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`The Landscape’ – North Wootton, and Rising

The Context

North Wootton, South Wootton and occupy a substantial portion of the area of modest, but in the context of quite prominent, upland, defined by the lower courses of the and Gaywood Rivers. Parts of King’s Lynn (the ‘absorbed’ parish of Gaywood), Roydon and Hillington extend into this upland area. Parish boundaries have been modified from time to time. For example South Wootton acquired a small strip of Roydon parish when the A149 bypass was constructed. More significantly both South and North Wootton were expanded when the outflow of the was diverted by the ‘Estuary Cut’ in the mid nineteenth century. The eastern limit of the area is further defined by the ‘lowland mire’ of Roydon Common.

There is clearly contrast between the landscape of the substantially sub-urbanised, but still distinctive parish of South Wootton, and that of the essentially rural village of Castle Rising. Here modern development has been limited to three small estates. The character of North Wootton, also with considerable estate development, has more in common with South Wootton than it does with Castle Rising. However, both Woottons retain significant areas of agrarian landscape as yet unaffected by the amorphous and undistinguished sprawl that largely defines Gaywood. One part of South Wootton’s present southern boundary abuts Reffley Wood, or rather a large disused clay pit on its edge. The habitat of this area of semi-natural yet still, in part, ancient woodland would be particularly under threat of engulfment from any further development on or close to its boundaries.

Geology, Mineral Resources, Topography and Soils:-

The surface geology of the area between the Gay and Babingley rivers has been complicated by a combination of glacial action, together with the much more recent deposition of marine and estuarine silts. The underlying solid geology consists, in the area closest to the Wash, of deposits of ‘Kimmeridge Clay’ of the Upper Jurassic. When the most significant stream in South Wootton, once known as Stones Brook, and to the west of Nursery Lane, as St Katherine’s Creek, was dredged a few years ago this blue grey clay was exposed in its bed. When Melford Close, (just in King’s 2

Lynn/Gaywood) was being built several large ammonites, derived from this clay, were brought to the surface. The underlying Jurassic beds are covered by a mix of glacial drift deposits including sand, gravel and boulder clay. In our area this ‘till’ largely consists of eroded Lower Cretaceous sands. Most of this material is ‘un- cemented’ and has been quarried extensively. For much of the nineteenth century the pits in ‘Wootton Woods’ (in fact located in Castle Rising parish) were the source of sand carried on a horse-powered tramway to small barges that utilised a creek in North Wootton marshes. The embankment that carried this tramway survives as a feature in the landscape of North Wootton close to ‘The Priory’.

North Wootton drained marsh. A section of the embankment of the 19th century tramway built to enable sand quarried in Castle Rising pits to be loaded on to barges utilising a creek . This tramway was cut by the railway and may then have become largely disused.

Located in both Castle Rising and Hillington Parishes there were formerly significant outcrops of grey weathering quartzitic quartz sandstone. This stone was used for building by both Romano-British and Medieval stonemasons. Its initial use was in the construction of the Roman fort at (Branodunum) and in another major Roman structure at Reedham. Its medieval use was in St Lawrence Church and the castle, Castle Rising, St Mary’s Church, South Wootton and, almost certainly, in North Wootton’s demolished medieval church. Considerable quantities can also be seen in post medieval walls and buildings, particularly in Castle Rising parish.

Carstone, an iron-rich sandstone, and conglomerates (natural gravelly concretions formed by mineralised water leaching through gravels) were also encountered in pits dug either for road surfacing material or, especially in Roman times, to obtain iron- rich limonite nodules for smelting. These conglomerates were also used by early medieval church builders. They form a substantial proportion of the fabric of St Mary’s Church, South Wootton. Carstone is also widely present in post medieval buildings in all three parishes. Its use became particularly fashionable during the 3

Victorian period. In contrast to much of Norfolk, little use of flint has been made in the locality.

The soils of more than half of the Woottons, and the parts of Castle Rising and Gaywood closest to the two rivers, consist of the calcareous silts and clays characteristic of the West Norfolk Marshland. These areas of silt, which extend well beyond the limits of the medieval salt marshes that bordered the former outflow both of the Ouse and of its more modest predecessor, have been added to both North and South Wootton through a combination of processes. In Castle Rising the tidal limit originally extended to the east of what is now the A 149. Both the Wash and the Babingley River estuaries have been silting since post-glacial climatic changes raised sea levels to approximately those of today by around 7,000 BC. Human intervention through the creation of saltern mounds in Saxon and Medieval times, the construction of Medieval and Post Medieval sea banks, and, during the 1850s, the digging of the ‘Estuary Channel’ from Lynn to the Wash, has transformed salt marsh, some of which could be grazed seasonally, into highly productive arable land. It was this that added considerably to the area of South Wootton Parish.

The parish boundary of South Wootton extended, from the 1850s, as far as the new outflow of the Ouse. Both South and North Wootton parishes include tracts of un-reclaimed salt marsh. A distinctive element of the landscape of all three parishes is provided by drained salt marsh through which the river and its creeks once ran.

Some of this reclaimed salt marsh, in particular North Wootton Common, and some of the other former marsh shared between North Wootton and Castle Rising has never been ploughed. It retains ‘fossilised’ creeks and, along side these creeks, enigmatic embanked circles of uncertain date and function. Some have been preserved, others destroyed by ploughing. 4

An ‘extinct creek’ on North Wootton Marsh. This marsh was formerly part of the Babingley estuary. To the right and overlooking the creek is one of several ‘embanked circles’. Earlier than the late or post medieval sea bank they have been variously interpreted as cattle refuges, hay stack bases, or settling/evaporation containers for brine. Similar structures in seem to be Romano-British in date.

The ‘Higher ‘ Land The soils of the ‘uplands’, that is of those areas that always lay beyond the reach of the highest tides even before any protective embanking took place, vary considerably. They are glacial drift deposits, predominantly of sands and gravels but with, here and there, patches of boulder clay. An appreciation of the topography, drainage and soils of the higher ground between the two rivers is important to a proper understanding of where settlement took place and why. The settled areas North Wootton, South Wootton and Castle Rising, together with that part of Gaywood parish known as Reffley (perhaps the reeve’s wood, as there is no clear evidence for it having been a medieval ‘hamlet of Gaywood’), all lie within this modest upland but close to the boundary between the drift and estuarine deposits. Here the drift deposits are shallow with springs and water-logging making some parts unsuitable for either settlement or cultivation. This, for example, explains the survival of South Wootton’s extensive ‘Green’. What governed the location of village settlements was the need to exploit both upland and salt marsh environments.

North Wootton ‘Common’. Once ‘salt marsh’ now pasture protected by the post medieval sea bank. The ‘earthwork’ in the middle distance is a Late Saxon ‘saltern mound’. Created by raking up salt impregnated silt during salt making these mounds occur widely in the salt marsh in all three parishes. 5

Drainage Down the western slopes of the upland springs emerge to provide ample water supplies. The area once bordering the tidal marshes in which settlement took place in the Woottons is relatively small, but it is large enough for two significant westward flowing streams to traverse it. The more northerly, emerges from Wootton Woods to flow in part along the edge of Wootton Park; it marks the boundary between the two parishes as it crosses the drained marsh.

A second stream drains the south eastern part of the woods in South Wootton and the low lying area below and to the west of Knights Hill. It crosses Castle Rising Road close to the junction with Priory Lane. Here it was known as ‘Stones Brook’, at least when Faden undertook his survey for the first large scale map of Norfolk published in 1790.

Earlier the estuary of this stream was known as St Katherine’s Creek. It appears as such on the map of Rising Chase dating to the 1580s when, assuming that this map can be trusted, it was still tidal, perhaps to the point where it is now crossed by Nursery Lane in South Wootton. The view to the west from Nursery Lane across a varied landscape including both arable land and pasture remains, despite the intrusive presence of a telephone mast, impressive. Less obviously, because it has been extensively ‘piped’, a third stream fed by springs on the ‘Green’ marks, for some part of its course, the boundary between South Wootton and Kings Lynn.

Trees and Woodland The area contains significant areas of woodland. Some planted relatively recently, for example the strip of oak woodland to the north of St Katherine’s Creek, have added to the value of the landscape as have individual trees frequently preserved in now extinct hedge lines. Notable also are a few ancient oaks on the eastern boundary bank of Reffley Wood. 6

Much of the woodland in the area is, however, of comparatively recent origin. It largely covers the extensive areas of common heath and of warren shown on early Ordnance Survey maps. Some planting of conifers has taken place, especially in the eastern part of Castle Rising parish and extending into Hillington. Elsewhere, for example, in the case of ‘Wootton Woods’ and parts of ‘Ling Common’ in North Wootton, what was heath has developed naturally into a mixed woodland dominated by birch, native ‘Scots’ pine with some oak and sycamore. Much of this recent woodland to the east of the former A 149 has been taken over by the Kings Lynn Golf Club and has been partially cleared. The view of this wood from the Grimston Road has been classified as one of outstanding natural beauty. However the recent application of herbicide to part of the arable land, then fallow, to the south hardly enhanced this prospect.

Reffley Wood apart, there survives one significant ancient wood in Castle Rising. It features both on the map of Rising Chase dated c.1588 and on Faden’s map of 1790 when it was confined to its present boundaries. On the 1884 Ordnance Survey 25” to the mile map it appears as ‘Castle Rising Wood’. Its importance as an ancient woodland is further demonstrated by the presence of both bluebells and wild garlic.

Hedges In some areas hedges form an important component in the ‘developed landscape’. Not so in West Norfolk where many have been grubbed out, others simply neglected. Where hedges remain they are largely the product of ‘enclosure’ and are ‘species poor’. Locally there are some notable exceptions. In South Wootton a well maintained hawthorn hedge along the northern boundary of the Parish Allotments supports a vigorous colony of house sparrows, a threatened species of bird. South Wootton Parish Council has also recently restored the hedge along the western boundary of the ‘Green’: Here several hedge species including maple have been added. At some point a multi species hedge has been planted along eastern edge of the cycle way between Avon Road and ‘Stones Brook’ Important too as a landscape feature is the old hedge marking the western limit of the higher ground and one boundary of the field to the north of the village cemetery. The hawthorn hedge marking the boundary between the paddock to the north of Avon Road and Nursery Lane could, with appropriate t.l.c. also become an attractive feature. The hedge lines marking South Wootton’s boundary with Castle Rising from Reffley 7

Wood to the woodland at ‘Black Hills’ and including Gooseberry Lane survive but have been entirely neglected.

In Castle Rising the hedges bordering ‘Night Marsh Lane’ contain both crab apple and wild plum. The hedge particularly on the west side of the former A149 between the village and ‘Onion Corner’ has recently been improved by the ‘coppicing’ of several ash trees. Important as well, if of varying quality, are the hedges along the lane between Castle Rising and Knights Hill.

The Village Landscapes South Wootton

South Wootton ‘Green’ with its tree-lined pond overlooked by two 18th century cottages.

The principal landscape feature of South Wootton is its large Green with its pond and adjacent inn, The Swan.

Two of the ‘historic’ buildings bordering South Wootton Green. The white building on the eastern boundary is the ‘Old Manor House’. This building ,although much altered and superficially undistinguished retains an early, possibly 16th century, core.

The antiquity of this brick building to the west of Nursery Lane is betrayed by the pitch of its roof, now pantiled, probably once thatched. Early O.S. maps show it to stand at the head of a medieval ‘toft’. This western side of the Green was settled by the 13th century. 8

The Green is bordered by several older buildings including the ‘Old Manor House’, much altered and reduced, but with what is probably a 16th century core. The western boundary wall of this property incorporating brick and carstone rubble also contains the remnant of a demolished farm outbuilding. It has recently been carefully restored by the owners, the Sandringham Estate. The Estate acquired the site from the Howards during the 19th century. To the north of the Old Manor and gable end on to the Green, lie a recently extended and divided pair of cottages originally of 17th/18th date. Here ‘improvements’ have not detracted from the visual impact. Further Post Medieval buildings occupy plots to the west of Nursery Lane.

St Mary’s Church, South Wootton viewed from the south and from the ancient right of way (now a footpath/cycleway) and from the south east. A distinctive building largely reflecting the development of the small village community between the late 11th and the 15th centuries. The tower had to be rebuilt following its collapse during the 18th century. The quoins (corners) and windows apart, a mixture of carstone, conglomerate and grey silcrete was used in its construction. These materials were available locally. To the north, beyond ‘Nursery Lane’ lie the Village Hall, Parish Office and modern cemetery, all the responsibility of the Parish Council.

A northern limit to building on ‘Church Lane’ is defined by the attractive medieval church of St Mary with its ‘closed graveyard’ containing a ‘sensory garden. Close by the modern Village Hall and Parish Office together with a cemetery on land acquired by the Parish Council during the 1980s. Some modest scale development has taken place to the west of Hall Lane which takes its name from the Old Hall, a building 9

largely of 17th century date. The juxtaposition of Hall and Church is typical of many parishes. It suggests that the Hall occupies an early high status site. On Hall Lane itself two buildings are noteworthy. One is a cottage, perhaps once part of the Old Hall complex. Oddly it has a reputedly medieval cellar. If this is in fact the case then the site, if not the present standing building, may once have been that of small guildhall. The large property at the junction of Hall Lane and Low Road/Edward Benefer Way is the Old Rectory: it was rebuilt during the 1840s and is currently undergoing further modernisation.

Before the development of ‘estates’, from the 1960s onwards, there had been ‘ribbon development’ along Castle Rising Road, Grimston Road, Nursery, Hall and Church Lanes. This process began during the 1920s and 1930s and included a few houses very much in the ‘art deco’ style, the most notable of which ‘Waynflete’ on the Castle Rising Road has recently been virtually rebuilt.

Estate development in South Wootton began around 1960. Densities varied from low, as in the ‘Birches’, to high, as in Appledore Close. Small, green areas were included in the plan of several of them. There is nothing of particular merit in the design of the houses. They are best described, as is suburban development in general, as pleasant if undistinguished. Two, relatively small, very high density estates, (‘Wootton Gardens’, to the east of Nursery Lane, and ‘Wootton Meadows’ to the north of the Grimston Road) have been built during the past decade.

North Wootton

North Wootton is also very much a ‘green based’ village. Here the green area is much more restricted in size and linear in nature. To the north west of the village is large area of ‘once common’ grazing land that has existed since medieval times.

North Wootton Green. The former farm buildings amongst other post medieval properties bordering the western edge of this ‘Green’ echoes a now depleted farming based economy. 10

In contrast to South Wootton North Wootton has retained a greater proportion of its older buildings. In part this echoes the time when North was the more populous of the two Woottons. Two areas in particular characterise the historic landscape of this village. One group of significant post medieval buildings lies around the attenuated green between Manor and Ling Common Roads. Ling Common Road itself contains a few older buildings. However the ‘ribbon development’ on the south side has largely taken place over recent decades.

All Saints Church, North Wootton. Built in 1851 in the ‘Early English’ style to a design by Anthony Salvin it stands on the ‘footprint’ of its medieval predecessor.

The second important area of village landscape has ‘All Saints’ church as its focus. By the 1840’s the village’s medieval church had fallen into extreme decay to be replaced after 1850 by the present Salvin designed building in the Early English style. Both church and churchyard, also recently closed for burial, survives to provide a visually attractive village landscape feature. Immediately to the west, at the junction with Station Road, lie a group of 17th century cottages modified, at some point, by the addition of a second storey. To the south ‘Priory Farm’ (that has recently acquired the misnomer of ‘The Priory’ – the site merely lies on land belonging to Wymondham Priory until 1539) is the most significant vernacular building in the village. It has a Grade II listing (NF87875). The house carries the date 1718, when it was remodelled. Recent restoration revealed a late 16th/early 17th century core. The associated early 19th century barn and stables have also undergone recent conversion as has the small 17th century cottage between the Priory and the church. Together they make an attractive component of the village landscape.

To the north east of the church along ‘Manor Road’ between the church and the green most of the buildings are of 19th century or later date. A small development has recently taken place to the rear on one of these houses. 11

Nursery lane in North Wootton. The view looking north towards the church from the ‘Priory’. The cottages to the west of the road probably date from the 17th century. At some point they were heightened. The late 16th century map of ‘Rising Chase’ shows a group of buildings in a similar position.

The ‘Priory’, (otherwise ‘Church Farmhouse’). Dated 1718 it occupies land formerly belonging to Wymondham Priory. It still overlooks farmed land.

Between the two wars there was rather less development in North Wootton than in South. At some point after World War II some Local Government Housing was built to the north of Priory Lane, while the Primary School was placed to the south of this road and close to the boundary with South Wootton. Otherwise the estate developments in North Wootton are of varying density and pleasant, if undistinguished.

Castle Rising

Here is a village in which the ‘built landscape’ retains much of the character it had acquired by the middle years of the nineteenth century. Three small and relatively unobtrusive mini-estate developments apart, building has been limited to designs appropriate to the context. Throughout the built areas there is a scattering of 18th/19th century buildings constructed of varying mixes of brick, local grey silcrete and carstone. 12

The overall and generally rectangular street plan of the village remains substantially that laid down by William d’Aubigny (d’Albini) during the 1130s. Dominant is the castle enclosed by its with two co-axial baileys.

Castle Rising Castle

Equally important, visually, is the Trinity Hospital (almshouse) of brick construction, apart from its fenestration, and with attractive peg tile roofing and dating to c. 1614. It remains substantially as built with the exception of the chapel, remodelled in an early perpendicular style in 1870. Along the eastern boundary of the walled enclosure in which the hospital stands lie two ranges of 19th century ‘privies’ sympathetically built but roofed with pantiles. The hospital is perhaps best viewed either from the old Road or from the cricket ground.

Trinity Hospital (Almshouse)

Within the village itself the church of St Lawrence is imposing with its central tower. 13

Norman and Early English in style it underwent considerable ‘restoration’ during the 19th century. In the south west corner of the churchyard stands a ‘lych gate’ while to the west, on a small ‘green space’ stands the imposing 15th century market cross. How far the space corresponds with that set aside for the market in the 12th century is not entirely clear. Whether or not this cross, heavily restored in the 19th century, stands on its original site its juxtaposition with the church adds greatly to its visual impact.

The 19th century Hall has largely gone to be replaced by one of the three small estate developments. The former rectory both enlarged and enhanced has become the new ‘Hall’. The area to the north of the ‘Hall’ between ‘Night Marsh Lane’ and the former course of the A149, now relegated to the status of a footpath/cycle way, has now been ‘emparked’. The footpath between the former A 149 and Marsh Lane offers a fine view across the ‘Park’ and the silted estuary of the Babingley, to the ruined and disused church of St Felix, and to Wolferton beyond.

Open Space – Wootton Park etc.

Shared between South and North Wootton is the extensive open area of ‘Wootton Park’. Created in 1982 with the support of the Borough Council who own the land it has a dual function. It serves both for recreation and to provide open space between the two communities. The (somewhat reduced) nine acre field lying between Wootton Park and Nursery Lane serves the same purpose although there has been development on the west side of Nursery Lane. 14

At present the farmland to the west of village and to the north of Edward Benefer way both provides ‘space’ between South Wootton and fine views across the reclaimed marsh. Mention too must be made of the ‘green corridor’ that runs along the valley of Stones Brook from the Castle Rising Road to Nursery Lane.

The landscape of the ‘Plateau’

The highest ground lies in the area known as ‘Knights’ Hill’ and reaches just over 50 metres O.D. Here the upland becomes a quite prominent plateau and, as such, a very important landscape feature. The plateau overlooks both river valleys, the developed areas of Gaywood and Kings Lynn, the Woottons, Castle Rising and the lowland mire of Roydon Common. To the west the Wash can be viewed while, several kilometres to the east, the vista extends via the villages of , Grimston and Gayton, to the chalk escarpment and beyond.

Knights Hill plateau also extends eastwards into the parish of Hillington. Along it runs an important and ancient road, now the A148. This route ran from Lynn crossing the Gaywood River at ‘Bishop’s Bridge (mentioned in a late 15th century survey of the lands of the Bishop of in Gaywood). Both the Wootton and Grimston roads form part of this route, once known as ‘Walsingham Waye’. 15

The plateau is largely both sandy and dry. In dry weather, especially in spring, any exposed soils are prone to ‘sand blows’. As such it attracted little in the way of permanent settlement although on it there is evidence for the former presence of both prehistoric pastoralists and Romano-British iron workers.

The soils of upland in general were, in the past, better suited to grazing than to arable farming. Consequently much of the area became ‘common heath’ or warren. The present dominance of arable land in those areas not given over to un-managed woodland is the product of changes to farming practices that have taken place over the past two centuries or so. The Rising Chase map (c. 1588) shows a ‘Common Marshe Breck’ in North Wootton. The use of the term ‘breck’ implies a farming regime involving grazing, normally by sheep, with occasional cultivation perhaps as rarely as once a decade. An extensive Warren is shown in South Wootton in Faden’s map (1790) while the name ‘Ling Common’ occurs in North Wootton in modern Ordnance Survey maps. The implication of these field names is that, once cleared of its natural birch/oak tree cover for cultivation, the lighter local soils, without the intervention of modern agro-chemicals, will soon degenerate into heath. The pre-modern record of land use in the entire sub-area containing the Woottons, Castle

Viewed from the crest of the ‘plateau’ to the south the hotel and inn complex on ‘Knights Hill’. These buildings do not intrude unduly into the farmed landscape.

Rising and part of Roydon was thus determined by the relative poverty of its soils. The landscape of ‘highland’ on and flanking Knights Hill is one of open, largely hedgeless fields given over to soft fruit growing with some cereals with the recent addition of a pig farm. It is distinguished not only by what can be viewed from it but also by being the most significant landscape feature in the vicinity of Kings Lynn.

The principal development on the plateau is obviously the Knights Hill complex. 16

Screened by conifers to the east and by a substantial hedge on the crest of the ridge and utilising appropriate building materials it fits in to the landscape. The impact of any ‘estate development’ beyond the present limits of housing to the south of the Grimston Road (in effect the existing village envelope of South Wootton) would both destroy this landscape and have an entirely negative impact on one of the two surviving areas of natural woodland.

John P Smallwood Retired School Master/Archaeologist.