A Lowestoft Deer Park

Recorded on Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Internet) as Monument record LWT 368.

Centring on OS 1:25000 Series Map reference TM59 539939. 

Site of former Deer Park, recorded in 1377. Referred to by Rosemary Hoppitt in her University of East Anglia PhD thesis (1992) entitled ‘The Development of Deer Parks in Suffolk from the 11th century to the 17th century’ - work later published as Deer Parks of Suffolk 1086-1602 by the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History (2020). Also referenced in an article in An Historical Atlas of Suffolk, 3rd edition (1999). 

The deer park was located between present-day Rotterdam Road to the east and High Beech to the west. Its northern boundary was Oulton Road (formerly Oxmere Lane) and its southern limit Normanston Drive (formerly Beccles Way). It was c. forty acres in area and its earlier presence is indirectly referred to in the Lowestoft Manor Roll of 22 December 1618 (Suffolk Archives Ipswich, acc. no. 194/A10/73), where Park Closeis specifically referred to (p. 31), as well as two other arable enclosures called The Park (p. 51) and Park Field(p. 53). Placing them topographically from north to south, the order remains the same - with the ground-area occupied today by Marham Road, Evergreen Road, Broom Road and Larch Road. As well as indicating a dedicated area for the keeping of deer, the enclosed space can also be taken to suggest the presence of a manor house at some time in the past.  

Another enclosed arable space called Dovehouse Close (p. 52), further to the west - leased at the time from the Oulton manor of Houghton - is a further indication of such a dwelling, with the building referred to in the field-name usually being located near a manor house during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods as the pigeons reared within provided a source of fresh meat (especially during the winter months). The young pigeons (squabs) had their legs broken at the fledgling stage so they were unable to fly - which meant they had to stay in the nesting alcoves, where their immobility caused them to fatten more quickly on the feed provided. Dovehouse Close can be identified as being located in the present-day area of Olive Court-June Avenue, with the great majority of the manor’s agricultural land lying to the north of Oulton Road and extending from Hollingsworth Road as far as the former highway’s junction with Somerleyton Road.

Thus, it is probably safe to assume that the Akethorp manor house itself was located in the area occupied by the dovehouse (thereby placing it in the parish of Oulton), with most of the estate’s cultivated land situated on the other side of Oxemere Lane. Sir John Fastolf, of Caister - a leading professional soldier belonging to a Great Yarmouth family of merchants and port bailiffs - had purchased the manor of Akethorp in 1426, at a time when he was acquiring landed estates both local and further removed. But it ceased to be a manor when it came into the control of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1478-9 - a change in ownership which has been explained fully elsewhere in the article Lowestoft and Akethorp and, so, does not need repeating here. An Akethorp account roll of 1438-9 (Magdalen College Archives, Oxford, acc. no. 73/4) specifically refers to the “site of the manor of Akethorphalle”, which would seem to confirm the connection but also suggest that the house itself had gone. However, a barn and granary remained, as well as two enclosed arable fields totalling seven acres in area - these spaces very likely being the the main element of the cultivated field later to be known as Dovehouse Close.

The specific documentary source which makes reference to the deer park itself is to be found in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward III, vol. 14 (1952), no. 339, where an enquiry held at Lowestoft on 24 April 1377 had a number of things stated as being connected with the manor there. At least, this what the record appears to say by way of introduction. It then goes on to refer to foldage rights in Gorleston and other places, leasehold rights to some of the Gorleston grazing marshes, and control of the ferry across the River Yare to Great Yarmouth. All of which would appear to relate to the manor of Lothingland Half-hundred, rather than that of Lowestoft itself - with both titles having been held in tandem since c. 1211-12. And, in fact, the last thing mentioned is a reference to the Lothingland Half-hundred manor, with “certain rights pertaining thereto”. The enquiry was connected with the death (on 9 March 1377) of Mary Sancto Paulo, Countess of Pembroke, who held both titles, and a concluding statement is made that no heir to these particular manors was known.  

Before this information came to light it seemed that the deer park most likely belonged to the manor of Akethorp, rather than that of Lowestoft, which had distant, non-resident, aristocratic lords and therefore no need of a manor house to accommodate them. And a presumption was made that the land given over to it must have been either leased or purchased from the Lowestoft estate (the former seeming more likely) at some point during the 14th century, in order for it to have been created. Most of it (if not all) was probably the fenced-off eastern part of Skamacre Heath, one of Lowestoft’s seven areas of common land which were much used for the rough grazing of livestock. This particular one extended northwards and westwards into the parish of Oulton, with today’s Fir Lane roadway (once known as Skamacre Lane) forming a track running across the middle of it. The flora growing there would probably have consisted of coarse grasses, heather, bracken, gorse (al. furze), hawthorn, blackthorn and maybe silver birch and had probably undergone some kind of progressive human intervention or management over the years to make its use as effective as it could be. The means adopted of keeping the deer enclosed was probably the construction of a dead hedge around the perimeter, rather than the time-consuming and expensive construction of a ditch and bank.  

Whatever its origins were (and these are never likely to be established), and when, the connection appears to be be with Lothingland-Lowestoft rather than with Akethorp. And it seems likely that the park was of comparatively short duration. Medieval documentation relating to the Akethorp manor lands - held in the Magdalen College Archives and dating from the 1430s - makes no reference to it in any shape or form. And by the time of the Lowestoft Manor Roll of 1618, most of it (except for three areas of pasture totalling seven-and-a-quarter acres in size) was under the plough and integrated once again into the manor of Lowestoft - apart from one two-acre pasture enclosure remaining as part of the Akethorp estate. Medieval manorial lands were often dispersed topographically, with purchased or leased real estate present in other seigneurial locations forming part of sometimes relatively distant hubs. The Akethorp-Lowestoft-Oulton connections noted above were all closely related, with a  shared ground-area in the same location. 

The Manor Roll refers to the area once constituting the deer park as follows: western sector, Carborowe Field to the south and Ringbell and Shelton to the north, with Park Close, The Park and Park Field making up the eastern half of it. And the relatively small area of forty acres is strongly suggestive of the animals being farmed for venison rather than being allowed to roam free, in a much larger environment, and thereby serving as the quarry for hunting. It seems very unlikely that Red Deer would have been kept, given their size, and so it is much more likely that the animals enclosed would have been either the small native Roe (Capreolus capreolus) or the introduced Fallow (Dama dama). It is known that deer parks increased in number during the 14th century, as a kind of social and fashion statement on the part of the landlords setting them out - which makes the Lowestoft one of interest in showing a trend of the time (though frustrating in not being able to establish its origins) and also in demonstrating marked changes in the use of land for specific purposes. From open, semi-managed heathland, to an enclosed space for raising deer, to four centuries or more of arable use, and then eventually to be built over with houses. The whole process is a microcosm of what has happened over much of Lowland England.

Say the word “park” today and urban amenity areas are what spring immediately to mind, with grass, shrubs, trees, flower-beds, water-features, walkways and seating. Belle Vue, Sparrow’s Nest, Nicholas Everitt and Kirkley Fen - all well known and enjoyed, with The Ness not as yet so well established. Turn the clock back 500 years or more and the word had a different meaning altogether, deriving from Old French parc and meaning “pen” or “fold” - an enclosed space of some kind for animals. It was the Normans, with their love of hunting, who brought the term to England in 1066 and made the hunting of deer (they introduced the Fallow species) a royal and aristocratic privilege. Venison not only tasted good; it made a social statement embedded in the exclusiveness of who was allowed to eat it. Altogether, there were around forty or so medieval deer parks in Suffolk, with later ones established during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries - such as those at Somerleyton and Benacre. Lowestoft’s was of modest size and a comparatively short life-span - but, it  was there for a certain length of time and makes an interesting footnote in the overall history of the town.

And, wherever the evidence exists, it is always good to know what once lay underfoot and to consider the changes made over the years.     CREDIT:David Butcher