Manuscript Sources

The families who created and maintained the residences in the data set are an important focus of this thesis, as are the members of communities who experienced the changing boundaries between vernacular and elite landscapes. The ambitions, resources and experiences of the East Anglian elite ensured that many grand residences and elaborate grounds were created during the years under consideration in this study. Rather than only looking at the buildings and their surroundings, a concerted effort has been made to identify the motives and concerns of the people who instigated the work. The personal papers of the regional elite have proved a useful source for their attitudes to, and perceptions of their peers, and those they considered to be of lower and higher status than themselves. Family correspondence has also illustrated the response of the elite to national and international issues. The correspondence of the Paston family frequently referred to personal news, manorial issues and matters of state within the space of one letter.41 Letters, probate documents and memorandum books can illuminate the political, religious and social concerns of families and their households. The same sources have also supplied information about building projects, finances and tenurial arrangements. Inquisitions Post Mortem have been consulted but the later examples are less detailed than those from the medieval period. Inventories, compiled for the purpose of probate, attainder or title deeds, illustrated the spatial arrangements and material culture of residences. For example, the arrangements for the distribution of heirlooms between the residences of Lord Willoughby, confirmed that Parham Hall (now known as Moat Hall 34; TM 3119 5991; South East) was his ancestral home although Eresby Hall (TF 394 652; Lincolnshire) had become his principal residence.42

The difficulty of ascertaining how families divided their time between various residences and the relative importance of houses in the hierarchy of property owned by a family was encountered by Nigel Wright in his thesis about the gentry houses of East Anglia.43 The question of which property might be the subject of a major investment by an owner was important also for this thesis and the sources outlined above helped to

41 The Paston Letters: 1422-1509 Gairdner, J., editor (1900) Three Volumes 42 TNA:PRO 2ANC3/A/41 4 May, 1526

43 Wright, N. (1990) The Gentry and Their Houses in Norfolk and Suffolk from 1550 to 1850. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of East Anglia.

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determine principal residences and identify some of the criteria informing the choice of location for a new residence. Studies of the political machinations of the fifteenth and sixteenth century revealed deep-set rivalries between those who wished to gain or maintain power in East Anglia. Personal animosities or allegiances could have a considerable influence on the choices people made about where or what to build, as did the ambitions of both grandees and arrivistes.

Legal documentation concerning property transactions such as deeds and leases have provided significant evidence for the evolution of landscape features around residences, in addition to changes in tenurial arrangements and corroborative evidence for cartographic sources. Terriers, extents, field books and surveys have provided invaluable evidence for the spatial arrangement of manors before the widespread adoption of cartographic techniques. A series of surveys, such as those for the Wodehouse estate at Kimberley (29 TG 0761 0405) mentioned above, can provide evidence for the extension of exclusive spaces and the removal of points of interaction. For example, an extent of 1563 recorded the early attempts to extend the parkland around Blickling Hall (10; TG 1786 2866), a process that was to continue throughout the following century.44 The structure of manorial extents or surveys gives the impression that the surveyor or bailiff processed around the manor following roads and paths, measuring field strips and closes, noting tenements, outbuildings, water courses and all the minutiae of the local landscape. Whether the compiler actually measured every plot, or plagiarised earlier surveys, amending as necessary, is not always clear but whatever the method employed, the impression created when reading a late-medieval extent is that of moving through the landscape rather than viewing the manor from above as a single entity, as is the case in later cartographic surveys. A detailed written survey can in some cases, illustrate more effectively how people moved around the locality and how they may have interacted with elements of the elite and vernacular landscape. It is of course true that, in common with maps, extents were compiled for the use of landowners or the state and exhibit bias towards the elite perspective. However, there is evidence of input from local inhabitants with regard to tenancies, customary rights, changes in land use, disputed boundaries and minor place-names.

Some documentary sources provided only cursory information compared to more meticulous valuations or terriers, but were useful. For example, a particular of Boyland

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Hall (25; TM 0854 8442; Central) from the later sixteenth century amounting to one small page and a similar example for Badmondisfield Hall (37; TL 7474 5700; South West) in 1532-3 recorded the acreages and value of the respective parks.45 This, however, was insufficient evidence from which to reconstruct the contemporary landscape. In contrast, the most detailed surveys, such as the sixty-one page survey of manor of Oxburgh Hall (4; TF 7425 0122; West) written in the early seventeenth century, or the fifty-six pages describing the manor of Blickling in 1563 were used as the basis for reconstructions of the early-modern landscape.46 The surveys and extents were translated, transcribed and the information stored in databases, from which it could be readily accessed. The resulting evidence was then compared with later map and place-name evidence to identify the position of landscape features such as furlongs, closes, commons and roads. By calculating the acreage of, for example, individual furlongs it was possible to piece together the earlier landscape and locate the position of features for which no later evidence existed. The First Edition OS 1:10,560 scale maps were overlaid with earlier manuscript maps and any available earthwork or aerial photographic information. This process allowed much of the data from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century surveys to be plotted with reasonable accuracy. Some manorial surveys, such as the Blickling example, and an early sixteenth-century survey of Kimberley, were in use over an extended period of time by subsequent lords or their stewards. Frequent alterations, scorings out, marginalia and insertions make these particularly difficult to transcribe but these amended documents allow changes in tenure and land use to be tracked over time. Series of individual surveys spanning the period under consideration in this study have been amongst the most useful sources for researching exclusivity. A series of terriers and extents for Ryston Hall (7; TF 6238 0114; West) began circa 1450 and continued into the late sixteenth century. These documents have been used in conjunction with a map of 1601, drawn up in connection with a dispute and an estate map of 1635, making it possible to trace changes in the land use and interaction over a period of almost two hundred years and create a sequence of reconstructions.47

45 TNA:PRO SC12/30/33 Survey of Boyland Hall, Norfolk ND, Elizabeth I; TNA:PRO SC 6/HEN VIII/3379 Survey of the possessions of George Somerset at Badmondisfield; 1532-3

46 NRO PD 139/52 The manor of Oxburgh Hall; ND, early seventeenth century NRO NRS 8582/21C2 Survey of the manor of Blickling Hall; 1563

47 NRO PRA 44 375x1, Terrier of the manor of Lovell’s in Ryston and Roxham, circa 1450; NRO PRA 45, 375x1, Terrier of Ryston Hall with Walpole Hall, 1529 & 1558; NRO PRA 356, 376X5, Extent and Valuation Ryston Hall and Walpole Hall and Lovell’s, 1548; NRO PRA 360, 379X5, Field Book & Dragg Ryston Hall and Walpole Hall and Lovell’s, 1583; NRO PRA 470, 380X6, Plan of Roxham common showing surroundings in Ryston, 160; Map of the Estates of Gregory Pratt in Ryston, Roxham and elsewhere, 1635 Private Collection.

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3.3 Cartographic Sources

The manorial surveys and extents described above continued to be produced throughout the period under consideration in this thesis but from the mid sixteenth century were increasingly supplemented by the creation of cadastral maps. Surveyors were commissioned by individual landowners, ecclesiastical authorities or by the Crown to map land holdings with ever-greater accuracy, recording the boundaries, dimensions and ownership of an area of land, creating what J. B. Harley refers to as “graphic inventories”.48

However, even the most detailed of manuscript maps could only present a synopsis of the intricacies of tenure and local custom contained in a comprehensive manorial extent. Antique maps are a valuable and accessible means of understanding changes in the spatial organisation of the landscape, ideally used in conjunction with other sources but often significant in their own right. Oliver Creighton has pointed out that, as socially constructed forms of knowledge, early maps can illustrate past perceptions of the landscapes they depict. 49

The map in Figure 14 is an example of how one individual’s idea of the landscape can differ from that of another individual or group. In 1581 Thomas Clerke surveyed the manor of Panworth Hall in the parish of Ashill. He presented Thomas Hoogan, knight with the topographia of the hall and its surroundings on the 2nd of May AD 1581.50 The map shows the site of Panworth Hall, surrounded on three sides by yards and closes, including The Newe Close, which had been enclosed from the open field adjacent to Panworth Hall (52; TF89680479; Central). The map recorded that Panworth Common was divided into sheepes courses for the use of the manor of Panworth Hall and the inhabitants of Ashill. It seems likely that the map was drawn up to establish Thomas Hoogan’s version of the fold course bounds, perhaps as part of a dispute between Hoogan and the inhabitants of Ashill. This map is both detailed and highly decorative but it serves also as a reminder that maps and plans, being value-laden sources, often present a selective view of the post-medieval landscape.

48 Harley J. B., (1988) “Maps , Knowledge and Power” in The Iconography of Landscape, edited by Denis Cosgrove and Steven Daniels. Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography. Cambridge University Press, p. 285.

49 Creighton, O. H. (2009) Designs Upon the Land: Elite Landscapes of the Middle Ages P 42 quoting Hoogvliet, 2000, p. 30.

73 Figure 14: The Manor of Panworth Hall, Ashill surveyed in 1581 (52; TF89680479; Breckland) showing the Scite

of the Mannor, Panworth Common and Part of Shepes Course of the Inhabitants of Ashell.

NRO MS 20927 47 B4.

J. B Harley has argued that the choice of content and the cartographic devices used in map creation can promote a biased view of the structure of the human world, presenting a version of the inhabited landscape from a particular perspective.51 Indeed it is likely that many of the inhabitants whose names and properties were recorded on an estate map never saw the completed document. However, Nicola Whyte has pointed out that local inhabitants were often called on to assist surveyors in the compilation of new cartographic surveys, providing essential local knowledge, particularly where a manor had been acquired by a new owner.52 Such input would have articulated a view of how the landscape was perceived by a wider section of society than might otherwise have been the case and supplemented the basic information about tenancies and acreages with

51 Harley J. B., (1988) “Maps, Knowledge and Power” in The Iconography of Landscape, edited by Denis Cosgrove and Steven Daniels, p. 278.

52 Whyte, N., (2009) Inhabiting the Landscape: Place, Custom and Memory, 1500 -1800. Oxford, Windgather, p. 12.

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a host of minor place-names, boundary markers and notable features of the vernacular landscape. A functional sketch drawn on behalf of the inhabitants of Kimberly in 1580, to illustrate the position of intercommons and fold courses, provides a contrast with more detailed and highly decorative map of Panworth in Figure 14. Although rudimentary this map provided an indication of how the tenants perceived the expansion of ditched and fenced areas following exchanges of land with the lord of the manor.53 This document provided valuable information for the reconstruction of the Kimberley landscape presented in Chapter 3, providing as it does, a glimpse of the landscape from the vernacular perspective.

Change of ownership or the granting of a lease could instigate the creation of a map demarcating the land included in the transaction, pre-empting possible disputes. Maps were also a means of presenting proposed locations and landscapes to owners. Not all such schemes were brought to fruition, as was the case at Kimberley where a plan drawn up by Samuel Gilpen in 1700 suggested a location for the new hall with avenues radiating across the surrounding countryside.54 The plan was not executed, making this document a valuable reminder that maps must be subjected to the same critical appraisal as other documentary sources. The research for this thesis has made extensive use of manuscript maps but, wherever possible, additional corroborating evidence, either documentary or archaeological, was used in conjunction with cartographic evidence. In similar vein, the presence or absence of a feature was not assumed to be conclusive without comparative evidence. For example, at Tacolneston Hall (77; TM 1380 9552) a large L-shaped moated feature runs parallel to the south and east facades of the c.1600 hall. Further research revealed that the ‘moat’ had been created during the restoration of the grounds in 1886. However, during a site visit minor earthwork features were revealed, which suggested that a moat may have existed on a different alignment to that of the nineteenth-century feature. A plan attached to a footpath stoppage order of 1864 confirmed that an earlier moated feature had existed prior to the major redesign of the garden.55

As surveying skills improved maps and plans gradually replaced extents and draggs as a means of recording terrain. This transition must have entailed not only cartographic expertise but a major shift in the way the landscape was perceived. The usual form of an

53 NRO KIM 2J/28D Sketch map of commons and foldcourses in Kimberley. 1580. 54 NRO Mf /RO 499/2 Proposed Site of the new Kimberley Hall by Gilpen, 1700.

55 NRO C/Sce2/22/3; 1864 Stoppage of footpath from Hall Road, Tacolneston to Street Road in Fundenhall.

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extent takes the reader on a journey through the landscape, following paths, watercourses and bounds. Such written surveys noted man-made and natural features; recorded land area and tenurial arrangements, and chronicled any recent changes. This type of detailed information was also to be found on many early maps, and both forms of evidence could be employed for the purposes outlined above. However, a plan presents the observer with an entirely different means of perceiving the depicted terrain, removing the sense of moving through the landscape and creating instead a static, instantaneous view of an entire unit of land, be it a single tenement, a manor or a nation. Liddiard and Williamson have suggested that the development of cartography was one of the factors that promoted the creation of designed landscapes across land that the owner could now view from a new perspective.56

In addition to the surveys and maps of individual manors and estates, the region was mapped in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century by the emerging group of cartographers including John Norden and Christopher Saxton. Saxton prepared an atlas for William Cecil, Lord Burghley in which the Norfolk map includes notes on estates and owners in Cecil’s hand.57

The 1595 version of Norden’s map of Essex, viewed via the British Library Online Gallery, recorded valuable evidence of changes to the road layout around Leighs Priory in Essex and a more detailed view of the park at Layer Marney in the same county.58 Whilst it would be preferable to consult manuscript evidence in person, practical and financial considerations make the use of online resources such the British Library gallery invaluable as a means of accessing primary sources.

The sources outlined above surveyed in the early-modern period do not, however, equate with a detailed, accurate source of regional cartographic evidence. The first steps towards such a source were taken by the publishers who produced county surveys in the late eighteenth century. William Faden published Joseph Hodskinson’s The County of

Suffolk in 1783 and was followed by A Topographical Map of the County of Norfolk,

surveyed by Messrs. Donald and Milne and published by Faden in 1797. Both maps were surveyed at one inch to a statute mile and captured the East Anglian landscape prior to the changes wrought by widespread enclosure and developments in agricultural

56 Liddiard, R., & Williamson, T., (2008) “There by Design?: Some reflections on medieval elite landscapes.” The Archaeoloicaly Journal 165 (1), pp. 520-35.

57 BL Royal MS. 18. D.111 folio 40 Norfolciae . British Library.

58 BL Add MS 31853 folio 10 A Chorographicall discription of the Several Shires and Islands of Middlesex, Essex etc. John Norden 1595.

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practice that would transform the landscape over the ensuing century. The maps are available both in book form59 and digitally60 and despite some inaccuracies, provide a valuable source for the location and extent of features such as commons, open fields and parkland that might have been altered or obliterated before the advent of the Ordnance Survey national mapping programme in the nineteenth century. The notebooks and correspondence of eighteenth-century antiquarians such as Thomas Martin and Francis Blomefield were consulted. Martin included many sketches in his notes, mainly of churches but also some of halls and grounds, such as the conduit at Old Boyland Hall discussed in Chapter 6.61