Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 96

The site of the royal palace of Clarendon today seems remote and secluded, its upstanding remains are scanty, and it is rarely a target of tourists’ itineraries. Yet Clarendon was a favourite retreat of medieval monarchs, and remains rich in historical associations. In its heyday it must have been spectacular: the most sumptuous royal house in the West Country, standing on a prominent bluff near the centre of the largest royal deer park in England. However, royal visits declined in frequency during the later Middle Ages, the Tudor monarchs preferred residences closer to London, and Clarendon fell into decay. The property was relinquished by Charles II, subsequently a new mansion was built elsewhere in the park, and the old palace became a neglected ruin.

Clarendon is archaeologically important as the only great rural royal palace to retain evidence of its complete medieval ground plan. The site underwent extensive archaeological exploration in the 1930s, with further investigations in the 1950s and 1960s, but much of that work remained largely unpublished until 1988, when one of the present authors co-authored a substantial report based upon the earlier excavation records and finds (T.B.James and A.M.Robinson, ‘Clarendon Palace’, Reports of Research Committee of Society of Antiquaries of London, XLV, 1988).

The volume reviewed here expands the perspective, providing a comprehensive summary of the palace’s archaeological, historical and geographical setting, derived from multidisciplinary research over the last three decades. After an introductory chapter discussing aims and approaches, Chapter 2 examines the evidence for land use prior to the park’s creation. By about 2000 BC little woodland cover survived, and during the middle Bronze Age extensive rectilinear fields were laid out, not only over the chalk downland, where they are clearly revealed by aerial photographs, but also within many of the now-wooded areas, where they survive as earthworks. Continuity of occupation of prehistoric farming settlements is evident through to the end of the fourth century AD, and the land now within the park supported a larger population in Romano-British times than at any other period. From the beginning of the fifth century, however, settlements and farmland seem to have been abandoned, and some secondary woodland regenerated. A royal hunting ground may have been designated long before the park became formalised within defined boundaries.

Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to discussion of the medieval palace in relation to its gardens, the ‘inner park’ within its livestock-excluding pale, the much larger outer park, itself with very distinct zones of open launds with rabbit-warrens, enclosed coppices and wood-pasture, the even more extensive royal forest and the farmland and settlements within and beyond.

Chapters 5 and 6 bring the story forward to the present. Following extensive plundering of timber and deer during and after the Civil War, much of the park was broken up into separate farms with enclosed fields. Clarendon finally passed out of royal hands in 1661; three years later it was acquired by Edward Hyde, who had already been created Earl of Clarendon. The new mansion in the south of the park, ostensibly dated to the early eighteenth century, is here shown to incorporate fragments of a previously unknown earlier building, probably of Hyde’s time. The Bathurst family, who held the estate from 1707 to 1801, added a geometric parterre and a small lake and planted Scots pines and three oak avenues. Further ornamental modifications were undertaken by their successors, the Hervey-Bathursts.

The medieval palace and later mansion were both places of social exclusion and privilege, manifestations of wealth and power, in which the active recreations of hunting and coursing could be enjoyed alongside the more cerebral appreciation of landscape aesthetics. Increasingly, however, the high life could only be sustained by profitable forestry and game management and by sufficient rents from tenant farms on the estate. Although the park landscape is the primary focus of investigation, readers of the Review will be pleased to note that its economic support through agriculture is not neglected. The Hervey-Bathursts retained the estate through fluctuating fortunes until the agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century dealt a fatal blow, and in 1900 the estate was sold up.

The final chapters explore changing perceptions of the aesthetic, symbolic, economic and recreational significance of the landscape, as viewed by academics, royal and aristocratic owners, estate managers and the public at large. Topics include the practical problems of reconciling the demands of archaeological research with structural conservation and public presentation.

The book is attractively produced, with numerous excellent plans, drawings and photographs, including many colour plates. The text is refreshingly readable. Thirty pages of endnotes are linked to a substantial bibliography, and there is a helpful index. Only a couple of minor slips caught this reviewer’s eye: the Cockey Down long barrow, said on p.17 to lie east of the Fussells Lodge long barrow, is shown on figure 8 to the southwest; and a view of the mansion in 1791, referenced to ‘Back Cover’ on p.134, is actually placed as a frontispiece. Overall the authors have succeeded admirably in their aim of demonstrating the great richness of the Clarendon landscape to a wider readership.