Park Boundaries
(Taken from Essex Parks by Mark Hanson)
The usual park boundary up to the late 18th century was the park pale, a fence of cleft oak pales supported by a framework of posts, rails and struts. The pales were pointed at the base, this end being driven into the ground. The pale was then nailed or otherwise fixed to the top rail to prevent it from being moved. The pales were alternately long and short, presumably to help reduce costs. The long pales could be re-cut at the base and used again as short pales. It seems to have been part of the manorial service that".. ..men of the same manor as others of the neighbourhood outside ought to renew and repair that paling as often as need be" (Havering Park, 1306 - 7). The customal of Hatfield Broad Oak says much the same thing - in 1328, a particular tenant was required to "... .make and keep 32 perches of pale round the park ... .and shall have the old timber of the said pale when it is not worth putting back .....". In all, 49 tenants had to maintain 151 perches of pale and 129 perches of hedge around Hatfield Park, a total of almost a mile. It seems, however, that by the late 14th century the service at Hatfield was commuted to a fine and the pale was inspected and a contractor hired to undertake the actual work. In 1444 25 perches of new fence were required and 48 perches of old fence repaired. The pales were to be re-pointed. The cost was calculated at 4d per perch for new fence and 2d per perch for old. Smith records several mentions of the park pale being put into repair in Havering Park. By 1531 Havering employed a Keeper of the Pale and also a paler (palystere) to maintain the fence around the 1300 acre park. In 1594 accounts for the preparation of a visit by Queen Elizabeth to Havering include several entries for paling and rails around the palace and garden:
two hundred of cleft pale at 6 shillings the hundred
for half a load of rayles 9 shillings
five hundred cleft pale at 6s ye c. ( per hundred I think ed)
20 posts at 10d a post.
In 1624 a warrant for £230 was issued for the repair of Havering Park pale. During the Civil War it was recorded that the pale at Havering was pulled down "by divers unruly persons".
The 60-odd parks shown on Chapman and Andre (1777) are virtually all shown with a pale, exceptions include Audley End and a handful of others (Shortgrove, Mark Hall, Moulsham Hall and Wardens Hall, Willingale Spain). Audley End was walled and the others were possibly just hedged or fenced, rather than paled.
An account of the construction of the King's 'newe parke' adjacent to the recently dissolved Waltham Abbey in 1542, mentions the inclosing and paling of the park - the pales, posts and rails coming from Cheton Wood. Part of the boundary of Waltham Park may also have been partly hedged, since the 'gatherying ofquickesetts for the dyche by the parke syde' is also mentioned. This is possibly a reference to that part of the park that runs by Cobbins Brook which, because of the meandering and bank erosion, would probably have been difficult to pale. The Hylands Park of 1777 was completely surrounded by a pale, as was the enlarged park of 1838 when much of the oak paling was renewed. Park walls, presumably because of the expense and time involved in construction, are a rarity. Audley End's wall was extant in 1676, but was reported to be "falling Downe in many places" in 1701. Braxted's wall at 3.4 miles long completely surrounds the park and was built 1825 - 31 in soft red brick. This too had collapsed in places, but like Audley End, is now in a good state of repair with sections replaced and earlier piers built to hold-up the leaning wall. Hylands wall, almost a mile long, was originally built c.1841 by JohnAttwood along the boundary of the London Road, probably for privacy reasons, rather than to retain livestock. This wall was re-built in the 1930s within the boundary of the park when the London Road was dualled. A circa 180ft section of the southern end of this wall collapsed in 2002 (reinstated in 2003). Shortgrove has a later low brick-capped flint wall. In many cases the pale stood on top of a bank and ditch, often good evidence where the park is now gone. The Saxon Ongar Great Park, now a scheduled monument, has an imposingly massive ditch and bank, the bank in places being four to five feet or more high. Braxted has a curious boundary in that part of the length of the north wall is followed by a deep ditch, the far side topped with hornbeam stools that have laterally extended branches to form a barrier. The ditch is six or seven feet deep in places (at one point I believe nearer ten). The Braxted Park of 1831 was much enlarged in the west and east from the park shown on the Chapman and Andre map of 1777. Weald Park was fenced with a cleft-oak pale as late as 1933 (supplied by Brace of High Ongar), although it was apparently largely destroyed in World War II.