Summary
The upstanding, earthwork, and buried remains of Langford Warren Lodge (also called Ickburgh Lodge), situated on a circular mound that may have originated as a barrow. The structure dates to the late C15 or C16 and was ruined by the early C19 at the latest.
Reasons for Designation
The upstanding, earthwork, and buried remains of Langford Warren Lodge, a late-C15 or early-C16 warren lodge situated on a circular mound that may have originated as a barrow, are scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: as one of only three Breckland warren lodges with any surviving upstanding fabric, and a rare example nationally of a late-medieval warren lodge;
* Survival: for the survival of its upstanding fabric, possibly built on top of a round barrow, which clearly communicates the building's original scale and materials, representing the economic significance of the rabbit warrens to the medieval Brecks;
* Documentation: as the documented site of a medieval rabbit warren, with textual evidence of a functioning warren at this site extending back to 1475;
* Potential: for the upstanding and buried archaeological deposits which will hold important evidence relating to the medieval warrening industry and possibly the use of the landscape in the prehistoric period.
History
Warrens were an area of land set aside for the breeding and management of rabbits (or ‘coneys’) in order to provide a constant supply of fresh meat and skins. The practice of rearing rabbits was introduced to southern England by the Normans in around 1100 and soon spread to almost every part of the country. As only those with manorial rights could own a warren, early examples were mostly associated with the higher levels of society. The earliest written source is a grant of land to Plympton Priory, cum cuniculi (with rabbits), in 1135 and Henry III established one of the first mainland warrens at Guildford in 1235. However, they gradually spread in popularity, with the C14 and C15 seeing a broader adoption of warrens, including some substantial enterprises by religious houses, and by the C16 and C17 they were a common feature on most manors and estates throughout the country. Warrens continued in use until fairly recent times, finally declining in the face of C19 and C20 changes in agricultural practice, and the onset of myxomatosis in 1954.
Warrens in the Norfolk and Suffolk Brecklands, of which 26 have been identified by the Breckland Society as part of a research project undertaken between 2008 and 2010 (see Sources), lie within an area north from Barton Mills to Brandon and then east to Thetford. The earliest were established from the late C12 by monastic houses or wealthy landowners.
Experiencing a climate not too dissimilar to that of the rabbits’ native Mediterranean, namely warm, dry summers and low rainfall in winter, the Breckland warrens occupied the higher, permanently dry pastureland of parishes whose settlements clustered along the natural boundary between heathland and fen, or along rivers. To contain and protect the stock, and limit predation and poaching, the warrens were enclosed by banks made of turves which measured up to 10m high and 2m wide and were vertical on their inner faces and sloped on their outer faces. Linear banks with funnelled ends, known as trapping banks, were also constructed parallel to the warren banks to ensnare rabbits for selective culling.
Larger warrens were also associated with a lodge. As well as providing living accommodation for the warrener they were also used to store trapping equipment and carcasses and act as a lookout and defence against poachers. Surviving examples of medieval warren lodges exist at Thetford and Mildenhall, both of which are high status, stone structures that would have appeared as impressive as they were isolated. It is thought that 19 such lodges existed in the medieval Brecks, of which only these three survive with standing remains.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541), the Breckland warrens passed to lay landowners, often as part of an estate purchased as monastic lands were sold off. However, they mostly continued to function as working warrens until the late-C18, sustaining two fur-processing factories at Brandon and short-lived premises in Thetford and Swaffham. The annual cull on many of the warrens during the C18 ran to over 20,000 animals, with the meat being sent up to London and to the Cambridge colleges, as well as to markets locally. The fur was despatched to Luton, for use in the hat industry, but also to Europe and as far afield as South America. Lakenheath was one of the last working warrens and survived until 1940. The best-preserved Breckland warrens now lie within Thetford Forest which, now covering an area of some 47,000 acres, was established from 1922 to sustain the nation’s dwindling supply of timber resource after the First World War.
Historic maps refer to this site as Langford Lodge. It is also known as Ickburgh Lodge as it lies today within the parish of Ickburgh (the parishes of Langford and Ickburgh were united in 1775). The earliest known date for this warren is February 1476 when a lease was drawn up ‘for 5 years from the Feast of Candlemas the conyger [warren] at the downe and Claper Hill and from thence unto Musen Lyng to Shakerswaye’. There are no historic maps confirming the boundaries of Langford Warren, though there are warren banks nearby, including east-west banks around 70m south and 150m north of the ruined lodge.
The masonry ruins seen today are likely to date to the C15 or C16. There may have been an earlier lodge which this building replaced. The ruins stand on a raised circular mound, possibly a round barrow.
A mortgage deed of 1742 refers to the ‘field by Langford Lodge’ and it appears on Faden’s Norfolk Map of 1797.
The site was already marked as ‘ruins’ on the 1824-1838 first edition OS map (1 inch).
A photograph taken in 1935 appears to show the site with a greater amount of standing masonry than can be seen today. The image is (incorrectly) labelled ‘Langford. Ruins of Chapel on East side of Brandon to Swaffham Road. Now in middle of Forestry Plantation’. The image shows three flint masonry corners on a raised mound.
By the late C20 the site only retained a single standing corner, though two earth-covered rubble heaps could suggest the location of two others.
An archaeological investigation of the site in April and May 2012 confirmed the location of the corners of the building. The dimensions of the lodge were found to be roughly square (9.6m x 10.4/10.7m). Deposited material found at the site include some prehistoric worked flint, one shard of Local Early Post Medieval pottery (C16), one C15-C16 slipped ware ceramic fragment from the Cambridgeshire area, and two body sherds of sandy Medieval Coarse Ware and Gritty of the C12-C14. There was also a small fragment of thin window glass dating from the C17 or C18, and a C19 bottle fragment (or later).
As part of the works undertaken at the site in 2012, the final standing corner was consolidated with focused areas of flint reconstruction and the introduction of a mortar coping.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The upstanding, earthwork, and buried remains of Langford Warren Lodge (also called Ickburgh Lodge), situated on a circular mound that may have originated as a barrow. The structure dates to the late C15 or C16 and was ruined by the early C19 at the latest.
DESCRIPTION
The site lies in a clearing close to the northern boundary of Thetford Forest east of the A1065. The surrounding forest comprises a dense plantation of pines.
Within the clearing is a raised circular mound, roughly 30m in diameter. It can be discerned amongst the bracken, and is especially visible using Lidar imaging. This may have originated as a barrow.
On top of the mound are the upstanding remains of the former warren lodge. These are especially clear at the south-east corner where the massed flint walling survives to a height of approximately 3.6m. It extends for 3m on the south side, and 4.5m on the east. The walls are around 62cm thick, growing in thickness at their base where a plinth is formed with a brick coping. The same wide, shallow, red bricks have been used to form the quoins at the corner of the wall. There are two putlog holes on each external face (in-filled on the east side). The outermost sections of the wall have been reconstructed to consolidate the structure, and a mortar cap has been added to the highest point.
The south-west and north-west corners appear as moss and bracken covered mounds, roughly 1-1.4m tall.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The scheduled area does not have a hard boundary, but comprises the raised, roughly circular, mound around the upstanding ruins of the former warren lodge. It is roughly 30m in diameter and is shown coloured red on the attached map.
