Monument record 1189/1/4 - Site of formal garden earthworks at Barnwell All Saints' Manor house

Formal garden earthworks at Barnwell All Saints' Manor House. The layout of the earthworks closely follows that of a plan of 1716, features present include an enclosed garden and ponds. Features shown on the plan but not visible as earthworks include a knot garden, other gardens and orchards. The gardens may have been laid out by Mrs Elizabeth Creed, a tenant of the house

{1} An early C18th plan of a small C17th garden at Barnwell shows its gravel paths, ‘garden knotts’, a terrace and a wilderness. Yet not only do all these still survive on the ground, but a completely unrecorded high-level terrace or walkway separating the main garden from the wilderness, with the foundations of a summerhouse at one end, exists. Plate 22+23. Fig.12.

{5} The existing remains of the gardens agree closely with the early 18th-century plan. To the south of the house site the main garden still remains as it was in 1716. The 'Old Wall' on the W. now shows as a low bank only 0.25 m. high, the 'Terras' as a scarp 0.5 m. high and the 'Gravel' as a slight depression which becomes a low ridge to the N. There are no traces of the 'Garden knottes' but the wall on the E. is another low scarp. This part of the garden is closed on the S. by a large flat-topped bank or terrace, 1.5 m. high, with a low rectangular mound at its W. end. It is perhaps the site of an arbour or summer-house, but it is not shown on the map of 1716. The wooded garden or orchard further S. no longer exists.

These garden remains form only a part of a large area of earthworks which are bounded on the W. by a low bank and ditch and on the N. by a deeply cut hollow-way, perhaps on the line of an earlier ditch. There are three rectangular ponds, or former ponds, along the W. side ('b' 'c' and 'd' on Fig. 26), and the interior has other slight platforms and banks as well as a small area of ridge-and-furrow. An old pond near the N.E. corner is probably that marked on the 1716 plan. These earthworks are presumably the farmyard or home close of the medieval manor house, into which a formal garden was incorporated in the 17th century.

{6} Published here on first edition of OS 25" (1886) and 6" (1891), but nothing about its history in the sources, except that Mrs Creed (a local celebrity) lived here in the 18 century (VCH Northants, 3, 1930, 173 and N2).

{7} Sited here by Rev W G Huntingford Rector of Barnwell. At the published site are earthworks suggestive of early landscape gardening. Published survey (25") revised. No building remains are evident.

Historic England, Barnwell All Saints formal garden (Archive). SNN115023.

<1> Taylor C., 1983, The Archaeology of Gardens, p.51-3 (checked) (Series). SNN41440.

<2> Page W. (ed), 1930, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Northamptonshire, p.173-4 (unchecked) (Series). SNN100370.

<3> 1959, Country Life (1959), 238-41; 298-301 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN56402.

<4> PLUMPTRE G., 1981, ROYAL GARDENS, 34-48 (unchecked) (Uncertain). SNN56403.

<5> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1975, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.16 (checked) (Series). SNN77379.

<6> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Object Name Book reference, Rev ONB Northants 6" 19 SW, 1924, 8 (Archive). SNN113537.

<7> Baird, J, 1969, Field Investigators Comments, F1 JB 25-SEP-69 (Note). SNN111452.

<8> 1716, Plan of the Manor House and Gardens at Barnwell (Map). SNN115022.

<9> RCHME, Undated, RCHME Inventory: Northamptonshire I (North-East), 890182/890185 (Archive). SNN113295.

Record last edited

Apr 12 2023 2:31PM