Writtle Deer Park (EHER 844)

Writtle Deer Park is shown on Chapman& Andre's map of Essex 1777. Much of the boundary of Writtle Deer Park is visible on air photographs but on the ground it does not seem to have been an earthwork of any substance.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. The park is shown on Chapman & Andre's map of Essex 1777 OS field survey, 1976 Much of park is visible on OS APs, but on the ground it doesn't appear to have been a substantial earthwork. On the south east the bank is followed by the parish boundary, maximum height of 1m, outside ditch 0.5m deep, probably 18th century, at TL 651027. Probably 18th century. <1> <2> <3> <4> <5> For discussion of medieval features of Deer park see PRN 17041. OS field survey, 1988 Where traceable on the ground, much of the park boundary exists today as no more than field ditches. However, as described by auth 2 the SE boundary survives in woodland as a low spread bank averaging 5m wide and up to 1m high above the bottoms of the broad shallow ditches either side. It is more akin to a woodland bank than a park pale. The feature was not followed further E than TL 65500285 due to an impenetrable mass of uncleared fallen trees, the aftermath of the October 1987 hurricane. <6> A survey of the forest and Park was undertaken in 1993 as part of English Heritage's survey grants for presentation purposes scheme.<7> A number of features were recorded i.e. ponds (some for providing drinking water for the deer) some belonging to the post-medieval period, others could be earlier (see PRN 17041 for medieval features) and earthworks. At Writtle Park House a number of slight banks and depressions were recorded in the pasture field to the south of the main house; the latter are sub-rectangular in shape and cover an area approx. 10m x 50m. The OS 25' 1st edition shows a number of buildings, possibly glass houses in this area. The Park Pale can be traced on the ground for almost its entire length; the earthwork varies in size from a bank 3m wide and 1m high with a similar sized ditch to a degraded bank and a silted up ditch and in some instances no earthwork structure at all. The enclosure of the Park has taken place in a number of phases. The earliest may have been in the early 1600s, the last phase was in the 19th century with the enclosure of the remaining park in the southeast corner. <7> Site Assessment = Writtle Forest-one of the four Royal Forests of Essex. After Hatfield, it is the most complete. In 1979 the whole of the forest remains were being considered for SSI status. `Recent' management is described here and recommendations made for the future. <8>