Park pale and associated remains at Castle Hill

Reasons for Designation

Deer parks were areas of land, usually enclosed, set aside and equipped for the management and hunting of deer and other animals. They were generally located in open countryside on marginal land or adjacent to a manor house, castle or palace. They varied in size between 3ha and 1600ha and usually comprised a combination of woodland and grassland which provided a mixture of cover and grazing for deer. Parks could contain a number of features, including hunting lodges (often moated), a park-keeper's house, rabbit warrens, fishponds and enclosures for game, and were usually surrounded by a park pale, a massive fenced or hedged bank often with an internal ditch. Although a small number of parks may have been established in the Anglo-Saxon period, it was the Norman aristocracy's taste for hunting that led to the majority being constructed. The peak period for the laying-out of parks, between AD 1200 and 1350, coincided with a time of considerable prosperity amongst the nobility. From the 15th century onwards few parks were constructed and by the end of the 17th century the deer park in its original form had largely disappeared. The original number of deer parks nationally is unknown but probably exceeded 3000. Many of these survive today, although often altered to a greater or lesser degree. They were established in virtually every county in England, but are most numerous in the West Midlands and Home Counties. Deer parks were a long-lived and widespread monument type. Today they serve to illustrate an important aspect of the activities of medieval nobility and still exert a powerful influence on the pattern of the modern landscape. Where a deer park survives well and is well-documented or associated with other significant remains, its principal features are normally identified as nationally important.

Despite limited damage and reuse over the years, the deer park at Castle Hill survives comparatively well with a range of contemporary features, some of which rarely survive on such sites. It now forms part of formal parkland associated with Castle Hill.

Details

This monument includes lengths of the northern, western and southern park pale and a D-shaped platform, together forming the surviving part of a deer park within the estate of Castle Hill, Filleigh. It occupies a rounded hill known as Deer Park Hill to the north east of Castle Hill House and the River Bray forms its eastern boundary. The monument survives as a series of earthwork features: to the north there is a lynchet which develops into a substantial ditch and bank and to the west there are the remains of a ditch and pale, which have become fossilised further to the north in the form of the road known as Deer Park Lane. The deer park is roughly oval in shape and measures 800m long from east to west and 600m wide from north to south. In the north western corner the northern boundary of the deer park survives as a lynchet which measures up to 112m long, 0.5m wide and 0.3m high. This becomes a ditch which measures 385m long, 3.4m wide and 0.8m deep. The ditch is clay lined and contains water. To the north of the ditch is a slight bank, which measures 0.5m wide and 0.3m high. As the ditch progresses eastwards it begins to widen and deepen. At its easternmost extent the ditch is up to 4m wide and 4m deep. To the north of the ditch a small bank continues to run parallel to it and this is up to 0.5m wide by 0.3m high. Towards the north eastern end of the ditch a modern causeway has been built to facilitate access to the fields to the north of the deer park boundary. To the east of this the outer bank has become fossilised into a stone built wall erected during the period 1785 to 1787 by the first Earl Fortescue, when the deer park was extended. The ditch itself widens and joins the River Bray which originally formed the eastern side of the park. On the southern side of the deer park to the north of the present day cricket ground is a D-shaped platform which measures 60m long by 45m wide at its widest point and is 3m high. This feature represents a platform from which the deer could be targeted whilst running across the deer run. Continuing from this platform to the south western corner of the deer park and lying 12m to the south of the peripheral track is a linear bank which measures 2m wide and 0.5m high. In the south western corner of the deer park a set of stone built gates mark the entrance, they were erected pre-1886 but do not appear on the 1838 Tithe Map. The western side of the deer park is also marked by a ditch. This measures 4m wide and from 1.5m to 2m deep. This gradually tapers upslope to the north. To the west of the ditch is a stone wall up to 1.5m high and on top of this is a metal railing 1m high. The ditch ceases at a point where it originally encountered a field boundary approximately half way up the western side of the deer park. This boundary has now been removed. From this point northwards, the boundary ditch survives as a buried feature beneath the road known as Deer Park Lane which is bounded on its western side by a substantial field boundary up to 2m high and 1.5m wide. The ground surface beyond this boundary is much higher than that on the deer park side. The first record of the deer park at Filleigh dates to 1630, although it is likely to predate this period. It is also shown on the 1763 Field Map and on Donn's 1765 Survey of Devon. The road surface of Deer Park Lane and modern fencing are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

28626

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Colvin, , Moggridge, , Castle Hill: Summary and evaluation of History, (1991)

Other
MPP fieldwork by H. Gerrard, (1995)
Devon County Sites and Monuments Register, SS62NE16, (1986)

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