Essex Parks on the Map
Prior to the reign of Elizabeth! (1558 -1603) there were no local estate maps showing the ownerships
of an area of land. Land ownership was (if at all!) confirmed by a written description with boundaries
marked at certain points on a prominent feature, such as a tree with sometimes a physical boundary
marker being placed between manors or parishes. Fences, hedges, brooks, rivers, woods, commons,
roads, all served as boundaries. Sometimes the boundary was confirmed by perambulation: 'beating
the bounds' was an annual event in some parishes.
Parks were different, in that the boundary was, in most cases, strictly defined by a boundary bank
topped by a pale and sometimes a hedge and so there could be little argument (once the park was
established) as to who owned what. Parks, unlike the open-bounded Forest, could hardly be subject
to any illegal enclosure without someone noticing.
Possibly stimulated by the vast changes in land ownership caused by the Dissolution of the
monasteries in 1536 - 1540, when up to a third of England is thought to have changed hands, there
may have been a real need for the new land-owners to have some idea of the extent of their often
dispersed land-holdings. It must have been very difficult for the land agents or bailiffs when
confronted by. for example, the vast new estates of an owner - such as Rich of Leez Priory - to
know exactly where the boundaries lay. Without knowing your property's extent, it would be
impossible to effectively manage or value it for a tenancy.
The estate map would also help to solve the problem of the absentee landlord in dealing with
something that arose on a far-away estate. A map would also define (more than the written word
could) and confirm a boundary - important, for example, in a dispute between tenants.
The second half of the sixteenth century saw the rise of the land surveyor and the estate map. One
of the earliest estate maps in the Essex Record Office is a plan of Ingatestone Hall and grounds
dated 1566. Perhaps the most famous of the early Essex surveyors were the Walkers, father and son
and both called John, of Hanningfield, who produced accurate yet very attractive maps from 1586
onwards. A set of Walker maps of East and West Hanningfield of 1615 has in the introductory text
"........and also you shall find in the said plates, the parish churches with the parsonages and glebe
lands, the park impaled, the demesne lands and mansion houses, with the freehold and copyhold
lands and houses set forth in their true places and proportions and also all the gates, stiles, bars,
rails, ponds, rivers, brooks, bridges, highways, lanes and driftways". As is usual, the park was
surveyed with the rest of the estate.
An earlier map of c. 1595 (surveyor unknown) shows an oblique "aerial" view of land north of
Waltham Abbey showing Copped Hall, Harold's and Waltham Parks. Despite Waltham Park being
disparked in 1548 (it only existed for 6 years from 1542), it is still depicted at this late date being
surrounded by a park pale. However, the western half of the park is shown with a hedged internal
landscape - a possible result of partial disparking. The original of this map is in Hatfield House,
Hertfordshire.
The year of 1598 saw the making of the Earls Colne map by Israel Amyce (Ames) who was one of
the agents appointed to administer the estates of Edward de Vere, the 17" Earl of Oxford, and it w as
from this map that we learn that the de Veres "bredd and mayntayned Wyelde Swyne" in Chalkney
Wood. Such large and at times destructive animals were imparked, breaking out through a weakness
in the pale every now and then to cause damage to farms in the vicinity. This survey was done with
Essex Parks: Section 1 - Parks in Essex
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