Historical reasearch into Brereton Park

Extract from "The Waterless Brook Project" February 2016

3.0 Historical Research into the Project Area  

 ‘Once upon this earth , once upon this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone,  one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone’  G.M. Trevalyan.  An autobiography and other essays, 1949
  

 In 1955, Hoskins wrote   in the 'The Making of the English Landscape  ‘ One cannot understand the English landscape  and enjoy it to the full, apprehend all its wonderful variety from region to region without going back to the history that lies behind it’ (Hoskins 1955,p13).  
 

 How true these statements are.  We ourselves are just passing through our landscape, with each generation leaving its indelible footprint in the landscape for future generations to unravel its changes, and the peoples that were involved in creating our landscape.  No doubt the generations to come will look upon our world with all the wonderment that we do when we look back at the Bronze Age or the Anglo- Saxon periods today.  In a small way, by using new scientific methods and techniques, in-depth historical research and interpreting current and previous archaeological work at Upper Brereton Park and its environs we are slowly unravelling the past story of its landscape and its peoples. I am greatly indebted to Clifford Hargreaves for his work on the documentary and historical research of Upper Brereton Park, which has been placed in the context of national events at the time, and a body of research that has complimented the archaeological investigations at Upper Brereton Park.   
 

P.J Cox  The Waterless Brook Project 2016   
 

   3.1 The Documented History of Upper Brereton Park   
 

 Clifford Hargreaves  - with contributions from Phil Cox  
 

 Brereton Park, relatively isolated, standing at about 30 metres above sea level, surrounded to the north, the south and the west by water but with easy access to the east along what is labelled Park Lane.  In prehistoric Britain this area was certainly covered by woodland of indeterminate density and species.  Pipe-laying in the late 20th century demonstrated the Bronze Age people had frequented the area.  Later, in 55 BC, Julius Cesar landed on the south coast of England but is wasn’t until 43AD that the Romans established a bridgehead in Britain and then preceded to fan out across the country. They stayed until 411AD, according to Tacitus, although new evidence shows that they remained in certain pockets of Britain until the later 5th century. During their sojourn in the military zone of northern Britain lay laid a number of military roads that supplied the garrisons and forts with the materials to keep the Roman army well equipped and fed. One such road lay to the east of Upper Brereton Park house.  Called back to Rome to defend its continental Empire they left a vacuum into which slipped bands of Vikings, Angles, Jutes and Saxons from what is now Germany and Norway.   
 

Clearly the Vikings, exploring the upper reaches of the River Gowy, did beech boats close to the western edge of the park and sent out foraging parties. Evidence of a Viking hoard close to Gowy and within 500meters from the house at Brereton Park would suggest some activity here during the Viking period.  Around 750 AD, the Danes started to invade England and, overtime, establish a Kingdom across and swath of Northern England. Running diagonally across Britain from the east coast to south of Chester and included the Wirral, and the Gowy and Mersey rivers. The latter providing excellent access to lands from the coast.  
 

 The Orreby’s of Foulke Stapleford  
 

   It was the Normans who changed everything.  Following the conquest of 1066 England was brought under the Norman system of administration and, most importantly, at the time the Norman war machine.  What we now know as Stapleford came into the hands of Orreby Family who split it into two unequal half’s. (although no entries are known for Stapleford in Domesday Day book.  (Domesday Book,1863).  One part went to the Breuns, the rest was retained and called Faulk Stapleford of which Brereton Park was a component element. 
 

 The Orrebies were Justicers. Their area of responsibility included a watching brief on military logistics! In the context of the park that mattered.  At the time Cheshire was a military province, a marcher county, acting as a barrier to Welsh incursions along the North Wales coastal plain. Chester, circa six miles from the park was bas through which English armies passed.  It was Henry 111, 121672, and Edward 1 1272 – 1307 who attempted the conquest of Wales ruled at this time by the Welsh princes, the greatest being Llewellyn ap Griffith.  A line of castles began to dot the north and west coasts of Wales. Flint castle served as a sentinel on the estuary of the River Dee but it was Rhuddlan which became the marshalling point ‘the place of armies’ provisioned by a grand magazine of salted beef, hogs, cheese and corn.  It was here that Edward 1 held a Parliament to talk through and create laws for the government of Wales. 
 

    The army, the castles, the garrisons provided opportunities.  Armies march on their stomachs. Jugs, cooking bowls and jars would be required in large numbers so it is not without coincidence that a large amount of pottery found in the Chester area dates back to the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.  The discovery of Kiln 1 at Brereton Park in 1982 is of considerable local and national importance. Excavations directed in 1982 by Janet Rutter of the Grosvenor Museum and in 2015 by Archaeologist Phil Cox have identified the remains of pottery kilns that contained the waste material (wasters) of large amount of pottery types from this period. Included in the assemblage were fragments of jugs, cooking pots, small skillets and large storage vessels. Many of the spouts were of a zoomorphic type, decorated with ram’s heads with curved horns.  

By the standards of the time this was a relatively large, important site that would have required  a mix of skilled potters, labourers, pack men, service workers and of course  a complex of buildings and trackways for making, storing and distributing the pottery.  Kiln 1 is only one of (known) three kilns within 300 meters of each other currently identified.   

It would naïve to think that someone had simply stumbled on the site, built a kiln and started to make and sell pots.  There was obviously a market for these products and the source of the raw material was concentrated in the area of the park. Records show tolls were paid at Eastgate on pottery entering the city, 'one halfpenny' for every cart of 'crokes' and 'one pot' for every cart with earthenware pots, and a dish and a bowl 'worth halfpenny' from every horse-load of these types of pots. (CHEGM1998.100015). This was a sophisticated production site and the Lord of the Manor must have been involved, perhaps it was through him that access to military markets was possible.

   

Brereton pottery types have been found at Deganwy Castle, Rhuddlan Castle, Caergurlie castle and Beeston Castle and on the Isle of Man.  Clearly this was a successful operation for a time and maybe when the unrest in Wales settled down the need and indeed the market for these wares finished.      
 
 In the year 1300 the Orreby's still had control over what was to become Brereton Park and members of the family held administration offices which gave them access to the inner governing machine.  After his military ventures in Wales Edward1 turned to Scotland.  His battles in that area earned him the ‘Hammer of the Scots’.  His army needed victuals. The records show that salted hogs played a big role in the daily soldiers ration.  The Orreby family would have been aware of this reality. Perhaps it isn’t stretching the imaginative construction too far to suggest that Brereton Park for a time between  AD1275 and AD 1345 played a role in supplying that army with pigs that roamed across its surface.    
 

   What transcends speculation for hard fact is that as from 1345/6 rumours were spreading of mysterious illness slowly sweeping across Europe.  Rumour turned into reality in August 1348 when it reached Dorset and spread north through Herefordshire, Shropshire and on into Cheshire.  It became known as the Black Death.  No chronicler has left a record of the suffering caused in Cheshire; a telling void. Although in:    

 ‘the Manor of Bucklow, Cheshire there was 215 acres of land vacant for which there were no tenants to be had because of the great pestilence. 46 tenants had been killed by the ‘Black Death’   (Andrews 1895).  

   If this was the scenario across Cheshire it would have then surely impacted on the management of the land at Upper Brereton Park.  It is unfortunate that ‘our’ Bruen Deeds record the first Inquisition Post Mortem (IPM) in 1397/99 but what is known is that one half of the population of England perished leaving around 2.5 million people. 
 
 The question that needs answering is what happened to the current park area? There is no answer.  Some reality can be surmised, in parts of Cheshire, by looking at surviving bailiff and other administration officer’s returns as they try and explain to the respective Lords why the revenue returns are down.  They point towards empty houses, abandoned mills but there a no records of deserted villages. 
 
Recent research shows It is now clear that there was a much more widespread pattern of settlement and that Cheshire as a whole had a great deal of dispersed settlement so the exact nature of the village and settlement make-up is difficult to reconstruct.    Dyer (1975) states that only four settlements appear in the 1968 Gazetteer. Cheshire is highlighted as one of the 15 counties which require considerable local research. Since this date a number of surveys have taken place as well as a consideration of the nature of settlement during the medieval period. In 1975 the MVRG noted that over the last four years much work had been undertaken with the documentary sources but that fieldwork needed to be done.  

Work by a number of individuals including D. Sylvester had noted the dispersed nature of settlement in a number of townships (Dyer 1975). Many of the settlements that become classed as deserted may not have been large nucleated entities in the first place. Many townships by the nineteenth century still contained no nucleated settlements (Edwards 2007).  

The main concentration of nucleated settlement in Cheshire is located to the west of the central Cheshire ridge (Dyer 1975). However, recent surveys using Lidar technology indicate that over 90 possible new DMV’s sites have been recorded in Cheshire (Cheshire.gov.uk/monument search 2016). These include Bradley Green, Castletown, Grafton, Overton and Tatton (List of Scheduled Monuments in Cheshire (1066–1539)) The Palatine of Cheshire was exempt from most medieval taxation so few records appear after the Domesday Book until the sixteenth century. In 1377 no writ was issued for the Poll Tax. In 1379 commissions were supposed to levy the tax, but this was cancelled and they were asked for an offer of aid instead (Fenwick 1998: xxi). The Crown confirmed the county’s immunity from parliamentary taxation in 1381 (Fenwick 1998: xxi).  

Again in the sixteenth century no lay subsidy was required in 1524, 1525 or 1543 (Sheail 1998: 3). Hence many of the entries on the website have been left blank. The 1563 Diocesan Return survives within the return for the Diocese of Chester (Dyer and Palliser 2005). With the dispersed nature of the settlement it can be difficult to disentangle the evidence for individual hamlets.  

A Place of Leisure and Pleasure 
  

  On the death of Joan de Orreby the line terminated in Mary her daughter, wife of John LorRoss when the succession passed to William Bagst, knt, 18 Richard 11 1395 so ending the Orresbey connection with the park area, Bagst died and so did the next in line was Richard Corbett of Leighton as grandson of Alice wife of Peter and sister of Sir John Orresby, deceased.  Later, (11-12 HIV 1411) livery of the manor (part of) Foulke Stapleford was granted to William, son of William de Brereton.  One section of this became known as Brereton Park which was converted into a sporting area (deer park) where deer, especially fallow deer grazed.  They were valued as meat for the table, as gifts, dead or alive, and as a subtle form of patronage. Above all it was a place and a space of leisure and pleasure in a congenial atmosphere where land deals, possible marriages and networks could be established.   

The hunting that went on in the park was much stylised, more like shooting practice. Certainly not the ‘chase’ in unlimited boundaries.  Armed with bows and arrows the guests watched as deer were herded along set lines so that ’kills’ were almost certain which at the time, was seen as being especially pleasing ‘to the ladies’.  Tied in with this particular spectacle was the children’s event when they were taught to use a bow and arrow to bring down a live animal. Other activities included hare coursing using hunting dogs and falconry. Parks required guards (wardens) to protect the animals from marauding gangs from across Cheshire (G.S. White 2012).  

Cheshire at this period was one of the least law abiding part s of England; house breaking, cattle stealing, petty theft (most houses did not have much worth stealing) and fights with knives, axes and fists were common.  Gangs, many ex Cheshire Archers roamed across the Vale Royal, Wirral and West Cheshire area.   Venison was not in the market place and hence highly prized.  It is thought that the current Upper Brereton Park Farm is the site of the original hunting lodge whose occupants were charged with guarding the eastern approach to the park along with other duties.   
 

  The Bruen deeds 122/123, 12th April 1492 point at an exchange of lands between Andrew Brereton and James Bruen at which stage the Brereton Park passed to the Bruen family.  It remained a deer park until 1587 when it was disparked and  ‘hawks and hounds and unnecessary expenses was cut off’  (Ormerod 1882). Rabbit warrens (Pillow Mounds) were created by the Bruen’s along the western side of the park albeit the initial dating is a little uncertain.  These animals were reintroduced into the country following the Norman Conquest.  Until the early 14th century rabbits or conveys as they were properly called (rabbit being the term used for the young) were regarded as luxury items because, until they became acclimatised, they had to be carefully tended. However, by the middle of the 14th century they had adjusted to the English climate and were thriving.  John Bruen made a point of giving Coney’s to the poor of Chester; circa 1600- 1624.  
 

 From Park to Farm  
 

  Around the year 1600 the Park was opened by John Bruen, for an appropriate fee, to his tenants. A lot of initial clearing, ploughing and harrowing must have taken place during this period. Examples include, John Downes of Burton whose inventory taken on the 14th February 1624/5 itemises the ‘the teche of Brereton park £12.0.0d’.  John Catherall, one time Stapleford blacksmith ‘the Teche of Brereton park ground £1.10.0ddated 9th February 1623/24.  Also Richard Ollerhead of Foulke Stapleford.  His inventory, 11th November 1629 points up ‘ The teche of Brereton Park, the meadowinge for divers year yatt, £30’.  Clearly the one time deer park was being staked out into individual lots.  Watching over this were the inhabitants of the hunting lodge.   

According to John Whittle the timber framed hall of Upper Brereton Park has been dated to the early 15th century and is thought to be a part of that lodge. The park was emparked in1420.  In the records relating to the wills and inventories there is only one reference to a will made in Brereton Park, that of Jane Gregory, 12th November 1649.  It is possible that she was living in the lodge and that her late husband took over from the last deer custodian and acted as ‘bailiff of the Park’. 
  

 Rewind the time line to 1642.  Civil war had broken out; the Cheshire gentry were forced to declare for King or Parliament.  The Bruens lined up with Parliament.  On the 11th January 1643 a pamphlet printed for Thomas Underhill noted   
 

 ‘They, the Royalists, have plundered Stapleford, master Bruen’s house’ and ’ in a word..there is no householder in all these parts who is reputed religious butt lesse or more they have pillaged them’  
 
  All this was the work of armed cavalry officers controlled by Earl Rivers and Lord Cholmondeley, both Royalists.  One must assume that Brereton Park, the name was a powerful symbol that, ‘received attention’; William Brereton was an influential Parliamentarian.    
 

  The mid seventeenth century was a watershed in the life of the Park.  At a local level the power and influence of the Bruens was diminishing.  At the national level the medieval world with all its values was breaking down, fast.  At the same time England’s population roughly doubled between middle of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century.  More pertinent to the understanding of what happened next in Brereton Park is that the proportion resident in towns with population s above 10,000 more than tripled.  Increases also appeared in smaller towns but not in such a dramatic way.  However a trend had set in.  Town people needed food, milk and so on. A market had always existed but now the scale of production was changing.  
 

  As from around 1587 the Bruen family was under increasing pressure.  John Bruen now the next Lord of the Manor inherited an estate encumbered by debts as well as 11 brothers and sisters. Over the next few years he married three times and had 19 children.  Add to all this philanthropic endeavours.  Result a big strain on the assets of the estate.  Worse was to follow.  The Bruens had supported the Parliament during the English Civil War. In 1660 Charles II was restored to the English throne; a subtle blow to the standing of the Bruens within gentry society.  All these combined pressures lead to the sale of Brereton Park.  It was purchased by John Wall whose heir Nathaniel sold it on in 1702 to Sir John Werden, the son of an ardent Royalist.  He had two daughters, who, in a double wedding on the 13th December 1722 married two sons of the Duke of St Albans.  The Park remained in the family until 1787 it then passed to his cousin George Drummond.  Later, 1829, it was bought by the Rt .Hon. Dr Stephen Lushington and then in 1854 it was acquired by Samuel Harding. 
   

  Documents relating to this are available in the Chester Record Office; the Drummond Fitz Hugh family estate papers – D1677.  Thirteen documents range from 1716 to 1892 consisting of sales, leases, varying in time, with instructions regarding land management but they are of limited value.  There are no detailed references to any family such as the Reeces.  Even more disappointing is the absence of Agents notebooks. These documents played a crucial role in lives of many Cheshire tenant farmers.     In broad outline what does emerge is that Upper Brereton Park, once a lodge, is probably the site of the earliest settlement and that is was followed in 1685 onwards by the creation overtime of other farm houses and buildings.   

Co- terminus with the building using a lot of local made brick, went the creation of the field pattern shown on the 1838 tithe map which reveals a number of small enclosed fields and hedgerows, so providing shelter and helping  to create micro warm spots many of which have now been swept away creating a wider but colder vista.  Tenants came and went, 4050 years the average.  A common denominator was insecurity allied to the vagaries of the weather, animal, the attitude of the agent and landlord who expected an adequate return for their outlay; a serious issue when cattle diseases struck.  In the contracts emphasis was laid on good land management, keep the land in ‘good heart’ That demand was not easily reconciled by short leases; compensation issues loomed large.   

That said people like the Reece family dug out out the slightly calarcious accumulations frequently found at a depth of three to four feet and spread it on the land.  (samples taken from existing pits at Upper Brereton Park showed a CaCo3 ranging from 20% to as low as 2%).  In the nineteenth century marl was replace by bone meal.  Some guano was tried for a time but it proved to rich. Thereafter Lime became the preferred option in the 20th century.  Initially all the tenants made cheese selling two to three cheeses each year at local cheese markets.  When cattle disease disseminated the herds, sheep acted as a ‘stop gap’.  The change to milk had to ‘wait’ for the railway and the milk lorry.  That in turn created a mini revolution.  
 

  Cattle plague came to England and Cheshire around 1745 and returned in 1768 just has the Brereton tenants were beginning to ‘settle in’; thousands of cows died but just how serious it was in Brereton Park is not recorded.  Records show that the plague was attributed to poisonous gases floating clouds - a miasma.  That belief was still in place in 1865! At the time of the 1745 plague people were advised to heed the words in the Book of Amos, Chapter four.  

Perhaps determination is being pushed too far to suggest that the Methodist chapel at Upper Brereton Park is linked to the plague and the reaction to it by the Reece family.  Overall Cheshire lost one half of its dairy herd; payment of rent became a serious issue.  The arrival of John Wesly (if he did arrive) would not pay the bills or bring back dead cows but it would have provided much comfort and inner determination to the Reece family and their neighbours.   
 

  In the eighteenth century not much had changed from the Middle Ages’ herds’ were ten or under, the milch cows were milked through may lactations until they were in the teens of years.  Lots had names, a ‘good un’ was highly praised.  If the cow calved easily, was docile, remained healthy, and conceived quickly that mattered more than quality.  Tools were still primitive; pickles, spades, scythes and two wide diameter wheeled carts were still used to carry the cheese they made, the oats and barley they grew and the muck and tiles on and in the fields. The fields were small in size surrounded by hedges but underlying sandstone; mad sponge made drainage an issue.  The terms of the many leases stressed the need to ‘create’ good drainage; for example in the nineteenth century the Eaton Estate, home to the Duke of Westminster, had a factory making over one million drainage tile each year.  Evidence of the field drainage improvement was un-covered at Upper Brereton Park during geophysical surveys and trail excavations in 2015.  
 

  Today, 2015, one senses a new force.  By today’s standards the farms in the park are relatively small.  Indeed two of them are not farms in the strict sense of the word. Neo-Liberals have no time for existing social and economic institutions.  In the agrarian field that means tear out all the hedgerows, convert existing farms into private houses, strip their land and create one huge mega style farm where the bottom line is cash and the aesthetic, metaphorically speaking, go through the window.  Look to the west of the park.  It is already happening and will accelerate as technology creates robotic machines.  Animals confined in huge wooden sheds, can lead to over stocking and the possible of anti-biotics in order to keep diseases at bay.   
 

  The Park today is a place of antiquity surrounded by modernity and let all students of history be aware of the law of unintended consequences.