Park Pale of Milton Abbey deer park

Summary

Boundary to a former deer park, probably medieval in date.

Reasons for Designation

The park pale of Milton Abbey deer park is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

Survival:
* it survives very well as a complete circuit and provides a valuable insight into the domestic economy and sporting pursuits of the owners of Milton Abbey during the medieval and post-medieval periods.

Potential:
* the earthworks and buried sections of the ditches will contain archaeological material relating the construction of the deer park.

Group value:
* with the Grade II listed Keeper’s Cottage and with the designated assets at Milton Abbey to the north-west, including the Grade II* Registered Park and Garden, as well as a number of other listed buildings which together illustrate well the historical development of the estate.

History

The Domesday Survey of 1086 recorded some 35 deer parks in England, mostly in the Midlands and south-eastern England, and numbers increased substantially in the C12 coinciding with increasing royal control of forests and the hunting rights within them, growing pressure on wild game and the introduction of fallow deer that were suited to living within an enclosure. Medieval parks varied in size from a few dozen acres to several hundred acres and, although typically associated with high-status sites, most were situated some distance away on the margins of previously cultivated land. Whilst it is likely that deer parks were widely used by royalty and the aristocracy for the sport of hunting, they had a wider use as a larder, providing managed deer herds and other game for the table and as a source of timber and farmland. They were usually bounded by a bank and ditch and a pale (fence) or hedge, sufficient to contain deer and to denote a boundary to keep trespassers or poachers out.

The medieval deer park in Milton Park Wood is included in Cantor and Wilson’s 1967 article on Medieval Deer-Parks of Dorset (Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, see Sources) and its park pale is depicted on the modern Ordnance Survey map from 2022. No contemporary references have been identified, but it is likely that the deer park was part of the estate of Milton Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, which was founded in 934 and replaced a collegiate church. It is also possible that it could have been established post-dissolution (Smith, see Sources). The monastic house was dissolved in 1539 and the following year the abbey lands were bought by John Tregonwell, one of the Commissioners for the surrender of the monasteries (RCHME, see Sources). Tregonwell, who was subsequently knighted, made over the abbey church to the parishioners of Milton and adapted the monastic buildings to a house (Milton Abbey) in which he and his descendants lived for circa 150 years. It is not known when it ceased to be managed for its original use. In the mid-C18 the estate was sold to Joseph Damer who was created Lord Milton in 1753 and Earl of Dorchester in 1792. He commissioned Lancelot Brown in 1763 to create a landscape park (Grade II* Registered Park and Garden) around the mansion, but the medieval abbot’s deer park further to the east remained outside of it. In 1932 the estate was sold and divided up.

The deer park was the subject of a walking archaeological survey in 2020 (Smith, see Sources).

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of the boundary to a medieval deer park that most probably belonged to Milton Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. It is situated within a dry valley in Milton Park Wood, east of the late-C18 model village of Milton Abbas.

DETAILS
The perimeter of the deer park is defined by a substantial boundary, known as a park pale, and encloses an area of some 62 hectares formed of the sides and bottom of a dry valley which bifurcates towards its upper or north-west end. The park pale consists of a broad linear bank, which may have originally been topped in places by a fence or hedge, and narrow ditches to either side, measuring up to 10.5m wide. The bank is well-defined, and its circuit is largely intact, broken only by a several forestry tracks and a few small breaches, and it is unclear if any of them utilise historic entrances. The height of the bank varies from section to section ranging from 0.8m to 1.6m. It is most prominent along part of its eastern section where it follows a break in slope of the natural ridge line as the valley steepens, diminishing in height as it heads downslope along the south-eastern side of the park, and then traversing relatively level ground on the south-western side. Towards the north-western end of the park it follows the natural contour and a break of slope. The outer ditch is approximately 0.8m deep and the inner one up to 0.3m deep, but their true form and depth is distorted due to both ditches becoming largely infilled over time. They are not clearly defined along all of their circuit, with some sections being visible only intermittently, but they are believed to survive as buried features.

Within the angle of the south-west corner of the park boundary is a sub-rectangular feature, possibly a building platform, that measures 12m by 7m and is included in the scheduling. Close to the centre of the park is Keeper’s Cottage (Grade-II listed and outside the scheduling), a former gamekeeper’s cottage that was built probably in the late C18.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The monument boundary has been drawn to include the known extent of the deer park. It has therefore been drawn along the circuit of the park pale, to include the outer ditch, following a projected line in those places where this feature has become infilled, and it also includes a 2m margin for the support and protection of the monument. On the east side of the eastern section, where the valley steepens, it follows a break in the slope of the natural ridge line, heading downslope along the south-eastern side of the park, and then traversing relatively level ground on the south-western side where it also forms the boundary between the woodland to the east and arable fields beyond the park. Towards its north-western end the boundary follows the natural contour and a break of slope. The interior of the park itself is not included in the scheduling, except for the small building platform located just inside the south section of park pale.

EXCLUSIONS
All modern field boundaries, gates, fences, track surfaces are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath these features is included.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

DO 791

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

Sources

Books and journals
Cantor, LM, Wilson, JD, The Medieval Deer-Parks of Dorset, VIII in Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, Vol. 89, (1967), 171-180
Hill, M, Newman, J, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Dorset, (2018), 404-406

Websites
The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England, 1970, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 3, Central, pp. 182-200. British History Online, accessed 4 April 2022 from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol3/pp182-200

Other
N Smith, 2020, Milton Abbey Deer Park: Archaeological Investigation, Historic England Research Report Series 185-2020

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