts the lodge in this position, and also shows a second lodge where the northern boundary of the park meets the London Road (at NGR TQ 8146 8675).
Where exactly did the park boundary run? In 1274 Hadleigh Park was described as having a perimeter that `scarcely amount to one league' (above). A league was most commonly the distance that could be walked in about an hour, or roughly 5km, though this varied.
When the extent of Hadleigh Park was mapped in 1647 (Figure 16), its boundary was shown as running from the point where the parish boundary meets the marsh to the east of the castle, north along the parish boundary to the London Road (A13), along this for a way before curving back around and meeting Castle Lane which it followed back towards the castle. It then appears to run close to the castle and than east, perhaps along the ridge, to the point at which it started. This accords with the 1670 Marsh map () which shows the marsh to the east of the mill site abutting Hadleigh Park, though what appears to be a footpath within the marsh suggests that the park boundary may have been a little to the north of the actual marsh edge. This forms an area with a perimeter of about 3.6km and enclosing 82.2 hectares (about 203 acres). This is reasonably close to the figure of 228 acres given on the 1647 map.
Both Rackham and Rippon however show the southern boundary of the park running along the stream in the valley to the north of the castle and then along the marsh edge east to the parish boundary (Rackham 1986, Fig 15; Rippon 1999, Fig 23). This defines a slightly smaller area with a boundary of 3.5 km length and an area of 72.2 hectares (about 178 acres).
Which of these two interpretations is correct? In both cases the length of the perimeter accords fairly well with the description of `scarcely a league' from 1274 and whilst the two 17th century maps are consistent the extent at this date is not necessarily the same as in the medieval period; the 1576-7 reference to the `late park' may be significant in this context suggesting that it had gone out of use as a formal park by this time. The park boundary would have been enclosed by a pale (mentioned in 1362) consisting of a bank and ditch in order to keep the deer and other livestock within. No remains of a pale were seen running along the ridge or around the north side of the castle and given the survival of other features this lack of evidence might actually be evidence for the absence of a pale here. If the park boundary ran along the stream then the lack of evidence for a pale here can be more easily explained; the stream bed itself could have formed a part of the pale which might in part have been eroded by the stream or by ploughing, and in part covered by hill wash. It therefore seems more likely that in the medieval period the park boundary ran along the valley to the north of the castle. This is also consistent with possible approaches to the castle discussed below. [1] |