17th century pillow mounds with possible prehistoric origins, The Warren, at Hatfield Forest (EHER 4524)

A 17th century rabbit warren comprising 22 mounds of two types (pillow mounds and rabbit buries) within an area of about 4 hectares. Field survey carried out in 1993 also located possible Iron Age pottery and a flint blade. Summary from record 14132: A single sherd of Iron Age pottery and a flint blade were recovered from the ground surface within the Warren during the course of the recent RCHME survey.<1>-<2>.

Monument description derived from merging EHER 4524 and 14132. Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: The name The Warren is applied at TL 538198 on OS 1:10000 1982. <1> 17th century rabbit warren. <2> 1993. Survey. The Warren. A rabbit warren, probably the "Coney Burroughs" mentioned in 1639, comprising seventeen pillow mounds. It was revived in the 1680s when Warren House was built, but seems to have become disused by 1735. The pillow mounds were adapted from an earlier earthwork, which is not unlike a wood bank in profile but is unlikely to be so. It may be of Iron Age date. It comprises a bank with external ditch enclosing an irregular area of 10 acres, and carries thirteen pillow mounds; a length of similar bank in the interior has been made into four mounds. In April 1993, RCHME's Cambridge Office carried out an analytical earthwork survey of a part of Hatfield Forest in the vicinity of the post-medieval warren, following a request from the National Trust. The Warren consists of an oval arrangement of pillow mounds and an associated cottage. The site is partly wooded, the ground sloping gradually from north to south. The earthworks were surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1874 <3> and a map of 1757 depicts the 'Warren House' <4>. Oliver Rackham's survey linked the site with the 'coney burroughs' listed in manorial records from the 1640s <5>. The warren was revived by Sir Edward Turnor in the later 17th century but had apparently fallen into disuse by 1735. The Warren comprises twenty-two pillow mounds; thirteen are linear in form arranged in a randomly spaced series around the perimeter of an oval enclosure of roughly 10 acres. A further five linear pillow mounds and four circular mounds lie in the interior of the enclosure. Shallow drains lead south from these pillow mounds to the south-east edge of the enclosure. No vermin traps are visible. The linear mounds range in length from 13-45m and in width from 7-10m and are roughly 1m high. Ditches surrounding the pillow mounds vary from 3-4m in width and are up to 0.4m deep. The circular mounds are 0.4m high and 5-6m in diameter and are also encircled by ditches. The two types of mounds are found together at other warrens <6>. Rackham suggested that the warren reused an earlier prehistoric earthwork. Iron Age activity has been recorded some 3km to the north at Stanstead <7> and perhaps at Portingbury Hills within Hatfield forest. A sherd of putative Iron Age pottery and a flint blade were found within the Warren during the RCHME survey. Other warrens are known to have used pre-existing features for example in Minchinhampton Common in Gloucestershire <6>. An alternative possibility is that the warren reused an early undocumented medieval enclosure although the possibility of an unrecorded enclosed coppice was rejected by Rackham owing to the small size of the enclosure. A south-eastern annex, possibly constructed in the late 17th century, joins the Warren to the adjacent bank of Warren coppice. The annex is rectangular and measures roughly 60m north to south by 100m. Warren Cottage, a 17th century brick structure, interrupts the ditch at the northern end of the Warren. The house faces south into the warren and would have been the home of the warrener. At the west and east ends are chimneys, the roof is of peg-hole tiles. A wood fence surrounds the house but an earlier boundary is visible to the north corresponding to the fence shown on the 1874 OS map. For further details, see RCHME Level 3 client report and plan at 1:1000 scale, held in Archive. <8> See also: <9> - <15>