Monument record MDO5158 - Deer park, Tarrant Rushton

The earthwork remains of the medieval deer park pale are visible on current Environment Agency lidar imagery and were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

A deer park at Tarrant Rushton, mentioned in the Calendar of Inquisitions. Post Mortem for 1296, is probably coincident with Hogstock Coppice, Sing Close Coppice and Stubb's Coppice. A well-defined bank and ditch can be traced along the eastern edge of the area and two fragments of bank survive as the south-western boundary. <1>

ST 95530723. The earthwork remains of a medieval deer park pale in Stubb's Coppice, Hogstock Coppice and Sing Close Coppice. The pale survives as an earthwork along the eastern and southern sides of the former deer park, and comprises a bank and outer ditch. Within the south eastern corner, another bank and ditch form a triangular enclosure with an entrance to the north. This may represent a deer trap, into which animals could be chased. <2>

The earthwork remains of the medieval deer park pale are visible on current Environment Agency lidar imagery <3>. The earthworks survive on the east side of the park for a length of just over 1km. The south side is in two sections with a gap in the middle, overall forming a slightly v-shaped boundary of at least 700m. Earthworks also survive on the west side of the park, running north for just over 285m, at this point meeting with earthworks that follow the line of the parish boundary north eastwards where they meet the park pale on the east side. These earthworks may represent the parish boundary itself rather than part of the medieval park pale, or the two may be conflated, the one providing the earthworks for the other - it is not clear which, nor is it certain whether the parish boundary marks a onetime north side of the deer park. There are additional linear banks visible on lidar that follow the parish boundary and then continue north eastwards as a broken line - these may be related in some way to the deer park but another origin for these is also possible.

North of the parish boundary the park pale continues along the east side of Stubbs Coppice - the west side of the deer park could not be identified. Cantor and Wilson (see ref 1) conjecture that the west side of the deer park may have followed the current west side of Stubbs Copse, which is also the outline as recorded on the OS 1st Edition map. Whether this northern section containing Stubbs Copse is part of the original deer park extent, or an earlier/ later extension beyond the parish boundary is also uncertain.

At the southern end of the park, at its southeastern corner, is a v-shaped funnel formed of the outer pale and an inner bank, that may represent a deer trap (and see NRHE Hob UID 209316).

The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

<1> Cantor, L M and Wilson, J D, 1968, The Medieval Deer-Parks of Dorset VIII; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 242-244 (Article in serial). SDO13204.

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1969, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1968, 242-244 (Serial). SDO68.

<2> Historic England, Scheduled Monument Notification, 06-Mar-02 (Scheduling record). SDO17468.

<3> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209316 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 30 2023 7:25AM