‘There is none who deeme their houses well-seated who have nott to the same belonging a commonwealth of coneys, nor can he be deemed a good housekeeper that hath nott a plenty of these at all times to furnish his table.’ (R Reyce, A Breviary of Suffolk 1618) ‘For much of its history, the rabbit has remained a rare and highly-prized commodity.’ (Mark Bailey, Agricultural History Review 36 P1-20) 1 Introduction The 1.1 If you enter Thetford Forest Park at its southern edge, Barton Mills, and travel north Archaeology of the to beyond Ickburgh, you pass through a landscape which was once ‘ very barren soyle Warrens of neverthelesse very good for brede of coneys’. (Lease for Brandon Warren, 1563 PRO E 310/24/138). From the late 12th to the early 20th century, the Breckland region was Thetford Forest noted for its warrens, areas designated for the farming of rabbits for their meat and fur. 1.2 Many of these warrens were established and owned by the great medieval monasteries or by the great landowners such as the Duchy of Lancaster. Lakenheath and Brandon, for example, belonged to the Prior of Ely; Mildenhall to Bury Abbey; Wangford to Old Warden Abbey and Santon, Snarehill and Bodney were leased to Thetford Priory by the Duchy. By the late 15th century, most warrens were leased to professional warreners with leases stipulating supplies to the manorial household such as that for Shouldham Warren of 20 June 1634: ‘two hundred of good and merchantable coneys serviceable for his own table’ had to be delivered to Sir John Hare on demand. The Breckland Warrens, from The Marginal Economy, Mark Bailey. 1 1.3 The practice of farming rabbits in warrens had been introduced by the Normans and Breckland was a suitable area because it has a climate similar to that of the rabbits’ native Mediterranean: warm, dry summers and low winter rainfall. 1.4 The rabbits were a source of fresh meat in winter, but they were also a means of making a profitable income when sold commercially, especially as they occupied land which was generally too marginal for arable farming. They were luxury items for the upper classes, much prized for their meat and fur. Only those with manorial rights could own a warren and rabbits had the same exclusive protection as the pigeons in lord’s dovecote. Facing, top: Faden’s map of Norfolk, 1797, showing Rabbits were farmed first of all on islands and coastal sites during the 12th century, with the warrens. records from Lundy, the Scilly Isles and the Isle of Wight from 1146. By 1253, rabbits Facing, below: were included in the list of foodstuffs taken to the Court of Henry III at Winchester for Hodskinson’s map of Christmas from warrens in Kent and Sussex. By 1300, warrens had been established on Suffolk, 1783, showing the heathland of Breckland, running in a continuous sequence from Mildenhall north the warren lodges. to Brandon and then eastwards to Thetford. They occupied the higher, permanently dry pastureland of parishes whose settlements clustered on the fen-edge or along the rivers and they were concentrated where the greatest depth of blown sand overlaid the chalk. 2 3 2 The Design and Construction of the Perimeter Warren Banks Evidence for the dating of the banks 2.1 Since the differently-owned warrens ran side by side, they had to be separated from one another; the rabbits prevented from escaping and vermin and poachers prevented from entering. In the relatively flat Breckland landscape, there were few, if any, natural features which could be utilised to do this. Man-made boundaries had to be made The instead. To date, however, evidence is inconclusive as to whether the medieval warrens were bounded by ditches or by banks or both. Archaeology of the Warrens of 2.1.2 In the Breckland Archaeological Survey of 1996, Kate Sussams argues that it was during the 18th and 19th centuries that the first references are seen to the formal Thetford Forest enclosing of warrens by banks and cites the 1701 lease for Elveden as evidence. This states that ‘the tenant at his own cost to bank all along the Thetford Warren side to the west end of the said borders so far in breadth from Downham Warren as have been formerly meeted parted and dolled out . to the intended new bank fifty roods and no further’ (WSROB HD/1720/19). It can equally be argued that this relates to a ‘new bank’ because an ‘old bank’ was already there. ‘New’ is a term generally applied in comparison to ‘old’ or ‘existing’. It is also worth bearing in mind that the documentary evidence for Elveden Warren points to its being a post-medieval creation so not relevant in any discussion about the existence of medieval boundary banks. 2.1.3 Kate Sussams uses another example, at Mildenhall Warren in 1730 where the adjacent landowner Daniel Gwilt complained that the rabbits were escaping ‘over the feeble banks’ and he obtained a court order forcing the warrrener to build a bank extending ‘from the boundaries of the parish of Little Barton alias Barton Mills South to the Boundaries of the parish of Eriswell North’ (WSROB E3/10/9.2). Again, I would argue that the ‘feeble banks’ were already in existence but poorly maintained and this argument may be supported by a further clause in the above court order which states that ‘the bank shall be kept up and maintained for the term of five years only and at that end or expiration of the said five years if either side shall not find it serviceable or think it proper for this Bank to be continued in repair any longer, then this agreement shall wholly cease’. 2.1.4 At Lakenheath, there was an attempt to enclose part of the warren in 1835 and those who held the common rights of grazing (sheep) protested that ‘ it is and has for centuries been set out by known Metes bounds and banks’ (WSROB E3/18/11.1-2). A 1649 terrier for Lakenheath Manor mentions ‘the lower furlong next the warren under the bank’. Manorial accounts for Lakenheath Warren list a payment for making ‘a ditch around the new warren at the head of the village’ (CUL EDC7/15/I/8). There is a further reference to this ditch in 1333 when three men were convicted of illegally grazing their animals ‘in fossata de la coneger’ (CUL EDC7/15/II/Box1/9). 4 2.1.5 Furthermore, I would argue that to dig a ditch you need to put the spoil somewhere and that ‘somewhere’ would by necessity be close by, making a bank. Given that the perimeter of Lakenheath Warren, for instance, is ten miles and that of Thetford, eight miles, any labourers digging a ditch would not have wanted to carry the spoil very far! 2.1.6 I have one piece of documentary evidence to date which suggests that the banks were deliberately made and not just a ‘by-product’ of digging a ditch. This comes from the Brandon Account Rolls of 1365-66 and refers to Wangford where ‘making the bank on the east side of the grange and making a hedge on the crest of the same bank in wage of one workman at 3d a day for 14 days’ (Rev. Munday Topographical History). The 2.1.7 Another reference in the manorial accounts for Lakenheath Warren states that Archaeology of the 2s 5d was paid in 1347-8 to ‘make a hedge at the warren’ (CUL EDC7/15/I/14) but whether this hedge was on a bank cannot be determined. Warrens of Evidence for the design and construction of the banks Thetford Forest 2.2.1 There are several references describing how the banks were constructed and fortunately they collaborate each other. The banks were made of turf and were from a metre to one and a half metres high, perpendicular on their inner sides and sloping to about one metre wide at the bottom. Each turf or ‘sad’ or ‘clower’ was approximately one third of a metre square (one foot) and laid in the manner of a brick wall with the grass on the vertical face. These were topped with gorse faggots tied together, often with willow twigs or by living gorse or thorn bushes overhanging the inner face of the bank to try and prevent the rabbits from escaping. Documentary references which describe the construction of the banks include: Francis de la Rochefaucauld who writes of a warren north of Thetford with ‘ a four-foot bank of turf sown with gorse, which forms a boundary beyond which the rabbits cannot go.’ (A Frenchman’s Year in Suffolk 1784 trans N Scarfe 1988) In his book Norfolk Agriculture written in the 1780s William Marshall describes ‘ a fence made about four feet high and three feet thick, faced with green-sward and capped with furze, so as to project eight or ten inches over the face. (Norfolk Agriculture C79 p139). In Rural Economy of Norfolk he notes that ‘it seems to be the practice in this country to sow furze-feed on the backs or rather upon the tops of ditch-banks . the furze generally thrives abundantly’ (p182). A bank built at Eriswell in the 19th century was made of turf stacks topped by protruding gorse faggots against which soil was banked, dug from where the turf had been taken, to create a solid barrier (Rev. Munday History of Eriswell ). On Lakenheath Warren in the 1750s, the warrener enclosed 20 acres with ‘mounds and 5 fences’ to ‘make a small garden for Herbs to use in his House’ and this entailed his using ‘Spades, Pickaxes and other Iron Instruments’ to ‘raise and make divers great banks and mounds’.