savernake forest a report for the national mapping ... - English Heritage

around the northern edge of Lutton Lye and the Eight Walks to complete the circuit.
As to the mystery of the origin of the enclosure, no mention is made in the records of a
deer park being established here. Most of the surrounding parks were established in the
medieval and post medieval periods. Chisbury Park’s licence was granted in 1261 (Close
Roll, 1259, 355), Savernake Great Park in1575 (WSRO 9-22,204) and Wolfhall or Sudden
Park (the family home of the Duke of Somerset (Bathe 2006)) by 1536 (WSRO 9-1-30)
(Ramsey and Bathe 2008).
The presence of the bank with an external ditch strongly indicates that the enclosure was
intended to keep animals and people out rather than in, the opposite of the park pale.
The exclusion of beasts might have been done to allow sapling trees to mature without
being damaged by grazing deer. The excessive over-exploitation of the country’s forests
has been recorded at various times in history. Apart from the plundering of the forests by
wild animals (particularly young tree shoots and buds), severe damage could be done by
grazing and the removal of wood, causing a severe shortfall in the numbers of mature
trees, specifically oak for ship building to maintain the nation’s navy. To this end, in 1544
Henry VIII passed a statute for the preservation of woods. The archives from the
Savernake Estate suggest the Great Inclosure was under construction during the Tudor
period, and documents from the Earl of Hereford (the son of Edward Seymour, the Duke
of Somerset) track proposals initiated in 1594 to enclose a portion of the forest to
exclude the deer enabling replenishment of the depleted woodlands. The enclosure
boundary was to be a ditch, hedged with ‘quick plants’ (probably hawthorn and
blackthorn) (Ramsey and Bathe 2008). The local commoners and borderers (occupants of
adjacent lands) objected at an assembly at the Great Lodge to the enclosure which would
exclude them from large area of the forest within which they could normally exercise
their rights to pasture, browse, and to collect fire wood, heath, fern and thatching
material. The matter appeared to remain unresolved when in 1598 the Earl of Hereford
sought further confirmation that he has the authority to proceed with the enclosure.
Though obviously completed, no further mention is made of enclosure in subsequent
court records of the catalogue of trespasses and thefts from the forest, and the 1611
census of Savernake recorded deer within the forest (Ramsey and Bathe 2008).
When, in 1767 Capability Brown was consulted during the course of landscaping of the
park, the Great Inclosure was included in these improvements; the interior was set as
open parkland, and the forest outside designated as thick woodland (Ramsey and Bathe
2008).
©ENGLISH HERITAGE 33 29-2009