Local History and the Little Ouse Headwaters Project Heritage Audit

Local History and the Little Ouse Headwaters Project

Heritage Audit April 2013

Prepared for the Little Ouse Headwaters Project by

The Landscape Group, School of History, University of East Anglia

Professor Tom Williamson

Dr Sarah Spooner

Dr Jon Gregory

UEA Consulting Ltd trading as The Landscape Group. Registered Address: The Registry, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ Company No:06477521

Local History and the Little Ouse Headwaters Project

Heritage Audit

Contents

Section 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………2

Section 2: Archaeology………………………………………………………………………...5

Section 3: Cartographic Evidence……………………………………………………………11

Section 4: Contemporary and Archival Evidence…………………………………………..18

Section 5: Published Works – an overview………………………………………………….61

Section 6: Census Material……………………………………………………………………65

Section 7: Analysis and Interpretation………………………………………………………..67

Section 8: Next Steps…………………………………………………………………………..79

Section 9: Select Bibliography…………………………………………………………………81

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………………82

Section 1: Introduction

This report builds on the identified need to address the local and landscape history of the Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP) area, as noted in our report of April 2012. This piece of work seeks to identify all the relevant ‘heritage assets’ relating to the study of the Little Ouse valley in order to answer some of the research questions which have previously been identified.

A key issue here is the geographic spread of material between archives held in Norfolk, Suffolk, other archives in the UK and some international archives. There is also a distinction between material held in publicly accessible archives, and that in private hands.

The LOHP area of interest as covered in this report includes eight parishes in both Norfolk and Suffolk:

• Garboldisham • Blo Norton • North Lopham • South Lopham • Thelnetham • Redgrave • Hinderclay • Hopton

A detailed study of any one of these parishes is a time consuming exercise – although a great deal of material exists for all of these parishes, much of that material will not be strictly relevant to the interests of the LOHP.

Figure 1.1. Map of study area showing sites managed by the LOHP in green.

In our previous report, a number of possible linked research questions and themes for study were identified:

• The changing course of the river, its tributaries and the history of drainage in the area.

• What effect did historic climatic changes over a long period have on the fens?

• The economic use and value of the fens – how were they managed in the past, and when do the traditional uses of the fens stop? How were they used for peat excavation in the past? How did these management practices influence the development of habitats in the LOHP area?

• Comparison of the LOHP with other wetland landscapes.

• How important were the fens to the local community, and how did that change over time? How were the fens affected by changes to the rural economy in a broad sense? How did landownership and tenure affect the use and management of the fens? What influence did the local poors trusts have on

land management in the area? What effect did the fens have on ‘open’ and ‘closed’ settlements in the area?

• Oral History in the LOHP area.

Some of these questions can be relatively easily answered by examining the availability of the documentary evidence. For example, the owners of land in the area can be easily traced for the 19th century using the documents relating to enclosure and to tithes. Other questions are not so directly linked to the available evidence – there is virtually no direct mention of the ways in which the Fens were managed during the historic period, although we can infer from the evidence of land use recorded at enclosure or on the tithe documents. It is also difficult to push the answers to these questions further back than the 18th century, and in some cases, the 19th century, simply because the documents that may shed some light on the use and nature of the Fens in the medieval and early post-medieval periods have not survived, or are not known/accessible in the public domain.

This report takes each type of evidence in turn, and considers that evidence for each parish; the archaeological evidence, the evidence of cartographic sources and aerial photographs and an assessment of the archival material held in a variety of archives across the UK.

Detailed lists of identified material are provided in a series of appendices. These are designed to provide a quick reference guide to the location of material for future use. It should be noted that more material may come to light in the future, or may become more easily accessible – particularly as digitisation of archives and datasets is a priority for many archives and local authorities. Norfolk is perhaps better served than Suffolk in this respect – the Norfolk Record Office, NROCAT, and the Norfolk Heritage Explorer websites have a level of detail and search capability which their counterparts in Suffolk are lacking at the time of writing.

Section 2: Archaeological Evidence

Using archaeological evidence as a means of understanding landscape change in the long term can be extremely useful, but this type of evidence can also have its limitations. Every local authority in the UK has a statutory responsibility to maintain a Historic Environment Record or HER (sometimes also called a Sites and Monuments Record): effectively a database of every archaeological find, monument, building or site in the county. These datasets are linked to GIS maps and other additional data relating to archaeological excavations. The information contained within them can be sensitive, particularly with regard to sites which may be at risk from nighthawking (illegal metal detecting) or other damage, so on occasion information about sites may be withheld from the public domain.

Both Norfolk and Suffolk maintain an up-to-date HER. Norfolk’s is entirely accessible online through the Norfolk Heritage Explorer website, which also provides additional content in the form of parish summaries and other thematic articles. The Suffolk HER has less online functionality, but is freely accessible through the Heritage Gateway website, run by English Heritage.

The records for both Norfolk and Suffolk, and for each parish, vary in their level of detail. With the exception of Garboldisham, none of the parishes within the study area have been the subject of detailed and systematic archaeological investigation, and the results of recent work in Garboldisham are unpublished. It will be worth revisiting this assessment once that work has been completed and published.

2.1 Blo Norton

The Norfolk Historic Environment Record (NHER) records 33 sites in Blo Norton – a relatively small number compared to other parishes. There is little evidence of prehistoric activity in the parish – two Neolithic axeheads are the only finds of this date to have been recovered from the parish. Similarly, there is little evidence to date of Roman occupation, although a glass bead, pottery and a late Roman coin have been found. A Middle Saxon brooch, and Middle to Late Saxon pottery have also been discovered. The majority of the records relate to the medieval period and later – three manorial sites, two churches and a number of late medieval and early post-medieval buildings are all recorded on the database.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.1.

2.2 Garboldisham

Garboldisham has seen more archaeological activity than Blo Norton, including a number of excavations. A recent programme of community archaeology carried out by the University of Cambridge will undoubtedly add to our understanding of the parish, but this work has yet to be published.

There is some evidence for prehistoric activity within the parish – flint implements dating from the Mesolithic and Neolithic have been found, as well as a Bronze Age antler with incised decoration and a copper dagger. During the Bronze Age a barrow cemetery was established on what is now Garboldisham Heath, in a typical location on light soil above the river valley. One round barrow survives as an upstanding earthwork, whilst others have been destroyed. The barrow was excavated in 1963, revealing a complete Bronze Age cremation burial. Settlement within the parish continued into the Iron Age, although the focus of any particular settlement site is unknown. A likely Roman settlement site has been discovered to the north of the present village; pottery, tiles, coins and other domestic finds have been recovered from the site. The most important archaeological site within the parish is the Devil’s Ditch, which also forms the parish boundary to the west. A linear earthwork, it probably dates to the Early Saxon period, but it’s function remains enigmatic.

As in Blo Norton, a number of the recorded sites relate to the medieval period, including two churches and three moated sites – not an unusual number for this area of East Anglia. In 2000 an archaeological investigation on Back Street discovered evidence for medieval ploughing in the form of ridge and furrow, demonstrating the presence of open fields in the parish (something corroborated by the documentary evidence). There are a number of well- preserved late medieval and early post-medieval vernacular buildings, including Jacques (built in around 1490) and Pear Tree Cottage (also dating to the late medieval period). Garboldisham Post Mill is a good example of a mid 18th century post mill, and stands close to the location of another 18th century windmill – both of which are mentioned in contemporary documents.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.2.

2.3 North Lopham

There are 59 sites recorded for North Lopham on the NHER. In common with Blo Norton and Garboldisham there is relatively little evidence from the prehistoric period, apart from a few scattered finds of find implements and Iron Age coins. During the Roman period a villa was located to the east of the present village, and a large number of Roman finds have been 6

recovered from the site, including coins, brooches and pottery. Settlement continued to develop into the Saxon period, probably on the site of the modern village, and coins, brooches, buckles and other personal objects have been found in the parish. The medieval period is represented by the parish church of St Nicolas, as well as some vernacular buildings which date back to the late medieval period; Church Cottage and Church House. The NHER also contains records for many later post-medieval listed buildings, including a number of private houses and the village telephone box, which dates from the 1930s.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.3.

2.4 South Lopham

As before, there is limited evidence for prehistoric occupation in the parish – four Neolithic axeheads, two Bronze Age awls and an Iron Age brooch have been discovered to date. A range of Roman and Saxon finds have also been recovered, although no Roman settlement sites have yet been firmly identified. Finds include pottery, coins, brooches and other personal objects, including a Late Saxon pendant in the form of Thor’s hammer – usually associated with Danish or Viking settlements. The church of St Andrew contains visible material which dates back to the Late Saxon period, and there are also several good examples of post-medieval vernacular buildings in the parish. One of these, Primrose Farm, was originally a shop in the 16th century, and retains an original shop window in one of the gable ends. Most of the other listed buildings recorded on the NHER date from the 17th century onwards.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.4.

2.5. Thelnetham

The Suffolk Historic Environment Record (SHER) records 33 sites in Thelnetham. Relatively little recent archaeological investigation has been carried out in Thelnetham; the bulk of the records held by the SHER relate to work carried out by the archaeologist Basil Brown in the 1930s. The pattern of finds is similar to those on Norfolk, although there is much less information about them. A few prehistoric flint implements have been found, including a Neolithic axehead. Scatters of Iron Age, Roman and Saxon pottery and other finds have been discovered in the parish, although none have been analysed in much detail. There were two medieval moated sites within Thelnetham, one of which has been ploughed out and was recorded by Brown as an extensive medieval finds scatter. The base of a 16th century cross now stands near the village centre, but this is not its original location.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.5.

2.6. Redgrave

There are 61 recorded sites in Redgrave. Parts of the parish have been fieldwalked, and many of the records relate to artefact scatters of various dates. This more systematic approach means that a larger number of prehistoric finds have been recorded, including several defined scatters of prehistoric flints as well as Iron Age, Roman and Saxon material. Some of this may be suggestive of settlement sites, although the data would merit further analysis. In 1959 an Iron Age settlement was excavated on Beer Lane, including the remains of two buildings. A probably Roman pottery kiln site was also revealed during fieldwalking and other observations. A great deal of medieval material has been found scattered throughout the parish, and around the present village. The landscape of the parish is dominated partly by the park surrounding Redgrave Hall, which is also recorded as an archaeological feature on the SHER.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.6.

2.7. Hinderclay

There are 55 records for Hinderclay in the SHER, many of them relating to recent metal detecting finds and to the work of Basil Brown in the 1940s and 1950s. There is limited evidence for any prehistoric activity in the parish; two Neolithic axeheads and some fragments of Bronze Age pottery have been found. In the 1950s Brown excavated an Iron Age settlement site near Hinderclay Wood, close to the site of a Roman settlement and kiln site which had been investigated in the 1940s. A great deal of Roman material has been recovered from the parish, including coins, pottery and other metalwork which are suggestive of settlement sites. The Early Saxon metalwork found in the parish could be the remains of an Early Saxon cemetery as such finds are not generally found in normal domestic deposits. A number of medieval finds have also been found by metal detecting, alongside pottery scatter. A 1995 excavation revealed the remains of a post-medieval house alongside the former green, but subsequent excavations in 2006 and 2007 revealed little archaeological evidence.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.7.

2.8. Hopton

The SHER records 45 sites and findspots within Hopton. As above, there is relatively scant evidence for the prehistoric period. However, a Neolithic macehead made of antler with incised spiral decoration was found in the Little Ouse itself. Bronze Age palstaves and similar implements have also been found. A programme of fieldwalking and metal detecting during the 1990s revealed a probable Iron Age and Roman settlement site near Manor Farm, which is close to the Little Ouse. In addition, fieldwalking has uncovered a number of medieval pottery scatters and metalwork finds in and around the village.

These records are listed in Appendix 1.8.

2.9. Summary

The archaeological evidence for this group of parishes demonstrates long-term activity within the area dating back to the Mesolithic period. At least one Iron Age and Roman settlement site has been found in close proximity to the Little Ouse (Manor Farm in Hopton), although there were undoubtedly others – further detailed analysis of the existing material may help to shed more light here. There is also evidence for the settlement of this area from the Early Saxon period, the 5th century, onwards into the medieval period and beyond. A settlement site, in an archaeological context, may represent a single, isolated farm as well as a group of houses and families. There has been very little archaeological excavation in the area; those that have taken place were either carried out several decades ago, or were closely linked to building work. That being the case, wider investigation and environmental sampling will not have been carried out due to the constraints of time and budget. Such methods, such as pollen analysis, may yield more relevant information about changing land use and management practices in the past than a study of pottery scatters.

Some of this data may bear further investigation to more closely identify settlement sites within the parishes on either side of the Little Ouse river. This would involve analysing the original material, or the detailed drawings, photographs and finds lists held by the NHER and SHER; the need to identify and closely date different types of pottery would mean this is a task best undertaken by someone with experience of field archaeology. However, being able to identify the presence of early setttlements within the landscape does not necessarily tell us much about how those people might have used the river and the area of meadow, fen and marsh on either side. Further excavation may not shed much more light on this question either, although the techniques employed by environmental archaeologists, such as pollen

analysis, may have more potential. However, it should be noted that environmental archaeology is potentially expensive and would require expert analysis.

This analysis of the archaeological may appear slightly negative. Undoubtedly much could be learnt about the development of each parish by further archaeological investigation, but we do question whether that would help to answer any of the research themes and questions identified in Section 1 in any real depth.

Section 3: Cartographic Evidence

Historic maps are absolutely critical to any study of landscape history. This section will deal with published maps, whilst manuscript maps found in local record offices are dealt with in Section 4. County and road maps began to be published during the 16th century, but it is only from the middle of the 18th century that such maps begin to be reliably accurate, and published at a scale which includes detail about land use and the detailed structures of the landscape. The formation of the Ordnance Survey in the late 18th century produced a series of accurate and detailed maps throughout the 19th century, the most useful of which is the first edition of the 25 inch to the mile maps, published for East Anglia in the 1880s.

3.1 William Faden’s Map of Norfolk (1797)

Faden’s map was the first detailed survey of the entire county, published at a scale of one inch to the mile. Much of the survey work was carried out in the early 1790s by Thomas Donald and Thomas Milne, and thus the map is a valuable record of the Norfolk landscape before the wide-ranging changes of the early nineteenth century. It is particularly valuable for its depiction of the extent and location of surviving common land, much of which was to become private property as a result of parliamentary enclosure. The map was originally published in six separate sheets and has recently been digitised by Dr Andrew Macnair.

Faden’s map shows an almost unbroken ribbon of common land along the Little Ouse from Garboldisham Common in the east to Lopham Common Fenn in the west. This is interrupted in two places, at either end of Blo Norton Common. On the Lopham side the rectangular area of enclosed land shown corresponds with The Frith, while that on the Garboldisham side represents land surrounding Blo Norton Hall. The indented and irregular edges of the commons suggest that piecemeal enclosures and encroachments had been occurring for several centuries, a picture reinforced by the frequent occurrence of common-edge farms and houses away from the village centres. Middle Road in Blo Norton is shown with a much greater width than other roads nearby, suggesting that it had more the form of a linear green. On later maps field boundaries parallel to Middle Road provide an indication of the former width of this road as indicated on Faden’s map, something that can still be seen today. The course of the river is similar to that shown on later maps, though does appear to have been drawn in a rather schematic way in some sections, making detailed comparison with later maps difficult. Although Faden’s map does not record field boundaries, roads are shown fairly accurately and allow comparison to be made with later nineteenth-century maps.

Figure 3.1. Extract from Faden’s 1797 map of Norfolk. Yellow = Commons, Red = Parks.

3.2. Hodskinson’s Map of Suffolk, 1783

Fourteen years earlier than the county map of Norfolk, this map was also published by William Faden, but has come to be known instead by the name of its surveyor, Joseph Hodskinson. Proposals for the survey were announced in 1776 and, after several delays, the map finally appeared in 1783. As with the Norfolk map, it has recently been digitised by Andrew Macnair (though the original version is shown below).

As with Faden’s map of Norfolk an almost unbroken line of common fen is shown alongside the Little Ouse from Hopton to Lopham. From west to east these areas are recorded as Hopton Common, Thelnetham Fen and Redgrave Common Fen. Other smaller commons are shown along the tributaries of the Little Ouse, including Hopton Fen, The Slade and an extension of Redgrave Common Fen. Hinderclay Fen is not labelled as a separate area, but rather shown as part of Redgrave Common Fen.

Figure 3.2. Extract from Hodskinson’s 1783 Map of Suffolk (the dark band along the county boundary is a later addition where the map has been coloured to show county and hundred boundaries).

3.3. Ordnance Survey 25 inch to 1 mile maps

The Ordnance Survey 25 inch maps are the most detailed survey of the English landscape available. The first edition was completed in the 1880s, and was subsequently updated in Norfolk and Suffolk in the early 1900s. They record accurately all landscape features, including the exact location of all sizeable trees. The maps also designate some areas as rough grazing, marshland, alder carr, fen etc. This designation was left to the surveyors on the ground to decide, and it is now unclear how they made their decision on whether to classify a piece of land as fen or rough grazing, and no documentation survives to shed any light on the subject. These categories, therefore, should be treated as a general guide to land use rather than anything more definitive. These maps, and the land use recorded, as discussed in more detail in Section 7.

Figure 3.4. Scarfe Meadows and Broomscot Common, 1885.

Figure 3.5. Scarfe Meadows and Broomscot Common, 1904.

Figure 3.6. Parkers Piece, Bleyswycks Bank, Betty’s Fen, Webbs Fen and Blo Norton Fen, 1885.

Figure 3.7. Parkers Piece, Bleyswycks Bank, Betty’s Fen, Webbs Fen and Blo Norton Fen, 1904.

Figure 3.8. Hinderclay Fen, 1885.

Figure 3.9. Hinderclay Fen, 1904.

Figure 3.10. The Lows, Little Fen and The Frith, 1885.

Figure 3.11. The Lows, Little Fen and The Frith, 1904.

Section 4: Documentary and Archival Evidence

The main bulk of the relevant material is held by the Norfolk and Suffolk Record Offices, located in Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich. The majority of this material has been consulted and assessed for the purposes of this report, and is presented here as a parish- by-parish analysis.

A small number of other county and institutional archives, such as Cambridge University Library or the Parliamentary Archives, also hold some relevant material, although it should be emphasised that these are in a minority and do not seem to include any highly relevant material. Therefore they are included here, and in the appendices, for information but should not constitute a research priority for the LOHP. The University of Chicago holds a substantial collection of documents relating to Redgrave and the other Suffolk parishes which may indeed contain material of interest. However, these documents are relatively inaccessible given the cost of making copies of the documents (which may not, in fact, contain much relevant information once translated and transcribed). Our recommendation is that these do not form a priority for investigation, but could be of potential future use.

There are a wide variety of archival documents which could hold information of relevance to the LOHP. However, there are just as many which will contain no useful information. In addition, others may prove useful at a later stage of research, rather than at the beginning. What follows is intended as a brief guide to the main types of document which exist in public archives, and how they might prove useful to the LOHP.

Some of the documents relating to the parishes in question date back to the period before 1650. Early documents are often in Latin, and in handwriting which is difficult to read without some expertise and previous experience. Our analysis of the available documents, however, has shown that few of these early documents contain anything of immediate relevance to the LOHP or to the research questions and themes identified in Section 1. The majority of documents which are directly relevant and post-medieval, in English and are relatively easy to read.

Deeds and Leases

Documents relating to the ownership or rental of property. They can provide information about the owners of a piece of land, any particular conditions (such as common rights) relating to it and in some cases details of field names and land use. From 1550 most deeds were written in English.

Farm leases from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provide information about the rental value of land and the way in which it was to be used. Leases will often, for example, specify the types of crops to be grown on a farm in different years and impose restrictions on the amount of land that could be ploughed in a given year.

Legal changes in the early twentieth century meant that it was no longer necessary to retain large bundles of historic deeds for properties so many were deposited in County Record Offices.

Abstract of Title

A document outlining the history of a property and how it came to be in its current ownership.

Conveyance

A document relating to the transfer of freehold property.

Lease and Release

A particular way of transferring property. Typically a lease would be drawn up for a period of one year and the following day the person granting the lease would agree to give up their rights of ownership in return for a specified payment.

Indenture

A deed of which copies were made for the contracting parties, with an indented cut edge to allow the deed to be identified and to prevent forgeries.

Quitclaim

A deed renouncing all rights or interests in a property

Wills and Probate Inventories

Until 1782 every executor or administrator was required to complete an inventory of the deceased's goods. The inventory listed the possessions of the deceased, including crops and livestock. These can give some insight into the social standing of individuals and the type of farming they were engaged in.

Court Rolls

The records of courts held by individual manors. They contain information relating to the laws and customs of the manor, such as recording the names of individuals who had either surrendered or been given admission to copyhold lands held of the manor. Court rolls also record the payment of fines by those who had committed minor offences.

Glebe Terriers

A written survey of lands (glebe land) belonging to a parish church. They also describe the parsonage house and the rights to tithes. Most date to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries.

Enclosure Awards and Maps

Documents relating to the process of Parliamentary Enclosure, a legal means of enclosing common land that was mainly used in the period 1750-1850. The enclosure award set out in detail all of the allotments of land to be made under the enclosure as well as any new roads and poor allotments. The accompanying maps show the location of new allotments but are not always an accurate reflection of the appearance of the landscape. It was up to individual owners to decide how to subdivide their lands after enclosure.

Tithe Award Maps and Apportionments

Following the Tithe Commutation Act in 1836 the payment of tithes was to be changed from a payment in kind to a cash payment. This formalised a process which had already occurred in many areas. In order to calculate rates of payment detailed surveys were undertaken into the ownership, occupation and usage of land. The results were recorded in the form of Tithe Award maps and accompanying apportionments. The apportionments are very useful documents which record landowners, tenants and field names for all parcels of land within a parish.

Road Closure Orders

The Highways Act of 1773 made it possible for landowners to secure the closure and/or diversion of a road or footpath by securing the consent of two justices of the peace. The associated documentation typically includes a sketch map of the roads in question, a description of the closure or diversion and a copy of a contemporary newspaper announcing the intention to close or divert a road. Appeals against road closures could be made at the Court of Quarter Sessions.

4.1 Blo Norton

All the publicly accessible material relating to Blo Norton is held in three archives:

• Norfolk Record Office – holds the vast majority of documents. • Suffolk Record Office – some material is deposited in the Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich branches. • The Parliamentary Archives – holds a copy of the Blo Norton enclosure act, which is also accessible in Norfolk Record Office.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.1.

4.1.1. Cartographic Sources

Figure 4.1. Estate map of George Betts, Blo Norton, 1773. Norfolk Record Office.

There are no early maps of the parish. The earliest is an estate map of 1773 showing the estate of George Betts, but this does not show any areas of the parish close to the Little Ouse (Fig. 4.1).1 There is a good enclosure map, paired with the written award, of 1820 (Fig. 4.2 to 4.5).2 The enclosure map and award identify all the areas of the parish enclosed by parliamentary act, and crucially identify the areas of the parish which were allotted for a fuel

1 NRO MC2477/2/976X5 2 NRO C/Sca 2/43 21

allotment for the poor. Taken together, the map and award are an excellent source for reconstructing the landscape of the parish in the early 19th century in terms of its physical structure and in terms of landownership. The map itself does not record land use, or field names across the whole parish (although a few are shown on the map). The Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1838 do record both land use and field names for the whole parish, as well as the landowner and occupier (not always the same person) for each individual parcel of land (Figs. 4.6 to 4.8).3 Like the enclosure map, this is a critical source for understanding the landscape in the middle of the nineteenth century, and provides the most detailed snapshot of land use and landownership. The names recorded on the Tithe Apportionment can be linked to those recorded in the census data for the parish from 1841 onwards.

Figure 4.2. Enclosure Map, Blo Norton, 1820. Norfolk Record Office.

The only other historic map relating to Blo Norton dates from after 1874, and is a copy of the enclosure map of 1820 with the addition of landownership details from the 1870s. However, the map had been damaged and only shows part of the northern half of the parish with no details of the river or the fens (NRO 43BCH).

3 NRO DN/TA 66 22

Figure 4.3. Detail of Blo Norton Enclosure Map, 1820, showing the location of Blo Norton Fen and Betty’s Fen. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.4. Detail of Blo Norton Enclosure Map, 1820, showing the location of The Lows. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.5. Detail of the Blo Norton Enclosure Award, showing the passage describing the allotment for the poor for fuel, 1820. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.6. The Blo Norton Tithe Map, 1838. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.7. Detail of the Blo Norton Tithe Map, showing Blo Norton Fen and Betty’s Fen, 1838. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.8. Detail of the Blo Norton Tithe Map, showing The Lows – this part of the map has unfortunately been damaged. Norfolk Record Office. 26

4.1.2. Parish and Official Documents

The Norfolk Record Office holds various material relating to the parish of Blo Norton, including birth, death and marriage records, records relating to the schools, burial grounds, rate books and others. Most of these do not contain any strictly relevant material for the LOHP, but are an invaluable source for family history and some aspects of local history. They will include references to families living in Blo Norton, some of whom, with further research, may hold some relevance to the LOHP in the future.

The most obviously relevant, however, are those documents which deal directly with the land use and management of the Fens and the Little Ouse itself.

In the 1920s the Revered Edmund Farrer made a copy of the ‘town book’, written by the churchwardens of Blo Norton between 1662 and 1758. This is now available on microfilm, and is a good, readable copy. It includes a reference in 1733 to the ‘cleansing of the river’, and to the enclosure of some of the commons before the Parliamentary Act of 1820. It also lists the purchase of wood, faggots and clothing for the poor from the late 17th century onwards, mentioning the recipients by name. This is a detailed document, which will certainly repay further research and the transcription of the relevant entries.

Figure 4.9. Detail of Blo Norton statement for fuel allotment charity, 1932. Norfolk Record Office.

In terms of the direct management of the fuel allotments themselves, there is a copy of the statement of the fuel allotments charity for 1932, which records the amount paid for coal for the poor (Fig. 4.9).4 The minute book of parish council meetings between 1894 and 1952 contains a few references to the local charities when the ‘Great Fen’ and the ‘Small Fen’ were leased in return for an annual rent, but these are not consistent throughout the volume (Fig. 4.10).5

4 NRO P/CH 2/31 5 NRO PC81/1 28

Figure 4.10. Extract from Blo Norton parish meeting book, 1902. Norfolk Record Office.

4.1.3. Manorial Documents

There are various documents relating to the Manor of Bromehall dating from the 17th century onwards. They consist mainly of title deeds, rentals and similar documents which do not shed a great deal of light on the land use or management of the LOHP area. Even for those parcels of land with which they are directly concerned, such documents are more useful for understanding changing landownership rather than land use.

The only manorial court records in the Norfolk Record Office date from the late eighteenth century onwards.6 Manorial court records of that date mainly consist of schematic entries relating to the ‘admission’ of local landowners purchasing land within the manor, and do not contain any references to particular pieces of land, land use, management or local custom.

Virtually no material dating from before the 16th century appears to survive for Blo Norton, although some may exist in private hands.

6 NRO NRS24091 29

4.1.4. Estate Documents

The Norfolk Record Office holds a number of leases and sale documents dating from the 18th century onwards. A survey of these reveals that very few of them hold any relevance for the LOHP, and they often do not provide any useful information about land use or management of the landscape (often not even for those pieces of land which they are concerned with). There is however, a sale document for the two windmills in Garboldisham to a farmer in Blo Norton, dated 1811, and discussed in the Garboldisham section below.7

7 NRO MS18191 30

4.2 Garboldisham

All the publicly accessible material relating to Blo Norton is held in seven archives:

• Norfolk Record Office – holds the vast majority of documents. • Suffolk Record Office – some material is deposited in the Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich branches. • Cambridgeshire Record Office – two 18th/19th century settlement papers relating to people born in the parish. • Cambridge University Library – holds four documents relating to the Buxton family holdings in Garboldisham. • Northamptonshire Record Office – holds a collection of 15 medieval charters, dating between 1366 and 1610, in the archive of the Fitzwilliam family of Milton Hall. • Lambeth Palace Library – one document relating to the Rectory. • The Parliamentary Archives – holds a copy of the Garboldisham enclosure act, which is also accessible in Norfolk Record Office.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.2.

4.2.1. Cartographic Sources

There are no large early maps of the parish which predate the 19th century. The earliest is an estate map of 1807 showing the estate of Robert Butcher, but does not show the river or the immediate valley.8 There are, however, a number of maps associated with Road Closure Orders dating from 1776 onwards which show parts of the parish (Fig. 4.11). They do not, however, relate to those parts of the parish along the river, and instead mainly focus on the road and footpath network within the village core.9

8 NRO BR276/1/876 9 NRO C/Sce 1/8; 1/9; 2/13/10 31

Figure 4.11. A road closure order for Garboldisham, 1776. Norfolk Record Office.

Garboldisham was enclosed by Parliamentary act relatively late in the 19th century, in 1840. The enclosure map is clearly drawn and covers the whole parish, distinguishing between woodland and non-woodland but with no other details of land use or ownership (Figs 4.12 and 4.13). The accompanying award does provide details of ownership for those parcels of land affected by the enclosure. It also identifies those areas of the parish set aside for a fuel allotment for the poor, and those which belonged to other parish charities.10

10 NRO C/Sca 2/127 32

Figure 4.12. Garboldisham Enclosure Map, 1840. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.13. Detail of Garboldisham Enclosure Map, showing Scarfe’s Meadow and Broomscot Common, 1840. Norfolk Record Office.

The Tithe Map and Apportionment were made only two years after enclosure in 1842, and therefore there is little to distinguish between the two maps (Figs. 4.14 and 4.15).11 The Tithe Apportionment does list land use, ownership and occupier and field names, and can be used in conjunction with the Tithe Map and the Enclosure documents to give an excellent overview of the appearance of the parish in the middle of the 19th century.

Figure 4.14. Detail of Garboldisham Tithe Map, 1862, a very faintly drawn map. Norfolk Record Office.

11 NRO DN/TA 657 34

Figure 4.15. Detail of Garboldisham Tithe Map, 1842, showing Scarfe Meadow and Broomscot Common. Norfolk Record Office.

4.2.2. Parish and Official Documents

There are a number of records relating to the parish, including churchwardens accounts, accounts of marriages, births and deaths, settlement and removal orders and similar. As discussed above, very little of this material is directly relevant to the LOHP, but may prove useful for tracing the histories of individual families who were involved in managing or using the Fens.

4.2.3. Manorial Documents

There is very little medieval material relating to the management of the manors of Garboldisham. There are a number of manorial court books dating from the late 17th century onwards, but these do not contain any relevant material and are mostly comprised of schematic entries relating to manorial admissions. There are also a number of deeds, leases

and other material, but as highlighted above these are not directly related to the Fens or the river and so will contain very little of relevance.

4.2.4. Estate Documents

As before, there are several deeds, leases and sale documents relating to individual properties across the parish, but none of these directly concern the Fens themselves, and few of them contain much useful information about land use or management in anything other than general terms. For example, a lease for a farm from 1711 lists the crop rotations that should have been carried out by the tenant, including the cultivation of turnips, but it is not at all clear without more detailed research, to establish the location of the land referred to, although it is certainly not on the Fens themselves (Fig. 4.16).12

Figure 4.16. Lease for a farm in Garboldisham, 1711. Norfolk Record Office.

12 NRO MC421/5/1-4, 737X7 36

The most relevant lease is for the two windmills in Garboldishan, dated 1811, but which yields information on the original construction of the mills on the common before enclosure (Fig. 4.17).13

Figure 4.17. A lease of 1811 for two windmills in Garboldisham. Norfolk Record Office.

The farming accounts of Benjamin Chittock are a well-preserved set of accounts with detailed entries relating to the everyday practice of farming in Garboldisham between 1792 and 1824.14 However, it is unclear from the entries which pieces of land are being referred to although it is clear that Chittock was not farming in or near the Fens. A relatively recent source, a set of sales particulars for the Garboldisham Estate from 1944, covers almost the whole of the parish and includes a range of potentially useful information relating to the age and condition of farm buildings, and the condition, species content and age of the woods and plantations, some of which are on the former commons (Fig. 4.18).15

13 NRO MS18191. 14 NRO BR149. 15 NRO BR241/4/1209. 37

Figure 4.18. Map of part of the Garboldisham estate, showing Broomscot Common, from sales particulars of 1944. Norfolk Record Office.

4.3 North and South Lopham

The two parishes of North and South Lopham, although distinct entities, are more easily considered taken together – some archival documents relate to ‘Lopham’, rather than strictly to North or South Lopham.

All the publicly accessible material relating to North and South Lopham is held in five archives:

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.3.

4.3.1. Cartographic Sources

As with Blo Norton and Garboldisham, there are no early historical maps of either North or South Lopham. The earliest are the Enclosure Maps of 1812 and 1815, which are bound together with a written award covering both parishes. Both are clear, well drawn maps which give an excellent record of the physical structure of both parishes in the early 19th century (Figs. 419 to 4.21).16 When a parcel of land was affected by the enclosure award, the name of the landowner is given, but is not always marked on land which was not being enclosed. Neither map gives any indication as to land use. The joint award lists landowners and those parcels of land allotted to the poor as a fuel allotment and to other parish charities.

16 NRO C/Sca/2/188. 39

Figure 4.19. North Lopham Enclosure Map, 1815. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.20. South Lopham Enclosure Map, 1812. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.21. Detail of South Lopham Enclosure Map, 1812, showing The Frith. Norfolk Record Office.

The Tithe Maps and Apportionments, both made in the mid 1840s, are extremely useful for tracing landownership and occupation, land use and field names, as discussed above (Figs. 4.22 to 4.24).17 There do not appear to be any other historic maps in publicly accessible archives.

17 NRO DN/TA 871 and 928. 41

Figure 4.22. North Lopham Tithe Map, 1845. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.23. South Lopham Tithe Map, 1847. Norfolk Record Office.

Figure 4.24. Detail of South Lopham Tithe Map, 1847, showing The Frith. Norfolk Record Office.

4.3.2. Parish and Official Documents

The typical set of parish documents, including churchwardens accounts, records relating to births, marriages and deaths, rate books and other similar sources are available for both North and South Lopham. As before, the majority of these contain very little material which is directly relevant to the study of the Fens and their history. There are charity accounts for both North and South Lopham from 1853-4, which list the lands held by the parish and the income and expenditure relating to them (Fig. 4.25).18

18 NRO C/Scg 2/2/91-93 43

Figure 42.5. Charity Accounts for South Lopham, 1853/4. Norfolk Record Office.

There is then a gap in the records until 1908, when records of the fuel allotments for the two parishes have been preserved, showing the income and expenditure relating to the fuel allotments.19 There is also a large collection of documents relating to the Frith in South Lopham, now managed by the LOHP (and owned by the South Lopham Estates Charity). This collection comprises 140 individual documents dating from the 1480s to the 20th century, which has huge potential to reveal a great deal about the history of this particular piece of land, its use and its management.20 Investigating, photographing and transcribing this collection will be a substantial piece of work, but one which may also help us to understand the other Fens in the project area for which there is much less documentation.

4.3.3. Manorial Documents

There are a number of documents relating to the manors of North and South Lopham, mainly dating to the post-medieval period. As above, these include manorial court books,

19 NRO P/CH 2/166-7 20 NRO PT12 44

leases and deeds which only contain schematic information and which do not shed a great deal of light on the study of the Fens and the river valley.

4.3.4. Estate Documents

There are several sale documents and leases for individual farms and other properties, none of which are directly concerned with the history of the Fens, but which may prove useful in the future if more detailed research can connect the individuals named within them to the use and management of the Fens.

4.4 Hinderclay

Hinderclay has one of the smallest collections of archival material within the project area. All the publicly accessible material relating to Hinderclay is held in four archives:

• Suffolk Record Office – holds a small collection of documents, with a particular focus on the Bury St Edmunds branch. • Norfolk Record Office – a reasonably large collection of wills. • Cambridge University Library – a small number of documents within the Buxton papers. • University of Chicago Library – contains a great deal of medieval material, including compotus rolls (manorial accounts) from 1284 to 1406.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.4.

4.4.1. Cartographic Sources

There are no early maps of Hinderclay. The earliest is the enclosure map of 1819, which is a clearly drawn, good map showing the physical structure of the parish in the early 19th century (Figs. 4.26 and 4.27).21 It also records landownership, as described in the enclosure award, but does not give any indication of land use. In common with the other enclosure maps discussed above, it is particularly useful for location those parcels of the fen which were to become fuel allotments. The Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1844 are also excellent sources for reconstructing land ownership, occupation, land use and field names of the mid 19th century.22 There appear to be no other historic maps relating to Hinderclay in public archives.

21 SRO Q/R1/21 22 SRO T/29/1 46

Figure 4.26. Hinderclay Enclosure Map, 1819. Suffolk Record Office.

Figure 4.27. Detail of Hinderclay Enclosure Map, 1819, showing Hinderclay Fen. Suffolk Record Office. 47

Figure 4.28. Hinderclay Tithe Map, 1844. Suffolk Record Office.

Figure 4.29. Detail of Hinderclay Tithe Map, 1844, showing Hinderclay Fen. Suffolk Record Office.

4.4.2. Parish and Official Documents

There are very few parochial documents available for Hinderclay, but those which are available in the Suffolk Record Office include a number of settlement and removal orders which are not of particular interest here.

4.4.3. Manorial Documents

There are a handful of manorial documents in the Suffolk Record Office, including a court roll from the early 18th century and a number of admissions to the manor. These are unlikely to contain much of interest relating to the LOHP.

4.4.4. Estate Documents

Again, there are very few accessible documents for Hinderclay – there are a small number of leases and other property documents, none of which relate to the Fens or the river.

4.5 Hopton

All the publicly accessible material relating to Hopton is held in three archives:

• Suffolk Record Office – hold over 130 documents. • Norfolk Record Office – holds just over 200 documents, including a large number of wills. • Parliamentary Archives – a copy of the Parliamentary Enclosure Act.

Some of the material identified in the Norfolk and Suffolk Record Offices may relate to Hopton in north-east Norfolk; on occasion it is unclear which Hopton is referred to.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.5.

4.5.1. Cartographic Sources

The earliest map of the parish dates to 1740, and is a fine example of mid 18th century estate map (Fig. 4.30).23 It does not, however, show the river or the fens, and due to later landscape change it is difficult to establish where exactly in the parish it shows without more detailed further research. The Enclosure map of 1827 is clear and well drawn, showing the field layout and the names of landowners, but not land use (Fig. 4.31).24 Combined with the Enclosure award it can be used to identify the location of the fuel allotments, other charity land and the owners of other portions of the Fens. The Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1846 are also vital in understanding the structure of the landscape, land use and land ownership in the middle of the 19th century (Fig. 4.32).25 There appear to be no other relevant historic maps of the parish in public archives.

23 SRO E8/1/1 24 SRO QR1/22 25 SRO T62/1-2 50

Figure 4.30. An estate map of Hopton, 1740. Suffolk Record Office.

Figure 4.31. Hopton Enclosure Map, 1827. Suffolk Record Office.

Figure 4.32. Hopton Tithe Map, 1846. Suffolk Record Office. 52

4.5.2. Parish and Official Documents

There are a number of documents relating to the Town Lands Charity in Hopton, which was located on Mill Common. These include a number of papers dating from the late 17th century onwards, including the original grant of land from 1663 (Fig. 4.33) and papers from the Charity Commission, including letters dating from 1908 about the poor state of cultivation of the charity lands.26

Figure 4.33. Grant of land for charity land in Hopton (not on the Fens), 1663. Suffolk Record Office.

4.5.3. Manorial Documents

There appear to be very few documents in public archives relating to the manors of Hopton, either in the Norfolk or Suffolk record offices. Some of those listed in Appendix 2.5 may, on closer inspection, turn out to relate to Hopton in Norfolk. Either way, these documents may well be of little use to the immediate research questions for the project.

4.5.4. Estate Documents

The most relevant estate documentation is a letter of 1897 from H.W. Fox at Riddlesworth Hall about leasing shooting rights over Hopton Fen.27 Other documents include indentures, leases and sale documents relating to properties in Hopton which are not directly linked to the Fens or their management.

26 SRO FL588 27 SRO FL588/3/55 53

4.6 Redgrave

All the publicly accessible material relating to Redgrave is held in four archives:

• Suffolk Record Office – holds the majority of records relating to Redgrave, including the parish records, which are deposited in the Ipswich branch. • Norfolk Record Office – holds a smaller collection of documents, many of which are wills. • Northamptonshire Record Office – holds two documents relating to the parish in the Gunning Collection. • University of Chicago – holds a substantial collection of material relating to the medieval and post-medieval manors of Redgrave, including court rolls, manorial accounts and other documents.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.6.

4.6.1. Cartographic Sources

There are no early maps of the parish in public archives, but the Suffolk Record Office does hold the Redgrave and Botesdale enclosure map and award of 1818 which show landownership, identify the fuel allotments and other charity lands.28 Taken with the evidence of land use, ownership and occupation from the Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1839, these provide an excellent source of material for understanding the appearance and landscape history of the parish in the first half of the 19th century.29

4.6.2. Parish and Official Documents

These include the some church accounts from the 1930s (), and a number of removal and settlement orders relating to people who were living in, or born in Redgrave.30 The Ipswich branch of the Suffolk Record Office also contains a number of documents relating to the management of charities within the parish, including the fuel allotments on the Fens.31 These date mainly from the late 19th and 20th century, and will be enormously useful to research in more detail.

28 SRO FB 132/A/2/2 29 SRO EG105/C1/1 30 SRO FB 132/E/1/2 31 SRO FB132/L1/6-12 54

4.6.3. Manorial Documents

There are a number of court rolls and other documents dating from the early 17th century onwards, which, as discussed above, are not generally useful for the research questions under consideration here, but which may include material of more general relevance.

4.6.4. Estate Documents

As above, there are leases, sale documents and indentures relating to various properties within Redgrave and Botesdale from the 17th century onwards. Whilst these have no immediate relevance to the river or the fens, they may prove to be useful in the future if they can be linked to people and families with a proven connection to the management or exploitation of the fens.

4.6.5. Private Archives Relating to Redgrave

Whilst not a private archive, the University of Chicago does hold a very large collection of material relating to Redgrave and the surrounding parishes. The Sir Nicolas Bacon Collection of Court and Manorial Documents spans the period 1200 to 1785, and was deposited in Chicago in 1924. The documents all relate to the period when the Redgrave estate was owned by the Bacon family, and to the period after 1702 when the estate was sold to the Holt family.

Several thousand documents relating to the Hall and estate remained in the Holt-Wilson family, and have been catalogued by the Redgrave Local History Group with the eventual intention of depositing them in the Suffolk Record Office. The majority of these documents date to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in the main are concerned with the history of the Redgrave estate. The archive does however, contain material relating to the surrounding area, which it may be profitable to consult, either whilst the archive remains in private hands, or once it has been deposited in a public archive.

4.7 Thelnetham

All the publicly accessible material relating to Hopton are held in three archives:

• Suffolk Record Office – holds a small collection of just over 30 documents. • Norfolk Record Office – holds almost 100 documents, many of which are wills. • University of Chicago – holds a small number of post-medieval documents.

These sources are listed in Appendix 2.7.

4.7.1. Cartographic Sources

In common with many of the other parishes under discussion, there are no early maps of Thelnetham. The enclosure map and award of 1821 are extremely useful in identifying landowners, the fuel allotments and charity lands and the general structure of the parish in the early 19th century (Figs. 4.34 and 4.35).32

Figure 4.34. Part of Thelnetham Enclosure Map, 1827. Suffolk Record Office.

32 SRO Q/RI/35 56

Figure 4.35. Detail of Thelnetham Enclosure Map, 1827, showing Parkers Pieces, Webbs Fen and Bleyswycks Banks. Suffolk Record Office.

The Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1847 are also critical in understanding land use and landownership in the middle of the 19th century (Fig. 4.36).33 There are a handful of other historic maps of the parish, including an estate map of 1822 showing a small estate to the south of the parish, but not including the river or any the Fens.34 Similarly, a plan of an unnamed farm in the parish shows only a very small portion of the landscape and does not include the area close to the river.35

33 SRO T47/1-2 34 SRO M547/24 35 SRO HD526/144/5 57

Figure 4.36. Detail from Thelnetham Tithe Map, 1847, showing the location of Parker’s Piece, Webbs Fen and Bleyswycks Bank. Suffolk Record Office.

4.7.2. Parish and Official Documents

There is a small collection of papers relating to the Town Lands Charity, which are very useful for understanding this particular aspect of Thelnetham’s landscape.36 These include the original grant of land from 1643 of various plots of land across the parish, which were then consolidated into a single block on the Fens at enclosure (Fig. 4.37). The collection also includes detailed minutes and accounts of the charity from 1844, including regular payments for cleaning the river and drainage ditches on the Fens, and the construction of a new coal house in the 1860s (Fig. 4.38). A more detailed study of this particular collection will be particularly useful for the project, and may help to shed light on the management of other Town Lands Charities within the project area for which there is little surviving documentation.

36 SRO FL636/11/1-6 58

Figure 4.37. A 17th century land grant from a collection relating to charity lands in Thelnetham. Suffolk Record Office.

Figure 4.38. Extract from Feoffees Minutes from Thelnetham for 1849, including payments for ditching on the fen and cleaning water courses. Suffolk Record Office.

4.7.3. Manorial Documents

There are virtually no manorial documents relating to Thelnetham in public archives.

4.7.4. Estate Documents

There are no documents relating to local estates in Thelnetham in public archives.

Section 5: Published Works – An Overview

In addition to the manuscript sources discussed in detail above, there is also a range of published work dating from the 18th century onwards which is of use to the LOHP, and which is generally freely available online in digital form. Original copies of the texts discussed below are also generally available in local libraries and in the county record offices.

5.1 Antiquarian Sources

During the 18th and 19th centuries antiquarian books on the history of a particular county often included information useful to historians and archaeologists. This might relate to the information gleaned from original manorial documents, which may not be accessible in modern archives, or the odd aside on the landscape of the parish at the time of publication.

An Essay Towards a Topographical History of Norfolk, Francis Blomefield.

Published between 1805 and 1810, but written and compiled by Blomefield in the 1730s and 1740s, this is an invaluable text for the history of Norfolk. For all the parishes within Norfolk, Blomefield includes a detailed account of the medieval manors and their ownership from the Conquest to the present day, as well as lists of rectors, a description of the churches and information on the commons or charities.

Blo Norton:

Here is about 1 rood of land, which lies at Furze Common, a house being lately pulled down there, and another rebuilt more convenient, for two dwellers, on the waste, which hath about a rood of land laid to it. The Commons are, New Cross, which contains about 10 acres, Furze Common about 30 acres, South Fen about 30 acres; and there are about 80 acres of common car and fen, on all which they common solely.

Garboldisham:

Here is a town-house purchased with Mrs. Williamson's money, inhabited by three or four poor families. The town lands are let at about 22l. per annum, and lie in Lopham, Norton, and Garbotdesham.

North and South Lopham:

This town hath also 60 acres, called the Frith, taken off the common by the lord's consent, of whom they now hold it; it is marsh ground, and let at 8l. per annum, the income of which is

gven to the poor by the feoffees every Christmas and Easter. And also a messuage, barn, and 16 acres of freehold land, lying in the parish, now rented at 15l. per annum, settled to repair and beautify the church for ever; and before the tenure of knight's service was abolished, it paid scutage, and a relief of 2s. 2d. 0b.

The Commons contain as much land as the whole towns beside, on all which North and South Lopham are joint commoners, but no other parishes intercommon with them; they are called the Great or Mill Common, North Green, North Common, and the Fen Common, and the inhabitants heretofore had all Chimbrook Meadow, for common, which they granted to the lord to make his fishery, agreeing to quit all right of commonage in it, and on all other the lord's wastes, on the east side the hundred ditch, and park banks, for which the lord agreed to lay them out an equivalent of other lands upon their Great Common, which was done accordingly, reserving the trees, furze, and bushes, growing, or which should ever hereafter grow on the lands, so laid out, which privilege the lord still enjoys, the lands being then called the Severals, and now the Allands, or Ollands.

This town is remarkable among the country people for the three Wonders... The third is called Lopham Ford, at which place the Ouse and Waveney (those disagreeing brethren, as Spelman calls them) have their rise, and though there is no greater division than nine feet of ground, yet the former goes west by Thetford to Lynn, and the latter in a direct contrary course, by Diss, and so to Yarmouth, including this whole county.

There is, unfortunately, no direct equivalent of Blomefield for the county of Suffolk, although some 19th century histories, such as The History of Suffolk by Alfred Suckling, published in the 1840s, may include similar material.

5.2 Contemporary Gazetteers

During the 19th century a number of county-based gazetteers were published, listing the principal facts about each parish, as well as its inhabitants and businesses. The most famous of these are by William White, published in various editions from the 1830s onwards. The following extracts are taken from the 1845 edition of the Norfolk volume and the 1855 Suffolk volume.

Blo Norton:

The poor cut turf on the Fuel 20a awarded at the enclosure in 1822 when the Parish was augmented to I 8a let for about 25 which is applied with the and poor rates The worthy rector has recently improved the condition the poor by letting them allotments of land

North Lopham:

The fuel allotment, 103A 2R 11P, upon which the poor cut fuel, was awarded at the enclosure in 1815.

South Lopham:

The fuel allotments, awarded at the enclosure in 1815, comprise 126A 27P, on which the poor cut turf, and let the herbage for £7 or £8, which is expended in repairing the fences.

Garboldisham:

No mention of a fuel allotment, but does describe the other town charities.

Hinderclay:

The Town Estate, nearly 8A, is let in 14 allotments for £16 10s a year, and the rent is applied in the service of the Church.

Hopton:

The Town Land, about 20A, was awarded at the enclosure in lieu of other land, and is now let for about £20 a year, which is applied with the poor rates.

Thelnetham:

The Poor’s Allotment, awarded at the enclosure, comprises 40A on which the poor get turf etc. for fuel.

Redgrave:

The Poor’s Allotment consists of 80 acres of waste land, and was awarded at the enclosure in 1813 to be employed for providing fuel for the poor parishioners, or otherwise for their use, under such orders as the lords of the manors of Redgrave and Botesdale, and the rector, churchwardens, and overseers should seem most beneficial.

5.3. Summary

This section is intended to give a brief overview of the kind of contemporary texts that are available, and which provide additional detail to the original archival material. As noted above, many of these are freely available online or in the local record offices, and make a good starting point for any more detailed study of a parish or group of parishes.

Section 6: Census Material

Using census material to investigate the history of local communities is a well established branch of local and regional history in its own right. Censuses were taken every 10 years from 1841 onwards. All census returns for the UK are easily accessible online – the best website is www.ancestry.co.uk, which allows users to view the original handwritten pages. There is however an annual subscription charge for full access to the site.

Figure 6.1 is a sample page from the 1881 census return for Garboldisham, listing residents of the parish in Smallworth, close to Broomscot Common. They include a number of agricultural labourers, a thatcher and a farmer of 60 acres, as well as the wives and children of each family.

Figure 6.1. Part of the census return for Garboldisham, 1881. Accessed online at www.ancestry.co.uk.

Delving into the census returns for each of the parishes under consideration by the LOHP is a substantial piece of work. It is research that would not obviously answer many of the questions listed in Section 1. However, it does have the potential to make a large

contribution to our understanding of the nature of these communities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By studying a group of parishes as a set, volunteers will be able to produce a clear piece of research on themes such as family size, place of birth, occupation and more. A database of this information could then be linked to other archival sources such as the Tithe Apportionment (broadly contemporary with the 1841 and 1851 censuses), or other genealogical records where they exist. It could also be linked to old photographs, oral history recordings and other sources in the parishes within the study area. Using family history as a means of engaging the wider public may also engage new audiences who may not feel as interested in questions of land use and management.

Section 7: Analysis and Interpretation

7.1 Introduction: The Common Fens

The purpose of this section of the report is to examine briefly what the available sources might potentially tell us about the history of the various parcels of land currently owned and managed by the LOHP. All represent areas of low-lying land which were, until the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, managed as common land: while owned by the various lords of the manors within which they lay, they were exploited in a variety of ways by those holding common rights (which were attached to specific properties within each parish). Unfortunately, there are relatively few documents which throw clear and unambiguous light on the early management and use of these common fens. So far we have been unable to trace the kind of manorial documents, especially court rolls, which might contain this kind of information. On the basis of comparisons with elsewhere in East Anglia, however, we can be reasonably sure that before enclosure the local fens would have been grazed in the summer months, and cut for marsh hay, thatching materials and livestock bedding, as well as for peat. Peat was one of the main fuel sources in rural England in the period before the nineteenth century, especially in the east of England, alongside heather, gorse and other material cut from common land – and wood from hedges, pollards and coppices. Although the drainage of the East Anglian Fens began in the seventeenth century it was a protracted process, and peat was still being dug on an industrial scale in south Cambridgeshire in the late nineteenth century. The last extensive excavations, at Swaffham, were only closed at the start of the Second World War.37 In the ‘Broads’ district of Norfolk and Suffolk, similarly, while the deep excavations which created the ‘broads’ or lakes which give the district its name appear to have ended in the fourteenth century, shallower peat digging continued everywhere and seems to have increased in scale in the decades around 1800, following enclosure of the valley fens.38 It is clear that the large deposits of peat located in the other river valleys running through the region, including the Waveney and the Little Ouse, were also cut for fuel.

However, it is important to emphasise that while they were being exploited as common land the extent of peat cutting would probably have been restricted, by local custom and the rulings of manorial courts. The removal of peat created shallow pools of water which took many decades to terrestrialise, thus reducing the quantity of pasture and fodder available to commoners. Before enclosure, moreover, many of the valley floor commons, and the

37 A.Day, Fuel from the Fens (1999), p.vi. 38 T. Williamson, The Norfolk Broads: a Landscape History (1997), pp. 98-103. 67

commons lying on higher, drier ground certainly, will have provided alternative sources of fuel for the poor in the form of gorse or furze: it is noteworthy that the largest of the ‘dry’ commons, covering some thirty acres, was called Furze Common. The fact that the Blo Norton Town Book, which includes the churchwardens’ accounts and overseers’ accounts for the period 1662-1758, makes no direct references to the provision of peat for the poor, but instead records payments for wood and for ‘firs’ and ‘fir faggots’, presumably furze, may indicate that the fens were not at this stage a major fuel source.39 To judge from the situation elsewhere in Norfolk and Suffolk, peat extraction often increased after enclosure, especially in areas which became fuel allotments by enclosure commissioners but also in some cases on private allotments, where owners could now exploit the land for whatever purpose they desired, without interference from others.

The importance of the local fens as a fuel source was, however, probably increasing relative to other forms of exploitation during the half century or so preceding enclosure. Rough fen and heathland vegetation was unsuitable for the new breeds of sheep introduced during the ‘Agricultural Revolution’, and the larger farmers, in East Anglia as elsewhere, were concerned to limit claims on the poor rate, which increased inexorably as the population rose, and unemployment escalated, after c.1750. They therefore encouraged the poor to use the more marginal areas of common land, for grazing but especially as a source of fuel, even though the majority had no legal rights to do so (common rights being attached, as already noted, to particular properties, most of which were, by this stage, owned by a comparatively small number of people in each parish: the poor, for the most part, were tenants rather than owners of the cottages in which they lived). And it was because of this customary dependence on commons as a source of firing that parliamentary enclosure commissioners often allocated an area for use as a fuel allotment or poors allotment, sometimes cut by the poor for gorse, turf or peat, although sometimes rented out from the start to provide coals for them.40 In Norfolk alone no less than 250 parishes had such allotments, some relatively small in size but others – as at Bridgham or Feltwell – extending over more than 100 hectares.41

7.2. The Parliamentary Enclosures

In two respects the parliamentary enclosure acts relating to the local area are typical of those affecting parishes the central areas of East Anglia – a gentle landscape of claylands,

39 Norfolk Record office (NRO) MC649/2/787X7. 40 S.Birtles, ‘”A Green Space Beyond Self Interest”: the Evolution of Common Land in Norfolk c.750- 2003’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 2003. 41 Birtles, ‘Green Space Beyond Self Interest’, p.196; pp. 307-9. 68

dissected by river valleys. Firstly, all took place at a relatively late date. With the exception of the act for North and South Lopham which was passed in 1812, all came after the end of the Napoleonic wars: Hinderclay in 1815, Redgrave in 1817, Thelnethan in 1818, Blo Norton in 1820, Hopton in 1826 and Garboldisham as late as 1840. Secondly, these enclosures mainly, and in most parishes exclusively, affected common land rather than open fields. Most of the villages in the area had possessed extensive areas of open arable in medieval times and early post-medieval times. A number of early conveyances and charters attest the extent of open fields, containing farms divided into a multiplicity of strips: in 1519, for example, Thomas Baxstere sold to Robert Edward a house and 21 pieces of arable land, in the fields of Garboldisham.42 Even in 1773 some of the land shown on an estate map in Blo Norton still lay in unenclosed strips.43 But most open fields were removed in a gradual, informal, ‘piecemeal’ manner in the period between the mid fifteenth and the mid eighteenth century: and by the parliamentary enclosure period only residual patches, if any, remained in the area. In North and South Lopham, Redgrave, and Hopton the enclosure acts thus dealt with common land only; in Thelnetham, Blo Norton and Hinderclay the enclosures affected some open field land but, given that the total areas enclosed in each of these places was only 283, 202 and 163 acres respectively, this can only have represented a small proportion of their arable area. Only in the case of Garboldisham, where as much as 852 acres were enclosed by act, may significant amounts of open field have been affected.

Some of the low-lying fens in the LOHP area became, in the manner described, fuel allotments. This is the origins of the parcels described as Blo Norton Fen, Blo Norton Little Fen, and Hinderclay Fen. But the majority of the land now administered by the Trust had rather different origins.

- Firstly, a large proportion originated as allotments made to private owners. Betty’s Fen was thus given to Rev C. Browne, Parker’s Piece to one Henry Bolton, Blyswyck’s Bank to John Dyson, Webb’s Fen to George Pretty, and Scarfe Meadows to a number of landowners, although principally to Thomas Crisp Molineaux Montgomerie and Martin Peche.

- Secondly, some parcels were allotted to local charities, and these need to be distinguished from true Fuel Allotments. Village charity lands provided rents which were used in a variety of ways. Some were simply to support the indigent poor: That in Hopton, for example, according to a document of 1692, was ‘To the onely use and

42 Northants Record Office F(M) Charter/1823 43 NRO MC 2477/2/976X5. 69

behoofe of the Inhabitance of the said Towne of Hopton and their heires forever for and towards the Relief of the said Poore of Hopton and to no other uses whatsoever’.44 The aims of others included the provision of apprenticeships for poor boys and the maintenance of the local church, or of the clergy that served it. Most parishes in the area had ‘town lands’ or charity land of various kinds, either lying within their own bounds or located within those of a neighbouring parish, and administered by trustees or by the overseers of the poor. Some had several separate charities. In Garboldisham, for example, there was Boles’s Charity, Williamson’s charity, and Gawdy’s Charity.45 Their lands had either been donated over the centuries by one or more individuals to the local overseers or to trustees, or had been purchased with money so donated or bequeathed in the past. The older donations or acquisitions had been made at a time when open fields still covered significant areas of the parishes and they thus sometimes took the form of a number of small strips. As the open fields were gradually enclosed, piecemeal, these strips often came to lie in the middle of consolidated parcels owned by other proprietors, and while the rent continued to be paid by the latter the precise bounds and character of the charitable land, as a distinct and separate property, was often lost. In 1840 the Charity Commissioners reported that this had happened to many of parcels making up the endowment of Bole’s charity in Garboldisham.

Neither the site nor quantity of the lands in respect of which some of the rents are received could at the time of our enquiry not be ascertained: with some trouble persons locally acquainted with the parish may succeed in making the discovery.46

There is some potential for confusion between such charity lands on the one hand, and fuel allotments on the other, because some of the these charities received allotments in the valley fens at enclosure. In Blo Norton, for example, the lord of the manor had granted, in the early eighteenth century, part of the manorial commons – upland commons, away from the valley floor – to build and endow a poor house. Some of this land was re-allotted, at enclosure, within the ‘Great Fen’ of the parish – ten acres, in four parcels. At Hopton similarly twenty acres was allotted, in lieu of ‘several detached portions of land’, in this case presumably former arable strips in the open fields. 47

44 SRO FL588/7/55 45 F.Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographic History of the County of Norfolk (London, 1805). 46 Further Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring Concerning Charities (London, 1840), p.729. 47 SRO Q/R1/22. 70

One of the areas of land managed by the LOHP, Broomscot Common, appears to have originated as an allotments made to a village charity in this manner: it was given at enclosure to the Feoffees of the Garboldisham Charities. Superficially, the same might appear to be true of a second area, The Frith in South Lopham, but this in fact has a complex history. Some time before the mid eighteenth century it was enclosed from the rest of the low commons with the permission of the Lord of the Manor and probably subject to a measure of drainage, converting it from rough fen to better-quality marsh. It was then leased out to local farmers and the £8 annual income used to support the local poor.48

In short, while some of the properties now in the hands of the LOHP originated as fuel allotments made at the time of enclosure, the majority represent land given at enclosure to private individuals or to local charities. This distinction is important because land given to different kinds of owners was often exploited in different ways in the decades following enclosure.

7.3. The management and use of the fen allotments

7.3.1. Poors’ Allotments

Poors’ allotments, in East Anglia as elsewhere, fall into three main categories.

- A small number, such as east Ruston ‘Common’ in north east Norfolk, were used by the poor for grazing, as well as being cut for fuel. They represented, in effect, a small, surviving area of common land.

- A rather larger number were specifically allotted only as a source of fuel, usually in the form of peat cut from low-lying fens but sometimes gorse and heather cut from heaths.

- The majority of examples in Norfolk, around 55%, were rented out from the start, as pasture or meadow or occasionally for shooting, and the income employed to purchase coals for the poor.49

Whatever the precise manner of exploitation, poor allotments differed from traditional common land in one crucial manner. They were administered by a committee of local worthies – typically including the lord of the manor and the incumbent – rather than being regulated by the users themselves. The Lopham enclosure award described how the 200 acres allotted to the poor in the parish were actually given to:

48 Blomefield, Essay Towards a Topographic History. 49 Birtles, ‘Green Space’, p.309. 71

The Lord of the Manor of Lopham, and also to the Rector, Churchwardens, and overseeers of the Poor … and to their respective successors for ever … For .. the purpose of providing Fuel for the necessary Firing of the said poor persons, or otherwise appropriated, and the Produce and Profits arising therefore applied for their use and benefit; the Fuel so directed to be raised and cut, taken, and used by them, in such Quantities and Portions, and at such times in the year, and under such Orders, Rules and Regulations, and in such manner as the Lord or Lords, Lady or ladies of the said Manor, and the Rector, Churchwardens and Overseeers of the Poor of the said Parishes of North Lopham and South Lopham … or the major part of them, shall from time to time deem most beneficial for such persons.50

The enclosure commissioners evidently left it to the local squire, rector, and overseers to decide precisely how the land would be used to benefit the poor. The same was true in other parishes. Thus in Blo Norton the two allotments, of ten and fifteen acres respectively, were to be ‘cut for providing fuel for the … poor, or to be let, and the profits arising therefrom to be distributed among them according to such regulations as the Trustees should make’. Fortunately, more information about how the various allotments were actually being exploited is supplied by the reports made by the Charity Commissioners in 1840 - within a decade or so, in most cases, of enclosure. These show that:

- In the case of Blo Norton parish the allotment was exploited directly by the poor: ‘a quantity of turf is allocated annually to the poor persons residing and settled in the parish’.

- At North and South Lopham, similarly, the fen was actively cut, rather than leased: ‘in quantities according to the number in family’ in the latter parish, and in amounts ‘’for their own consumption’ in the case of North Lopham.

- At Redgrave, the 80-acre allotment given to the poor was deemed ‘unprofitable for any other purpose than supplying fuel, and is kept employed for that use’.

- The situation at Thelnethan is less clear, but the wording of the report (‘used for turf and fuel for the poor’) suggests, once again, direct exploitation.

- Only at Hinderclay was the allotment specifically let out ‘to the highest bidder’, rather than directly cut by the local poor, although the fact that the area was categorized as

50 NRO C/Sca 2 188. 72

‘fen’ by the tithe award a few years later may suggest that it had initially been cut by the poor themselves.

- At Hopton and Garboldisham the enclosure commissioners appear to have made no allotments to the poor, in the latter case presumably because of changes in the character of poor relief resulting from the New Poor law of 1834 – the Garboldisham act was a particularly late one, passed in 1840.

In the LOHP area, therefore, most fuel allotments appear to have been directly exploited by the poor, at least until the 1840s. This is rather different from the usual situation: as already noted, only around half of poors allotments, in Norfolk at least, were initially managed in this manner. The explanation for this difference is probably that the local fens provided better quality firing than was available from the ‘upland’ commons found in the majority of parishes in East Anglia, which produced only ‘furze’ and heather for firing. Of the three parcels of land currently managed by the LOHP which originated as poors allotments two (Blo Norton Fen and Blo Norton Little Fen) were evidently exploited directly by the poor while Hinderclay appears to have been leased out from the beginning.

In Norfolk as a whole the proportion of allotments leased out, as opposed to those directly cut by the poor, increased steadily in the course of the nineteenth century, rising from 55% in 1833 to 60% in 1845, and to 81% in 1883, eventually reaching 92% by 1896.51 This development reflects, in large part, the steady spread of coal use as improvements in transport – and in particular the extension of the rail network – reduced its cost. Changes in the character of domestic cooking and heating, with the spread of cast iron ranges, also played a part. The digging of fuel at Whitwell in Norfolk thus ceased in the 1870s because ‘the houses and fireplaces of the commoners are unusable for the burning of turf’.52 Bird, describing the use of East Ruston ‘Common’ (really a poors’ allotment) in east Norfolk in 1909, similarly noted that the cutting of flags, peat and furze for firing had ceased ‘since the old larger brick ovens and open chimneys have entirely disappeared’, replaced, presumably, by grates and ranges designed for coal.53

The tithe award for Blo Norton, drawn up in 1838, described the poors allotment in Blo Norton Little Fen as ‘turf’, while that for Hinderclay, from 1844, describes the allotment there as ‘Fen’.54 The status of Blo Norton Fen, the third of the LOHP lands which originated in this

51 Birtles, ‘Green Space Beyond Self Interest’, p. 205. 52 Birtles, ‘Green Space Beyond Self Interest’, p. 206. 53 M.C.H. Bird, ‘The Rural Economy, Sport, and Natural History of East Ruston Common’, Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society 8 (1909), pp. 631-670; p. 638. 54 NRO TNA 66; SRO FL 516/3/2. 73

way, is unclear. It is described as ‘pasture’ in the award, suggesting that it may not by this stage have been cut for peat. Yet it was nevertheless said to be occupied as well as owned by the ‘Trustees of Poors Firing’, so it was clearly not being leased out to another party. It is possible that it was being used by the local poor for grazing domestic livestock, and for cutting fodder and livestock bedding, although this suggestion requires further research.

The evidence suggests that in the LOHP area, as elsewhere, there was a tendency for poors allotments to be increasingly leased out rather than directly cut during the later nineteenth century. In 1901 both of the allotments in Blo Norton – both now managed by the LOHP – were being let as pasture to local farmers, bringing in a total of £1. 15s per annum.55 By 1931 this had risen to £4 10s, although declining to £3.17s 6d the following year. 56 Trustees accounts, where they survive, indicate that some allotments were rented for shooting – presumably of wildfowl. At South Lopham, for example, £8 was received by the Trustees for ‘shooting over the fen’ in 1908. The use of the fens in this way was not, of course, incompatible with continued peat cutting, and at Hopton at least the two may have continued for a while side by side. In 1897 the agent for Mr Chapman of Riddlesworth Hall wrote to the chair of the Trustees of the fuel allotment:

With regard to the right of sporting on Hopton Fen, can you at the next meeting of the trustees arrange that the Fen be closed to everybody during the breeding season, and also that no one has a right to carry a gun there at any time.If this cannot be arranged then Mr Chapman does not care to take it. As matters now stand, people can take the eggs and walk around with a gun, and we have no power to prosecute for trespass, as they say we have as much right there as we have. Of course as you are aware £8 8s is quite a fancy price for the shooting, and Mr Chapman only takes it in order to prevent egg stealing. If people could be kept off by order during the breeding season and also be warned that no gun can be carried there we should be able to get along.57

On the whole, however, it seems likely that turf digging had largely ceased on the local poors allotments by the start off the First World War.

55 NRO PC81/1 56 NRO P/Ch2/31 57 FL 588/3/55 74

7.3.2. Private Allotments

So far as we can tell, the parcels of land allotted at enclosure to private individuals or to parish charities were not systematically cut for peat. This is clearly reflected in the way in which they are described in the tithe awards from the late 1830s and early 1840s, for none are described as ‘fen’ or ‘turf’. Most were categorized as ’pasture’, a term which also embraces meadow land. It is probable that such land had, following enclosure, been subject to a measure of improvement, with the installation (for example) of under drains – whether in the form of ceramic pipes or ‘bush drains’. Even without this, however, the creation of a network of open drains and ditches as boundaries around the principal allotments – drains which most of the enclosure awards insisted should be kept clear of vegetation and silt by the various allottees – will have served to lower the water table, reducing the amount of sedge, rushes and reed in the vegetation and increasing the proportion of grasses – thus changing the areas in question from fen and ‘fen meadow’, to meadow and pasture of more normal type. A few of the parcels now owned by LOHP must, however, have been more extensively improved. Parts of The Lows in Blo Norton were being cultivated, as arable, at the time of the tithe awards; so too were four acres of Parkers Piece in Thelnethan and – most striking of all – the bulk of the area (over 45 acres) of Scarfe Meadows in Garboldisham.

The later history of land use within the private allotments – that is, during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries - is at present poorly documented, although a number of sources have not yet been consulted (such as the 1910 Finance Act documents, held at the National Archives in Kew). What is, however, clear is that the landscape of the various parcels continued to display considerable variety. The main influence on land use in the period after c.1880 was the general depression in agriculture, which continued – albeit with wartime interruptions, and with varying degrees of intensity – until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. In national terms, this period of depression led to a reduction in the area cultivated as arable; to a decline in the quality of meadows and pastures as draining, liming etc were neglected; and to a cessation of any kind of agricultural use of the more marginal areas.

The development of land use within the various parcels owned and managed by the LOHP can be traced, to some extent, using the evidence of the First and Second Editions of the Ordnance Survey 6” maps, and the maps produced by the Land Utilisation Survey in the mid 1930s.The complicated history they present is perhaps clearer when set out in tabular form.

Name of Ownership Land use Depiction Depiction Land use on parcel after on tithe on OS on OS Land enclosure award 1880s 1905. Utilisation (c.1840) Survey (1930s).

Scarfe Private Mainly Fields, Fields, ‘Agriculturally Meadow arable presumably presumably unproductive’ arable of arable of improved improved pasture pasture

Broomscot Charity Pasture Rough Mainly Rough pasture Common grazing and gorse, some gorse rough grazing

Parker’s Private Pasture Mixed: osier Some Pasture Piece. and arable beds, marsh, improved some pasture, improved rough pasture. grazing

Bleyswyck’s Private Pasture Rough Meadow or Pasture Bank grazing pasture

Webb’s Fen Private Pasture Mixed: Mixed: Pasture and mainly marsh, woodland rough pasture, grazing but rough some osier pasture beds

Betty’s Fen Private Pasture Rough Marsh Rough pasture grazing

Blo Norton Poors’ Pasture Rough Marsh Rough pasture Fen allotment grazing

Hinderclay Poors’ Fen Rough Mixed: Rough pasture Fen allotment grazing and marsh, gorse. gorse, some rough grazing

The Lows Private Arable and Rough Rough Rough pasture grazing, grazing, pasture, some some some marsh pasture pasture

The Frith Charity Pasture Rough Rough Rough grazing grazing, grazing, gorse, gorse, scattered scattered pines pines

7.4. Changing Patterns of use: discussion

There are, it must be emphasized, a number of problems involved in using these sources to study post-enclosure land use. The categories employed by both the tithe award maps, and the 1930s land utilization survey, were broad; and the OS does not directly concern itself with land use, but rather with the appearance of the areas in question, and the approach adopted and even the categories employed by the surveyors of the initial 1880s survey remain unclear. All this said, two features are striking.

(i) Most of the areas now managed by the LOHP were not classed as ‘fen’ or ‘marsh’ at the time of the tithe award maps; while the 1880s OS shows that most, where not reclaimed and ‘improved’ as arable or pasture, comprised rough pasture and gorse, rather than waterlogged land.

(ii) To some extent the number of areas mapped as ‘marsh’ increase on the Second Edition OS maps, and it may well be that this reflects the deteriorating condition of drainage as the agricultural depression reduced the 77

income of farmers and landowners. Four of the current LOHP parcels which had, in the 1880s, been shown as improved ground or as rough dry grazing now included at least some areas of marsh (The Lows, Betty’s Fen, Webb’s Fen and Parker’s Piece). It is, however, also likely that to an extent the change is more apparent than real: that is, the surveyors in 1910 adopted a different system of classification that their predecessors a quarter of a century earlier, and were more ready to distinguish between rough grazing that was waterlogged for much of the time (‘marsh’) from that which was not. What is more striking, however, is that even on the Second Edition OS only three of the parcels now managed by the LOHP were entirely occupied by ‘marsh’ – Blo Norton Fen, Blo Norton Little Fen, and Betty’s Fen, the first two of these being poors allotments which had certainly been cut for peat in the previous century.

As noted earlier, it is the complexity and diversity of development of the various parcels of land which is most interesting. Some, like the two Blo Norton poors allotments, remained as marsh or rough pasture throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century; others were improved following enclosure, through drainage, becoming meadow or pasture of reasonable quality, or even arable land, before declining once again to rough grazing and occasionally woodland after 1880. The pattern is, in fact, more complex than this, for there was much variety within the individual parcels: especially in the case of Parker’s Piece and Betty’s Fen, within both of which the 1880s OS shows small areas of osier beds.

Section 8: Next Steps

The foregoing discussion suggests that, until enclosure, the land use of the various areas now managed by the LOHP was broadly the same. They were grazed, and cut for peat, litter and marsh hay, with an intensity depending on the character of soils and drainage. After enclosure there was more variety and divergence. Some areas were reclaimed and ‘improved’, as arable, other as pasture; some were used primarily as rough pasture; a few were used to grow osiers; while a few were systematically cut for peat. The agricultural depression of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw further variation, with the different parcels experiencing varying degrees of dereliction and neglect.

Further research could:

(i) Use GIS to map the development of land use within the various parcels in much more detail. (ii) Examine some of the sources not yet consulted. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Record Offices: there are at least 140 documents relating to the management of the Frith Charity Lands in the nineteenth century, while at the National Archives in Kew documents such as the 1836 tithe files, and the 1910 Finance Act survey, should provide further information about land use. (iii) Correlate variations in land use history with current variation in the fen flora, although to some extent these will reflect more recent history: some of the parcels managed by the LOHP were ploughed up in the post-war period (Parker’s Piece and Bleyswycks Bank), others – such as Scarfe meadows – modified by re- seeding and the use of herbicides.

We would recommend the above in order to further research into the questions identified in Section 1. Other work, using census material and similar sources, may well uncover more complementary strands of research relating to these questions.

Section 9: Select Bibliography

This section contains references used in Section 7 of this report. All original archival material is referred to in the footnotes, and in the following appendices.

Further Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring Concerning Charities (London, 1840).

M.C.H. Bird, ‘The Rural Economy, Sport, and Natural History of East Ruston Common’, Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society 8 (1909), pp. 631-670.

S.Birtles, ‘”A Green Space Beyond Self Interest”: the Evolution of Common Land in Norfolk c.750-2003’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 2003.

F.Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographic History of the County of Norfolk (London, 1805).

A.Day, Fuel from the Fens (1999)

T. Williamson, The Norfolk Broads: a Landscape History (1997).

Norfolk Record Office Catalogue: http://nrocat.norfolk.gov.uk

Suffolk Heritage Direct (including Suffolk Record Office): http://www.suffolkheritagedirect.org.uk/

A2A (searches archives across the UK): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/

Sir Nicolas Bacon Collection of English and Manorial Documents: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/findaid/bacon/

Appendix 1.1 : Blo Norton – Archaeological Evidence

33 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Norfolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk.

The NHER number is hyperlinked to the page about that site/findspot.

NHER 10914 Neolithic stone tool

NHER 10915 Neolithic axehead

NHER 10916 Blo Norton Hall

NHER 10917 Roman pot

NHER 10918 Site of Seymer's Hall, Blo Norton

NHER 10920 Site of St Margaret's church, Blo Norton

NHER 10921 St Andrew's Church, Blo Norton

NHER 12983 Deserted medieval village

NHER 16413 Site of windmill

NHER 17631 Old Smithy, formerly Corner Farmhouse, The Street

NHER 20038 Middle to Late Saxon finds

NHER 20144 Church Farmhouse

NHER 21118 Saxon, medieval and post medieval finds

NHER 21119 Late Saxon and medieval finds

NHER 24930 Roman glass bead

NHER 24931 Neolithic axehead

NHER 25822 Roman quern

NHER 28828 Medieval pottery

NHER 30590 Medieval and post medieval finds

NHER 31158 Elm Cottage, Thelnetham Road

NHER 31721 Railway carriage

NHER 32195 Medieval and post medieval finds

NHER 34382 Roman coin

NHER 37079 Manor Farmhouse, Middle Road

NHER 40864 Undated scabbard chape

NHER 41208 1 to 8 Fairfields

NHER 46230 Cottages northeast of Church Farmhouse, The Street

NHER 46231 Blo' Norton House, The Street

NHER 46712 Hampton House, The Street

NHER 46713 Whitehouse Farmhouse

NHER 53730 Blo' Norton Barns

NHER 55046 Barn at Manor Farm Blo Norton

NHER 55559 Blo Norton School

Appendix 1.2: Garboldisham – Archaeological Evidence

66 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Norfolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk.

The NHER number is hyperlinked to the page about that site/findspot.

NHER 1043 Prehistoric flint flakes

NHER 5569 Breckland House

NHER 5570 St John the Baptist's Church, Garboldisham

NHER 5571 Post medieval timber framed barn

NHER 5572 Jacques

NHER 5573 Ruins of All Saints' Church, Garboldisham

NHER 5574 Site of The Hall, a post medieval stable, and a modern dovecote

NHER 5576 The Gothic House

NHER 5577 The Old Manor

NHER 5578 Garboldisham Manor Bronze Age round barrow and cremation, known as 'Soldier's Hill' and 'Boadicea's NHER 6112 Grave'

NHER 6113 Site of Bronze Age round barrow

NHER 6114 Bronze Age round barrow

NHER 6115 Devil's Ditch, Iron Age to Middle Saxon boundary feature

NHER 10290 Possible Bronze Age barrow

NHER 10874 Mesolithic flint working site

NHER 10875 Neolithic polished flint axehead

NHER 10876 Neolithic flint artefacts

NHER 10877 Neolithic or Bronze Age stone axe hammer

NHER 10880 Site of Up Hall and Uphall Farm

NHER 10881 Possible site of Wica deserted medieval settlement

NHER 10883 Garboldisham Post Mill

NHER 13787 Prehistoric decorated antler object

NHER 14423 Cropmarks of possible Bronze Age ring ditch and undated enclosure

NHER 15064 Post medieval architectural mouldings and bricks

NHER 15308 Site of post medieval windmill

NHER 15658 Roman pottery sherds

NHER 16624 Cold War Royal Observer Corps site and Orlit Post

NHER 17908 Site of post medieval windmill

NHER 18615 Middle Saxon coin

NHER 19527 Bronze Age rapier and Roman coins

NHER 20145 Manor Cottage

NHER 21222 Iron Age pottery sherds

NHER 21916 The Grange

NHER 22700 Pear Tree Cottage and Compton

NHER 23472 Iron Age gold torc/bracelet

NHER 28108 Palaeolithic flint artefacts

NHER 28634 Multi-period objects, coins and pottery sherds

NHER 29301 Medieval horse harness pendant

NHER 29351 Medieval or post medieval key

NHER 29762 Cropmarks of possible medieval moated site

NHER 30994 Site of post medieval watermill

NHER 31682 Multi-period objects and pottery sherds

NHER 31683 Medieval cauldron and vessel fragments

NHER 31901 Possible Early Saxon inhumation burial 82

NHER 32015 Post medieval book fittings and surveyor's marker

NHER 32111 Roman brooch and pottery sherds

NHER 32773 Site of post medieval saw pit

NHER 33177 Late Saxon/Carolingian coin and medieval book fitting

NHER 33707 Neolithic flint arrowhead and prehistoric perforated flint object

NHER 34902 Early Saxon brooch

NHER 34903 Roman hair pin

NHER 35180 Medieval and post medieval features, Back Street

NHER 35397 Cold War Royal Observer Corps site

NHER 36564 Medieval coin and buckle

NHER 40259 Possible Roman settlement and multi-period finds

NHER 43931 Garboldisham Bronze Age barrow cemetery

NHER 46232 Edwards Farmhouse

NHER 46233 Fox Inn

NHER 46257 Stubbings Farmhouse

NHER 46258 Mulberry Cottage

NHER 50307 The Old Brickfield, Kenninghall Road

NHER 52748 Site of World War Two firing range, Garboldisham Heath

NHER 54189 18th-19th century threshing barn and probable cart shed

NHER 54759 Soaphill Cottage

NHER 56464 Garboldisham Voluntary Controlled Primary School

Appendix 1.3: North Lopham – Archaeological Evidence

59 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Norfolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk.

The NHER number is hyperlinked to the webpage about that site/findspot.

NHER 10865 Neolithic stone find

NHER 10866 Neolithic flint find

NHER 10869 Roman pottery find

NHER 10870 Site of Roman villa at Lodge Farm

NHER 10871 Roman quernstone

NHER 10878 Possible part of medieval park

NHER 10884 St Nicholas' Church, North Lopham

NHER 16264 Roman metal find

NHER 16265 Roman metal find

NHER 16266 Roman metal find

NHER 16625 Church Farm House, The Street

NHER 16626 World War Two pillbox

NHER 16712 The Limes and post medieval linen factory

NHER 18999 Roman metal finds

NHER 21915 Church House and Church Cottage

NHER 29894 Saxon metal find

NHER 30181 Roman, Saxon, medieval and post medieval find scatter

NHER 30355 Multi-period findspot

NHER 30358 Medieval metal finds

NHER 30359 Multi-period finds

NHER 30360 Medieval metal find

NHER 30454 Multi-period finds

NHER 30742 Medieval metal find

NHER 30743 Multi-period metal finds

NHER 30744 Medieval metal finds

NHER 30745 Medieval metal find

NHER 30953 Multi-period metal finds

NHER 30954 Multi-period finds

NHER 30955 Multi-period metal finds

NHER 31177 Multi-period metal finds

NHER 31332 Saxon metal find

NHER 31414 Saxon and post medieval metal finds

NHER 32016 Saxon and medieval metal finds

NHER 32256 Medieval metal find

NHER 36313 Ivydene, The Street

NHER 39325 Trennel House, 26 The Street

NHER 39442 Fysons Farm, Thetford Road

NHER 41966 Mustardpot House

NHER 42554 Medieval and post medieval metal finds

NHER 46225 The Bell

NHER 46226 Rosemary Cottage

NHER 46227 The Old Bakehouse

NHER 46261 Kings Head, The Street

NHER 46262 Methodist Chapel, The Street

NHER 46404 Cobblers Cottage, The Street

NHER 46702 Linden House 84

NHER 46710 The Thatched Cottage

NHER 46715 K6 telephone kiosk northwest of The Limes

NHER 46766 The White House

NHER 46767 Former coach house at the White House

NHER 49034 Medieval harness pendant

NHER 49135 Grace Dieu

NHER 52637 Meadow Farm, The Street

NHER 53896 Roman, Early Saxon, medieval and post-medieval artefacts

NHER 55019 Yew Tree Farm

NHER 56226 No 40 The Street

NHER 56299 Medieval rotary key.

NHER 56471 St Andrews Primary School

NHER 56672 Multi-period finds

Appendix 1.4: South Lopham – Archaeological Evidence

57 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Norfolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk.

The NHER number is hyperlinked to the webpage about that site/findspot.

NHER 10867 Neolithic flint find

NHER 10868 Neolithic axehead

NHER 10872 Roman metal find

NHER 10873 St Andrew's Church, South Lopham

NHER 10882 Medieval moated site

NHER 10907 Oxfoot Stone

NHER 10919 Neolithic stone find

NHER 11497 Mesolithic flint find

NHER 15309 Site of post medieval windmill

NHER 15786 Site of medieval moated manor

NHER 16414 Site of post medieval windmill south of Gaol House.

NHER 16623 Pearce's Farm

NHER 20150 Walnut Tree Farmhouse

NHER 20151 Noddle Farmhouse

NHER 20152 Oxfootstone Farm, Brick Kiln Lane

NHER 24825 Roman coins

NHER 24826 Multi-period finds, Pearce's Farm

NHER 24835 Roman and medieval pottery finds

NHER 25801 Driftway Farm

NHER 29451 Medieval metal find

NHER 29679 Bronze Age, Roman and medieval metal finds

NHER 29680 Roman metal find

NHER 29803 Hall Farm, Church Road

NHER 29816 Primrose Farm, Primrose Lane

NHER 30356 Roman, medieval and post medieval metal finds

NHER 30357 Medieval metal find

NHER 30746 Medieval metal find

NHER 30934 Roman metal find

NHER 31277 Saxon metal find

NHER 31333 Saxon metal find

NHER 31334 Saxon metal find

NHER 31335 Late Saxon coin

NHER 31336 Saxon metal find

NHER 31337 Iron Age or Roman brooch

NHER 31338 Medieval and post medieval metal finds

NHER 31339 Bronze Age and medieval metal finds

NHER 31340 Medieval metal find

NHER 31413 Viking Thor's hammer

NHER 31732 Fen Farmhouse

NHER 32586 Brook House, Diss Road

NHER 34511 Neolithic flint find, Redgrave and Lopham Fen

NHER 37180 Roman and medieval finds

NHER 37181 Saxon, medieval and post medieval finds

NHER 37182 Medieval and post medieval metal objects and pottery sherds

NHER 37183 Post medieval metal find

NHER 46221 Chequers Farmhouse 86

NHER 46222 Pair of houses 180 metres south of Oxfootstone Farmhouse

NHER 46223 Willow Tree Cottage, Garboldisham Road

NHER 46224 White Horse, The Street

NHER 46401 K6 telephone kiosk at junction with Primrose Lane

NHER 46403 Barn immediately westsouthwest of Primrose Farmhouse, Primrose Lane

NHER 46545 Oak Tree Farmhouse, Low Common

NHER 46546 4 to 5 The Street

NHER 46714 1 to 2 The Street

NHER 46768 Corner Farm

NHER 49134 Allotment Farm

NHER 56030 The Old School, Lopham South

Appendix 1.5: Thelnetham – Archaeological Evidence

57 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Suffolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk.

The title of each record is hyperlinked to the webpage about that site/findspot.

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Hall Field, Hall Yards THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Evergreen Oak THELNETHAM

Lodge Farm THELNETHAM

Gipsy Lane THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Hosher's Grove, Beech Tree Farm. THELNETHAM

Manor Farm (Hopton) HOPTON; THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Manor Farm (Hopton) HOPTON; THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Sandfield Farm THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Upper Wood Field THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Church of St Nicholas THELNETHAM

Brockley Wood; Hepworth Wood (1837) THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Black Horse Wood THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Lower Wood Field THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Cross Green THELNETHAM

Hedge Green THELNETHAM

Monument with no name THELNETHAM

Appendix 1.6: Redgrave – Archaeological Evidence

61 archaeological sites and findspots are recorded on the Suffolk Historic Environment Record, accessible online at http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk.

The title of each record is hyperlinked to the webpage about that site/findspot.

Moneypot Hill REDGRAVE

The Old Garage: 1 & 2 Dudleys Close REDGRAVE

Redgrave Hall REDGRAVE

Gallows Hill REDGRAVE