Deer park pale, 460m north east of Lyneham House

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 slight damage, the park pale 460m north east of Lyneham House survives well. Its bank and ditch will contain stratified remains relating to its construction and use, necessary for the future understanding of the monument. The section of later woodland bank will provide information on the later use of this area of park, and of its relationship to the earlier pale.

Details

This monument includes a length of the medieval park pale surrounding Lyneham Park and the earthwork bank enclosing a 19th century belt of beech trees, which follow the pale. The length of park pale consists of an earthwork bank 2.5m wide and up to 1.2m high, with remains of a stone wall on its inner face, falling up to 1.7m to a ditch which is 1.5m wide and 0.5m deep. Further lengths of park pale surviving to the west and north west are the subject of a separate scheduling. The bank and ditch which encloses the belt of beech trees runs parallel with the park pale 18m to the south west. The bank is 2m wide and 1m high with a ditch 2m wide and 0.3m deep on its inside. All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them 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:

33795

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
MPP fieldwork by R Waterhouse, Waterhouse, R, (2000)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry