MGA_D F1 MGA_D F2 MGA_D E2 PMGA_D D 10.49867 0.64367 0.69873 0.61369

Throughout this study historical sources have been used in partnership with archaeological evidence. In addition to online Historic Environment Records, the staff of the county archaeology services made available secondary files for many of the sites in the dataset. The contents supplied both corroborative evidence for cartographic sources and specialist evidence, such as resistivity reports for the site of Harling Hall (23; TL 9911 8680; Central). Dating evidence for the brickwork used in water features at Old Boyland Hall (25; TM0854 8442; Central), East Bilney (63; TF 9453 1970; North) and Playford Hall (111; TM 2138 4764; South East), for example, helped to establish a chronology for the creation and maintenance of moats as a means of creating exclusivity. Archaeological evidence for the position of settlements and roads at the time residences were constructed enabled information recorded on later maps to be adjusted to represent more accurately late-medieval or early-modern arrangements. The

65 Anon, (1586) The English Courtier and the Country-Gentleman. London, Richard Jones.

66 Markham, G., (1982 edition, original 1613) The English Husbandman, Garland, New York & London Austin R., (1665) A treatise of fruit trees shewing the manner of planting, grafting etc. Oxford, Printed by William Hall for Amos Curteyne.

67 Lawson, William (1618) A New Orchard and Garden with The Country Housewifes Garden. Facsimile edition published in 2003 by Prospect Books, Totnes.

68 Harvey, J. H., Editor (1969) William Worcestre, Itineraries. Oxford, The Clarendon Press.

69 Gerschow, F. (1892) “Diary of the Duke of Stettin's Journey Through England in 1602”. Transactions

78

published reports of the Fenland Survey have provided information about the pre- drainage landscape around sites in the west of the region such as Snore Hall, Fordham (5; TL 6242 9934), and Beaupre Hall, Outwell (47; TF 5151 0456).70

Earthwork plans allowed the extent and complexity of early features to be identified at fossilised sites. Aerial photography has been consulted for many of the sites in the data set, the 1945 RAF series held by the Norfolk Historic Environment Service proving to be particularly valuable for the study of the many residences demolished during the 1950s. Aerial photographs from the 1940s and later decades also revealed traces of features now lying under grassland or crops. Garden enclosures and water features around the site of The Rey (6; TF 6958 2313; West), demolished after only a short existence, are visible on photographs from both 1945 and later aerial surveys. In the past, the remains of gardens or other ornamental features were not consistently identified as such, often being interpreted as abandoned tofts or agricultural features. However, during the late-twentieth century an increasing number of relict gardens and designed landscapes were recognised, initially through the work of RCHME and subsequently by an increasing number of specialists in the discipline of garden archaeology. Publications by landscape archaeologists such as A. E. Brown and Christopher Taylor presented evidence of relict gardens and brought new interpretations to the fore, as in “A relict garden at Linton Cambridgeshire” published in the

Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.71 Reinterpretation and recognition of ornamental landscapes has been an ongoing process since the 1980s and with this in mind, earlier designations of archaeological features as ‘medieval moats’ or ‘abandoned tofts’ have been re-examined during the course of the present study.

3.6 Fieldwork

Desk-based research using both manuscript and digital resources was corroborated and supplemented by fieldwork at many of the locations in the data set. Andrew Fleming has urged landscape archaeologists and historians not to neglect fieldwork as a means of revealing the development of our surroundings.72 Fieldwork ranged from short visits to

70 Silvester, R. J. (1988) The Fenland Project, No.3: Marshland and the Nar Valley East Anglian

Archaeology Report No. 45, Norfolk Museums Service. Silvester, R. J. (1991) The Fenland Project, No. 4: Norfolk Survey, The Wissey Embayment and the Fen Causeway. East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 52, Norfolk Museums Service. Hall, D. & Coles, J. (1994) The Fenland Survey: An Essay in Landscape and Persistence. English Heritage.

71 Brown, A. E., & Taylor, C. C., (1992) “A relict garden at Linton Cambridgeshire” Proceedings of the

Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 80, pp. 62-67. Cambridge Antiquarian Society.

79

photograph significant features and views, to extended periods of field survey conducted over several days. Visiting sites made it possible to experience spatial arrangements and interconnections that might not have been forthcoming from a map or the wording of an extent. Subtle changes in slope can indicate former garden features, whilst variances in brickwork can illustrate the expansion of enclosed areas. Intervisibility between the residence and other features can be inferred from maps and aerial photographs but the best confirmation is gained by experiencing the view and taking photographic evidence. At Dereham Grange (56; TF 6715 0325), field walking helped to establish the extent of the seventeenth-century pleasure grounds and suggested the location of a banqueting house. Earthworks of earlier roadways confirmed the location of features described in a sixteenth-century survey of Blickling (10) and at Stradsett Hall (54; TF 6665 0577), the owner pointed out traces of a moat, shown on a map of 1635 but backfilled by 1700.

Visiting sites also provided evidence of how spatial arrangements described in documentary or cartographic sources might have functioned. By moving through the landscape it is possible to establish how a residence might have interacted with other elements of the social milieu, such as churches or settlements; the original route of a realigned road can be followed, or the proximity to the residence of long-demolished tenements established. Any attempt to reconstruct past landscapes, whether on paper or in the field, must allow for the inherent differences not only in the physical elements but also in the thought processes of the people who inhabited these spaces.