This is an interesting map from a Dyfed Archaeological Trust publication (2015) on deer parks. Apparently there was a deer park, of sorts, on the common at Waun Mawn, estimated to have been in use between 1550 and 1750. It was never enclosed, like the deer parks associated with the grand estates of West Wales, but appears simply to have been a favourite place for hunting deer. But I still wonder whether any of the man-made features on the open moor might have had anything to do with deer hunting.......
www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/projects/deerparksmarch2015.pdf
The quarry you mentioned a few posts ago is a puzzling feature of this area. The area is literally littered with stones of all shape and sizes so one would hardly need to go to the top of the high ground to extract any. Perhaps the pits were used to form an observatory of sorts where unfortunate serfs could be stationed to watch the movement of the deer. A simple but low roof could be formed by tree trunks and covered with turf....
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ReplyDeleteGreetings Chris -- yes, another puzzle. The Dyfed Arch Trust people are just as mystified. Maybe that stone wall or embankment we looked at down near the main road was the start of a planned deer park enclosure from medieval or Tudor times? But on the matter of quarrying, the pits stretch along several hundred metres of hillside. I wonder if they might be trial pits dug by people looking for mineral ores? A lot of prospecting did go on in Pembs, especially after the start of the Industrial Revolution, when landowners were desperate to make their fortunes and hoped to find lead or copper ore, or even silver........
ReplyDeleteThere was a memory of a deer park on the opposite side of the river Taw to where my parents moved to in North Devon. Some of its parish boundaries are ancient hedgebanks dating back to the times of deer. The rural Parish retains the memory of it in its name, ChittlehamHOLT, holt meaning park.This area was originally part of a much larger unit of land in Saxon times, which still has the placename retained in the large nuclear village, Chittlehampton.
ReplyDeleteI did my Undergraduate Geography dissertation on this, and surrounding Parishes, 16 in all.
We have a large village, Holt, close to us in West Wiltshire, with a similar derivation of name.