Additional+enclosures

There seems to have been a spate of enclosures in the Wrentham area in the latter part of the 18th century.

[|//Home Croft Common, Toad Row Common, Henstead Green//]**
 * //[|Wrentham/Covehithe/South Cove]//**
 * //[|Cutler's Green alias Cuckold's Green]//**
 * [|//Blackmoor Farm and its surroundings//]

//**Wrentham/Covehithe/South Cove**// One distinctive area concerns land to the east of Mill Common which includes land in the parishes of Wrentham, Covehithe and South Cove.This is outlined in yellow on the following portion of Hodskinson's map.
 * [[image:hodskinson_covecommon.jpg align="left"]]

The yellow area straddles the parish boundaries of Benacre, Wrentham, Covehithe and South Cove. The parish boundaries have been sketched in with red dotted lines. The blue dash-dot line marks the present approximate position of the coastline. The green lines are modern rights of way. On the modern map the right of way corresponding to the western edge of the area marked Covehithe Common on Hodskinsons's map is called Green Lane. The solid red lines across Covehithe Common are modern roads to Covehithe from Wrentham and South Cove, which were created after the common was enclosed.

//(LL is Lock's Lane; HL is Hitcham's Lane; HG is Holly Grove.//

The fact that the yellow portion is blank on Hodskinson's map indicates that it had been enclosed before 1783, when the map was published. This map for the whole of Suffolk took about seven years in the making.

The position of a large field named 'Inclosure' is marked by the purple circle. This is the only evidence for the yellow area being the subject of an enclosure award. After Hodskinson's map was published there was an enclosure award in 1788 for the common land of Covehithe and Kessingland. It was probably this award that dealt with the enclosure of Hodskinson's Covehithe Common.
 * [[image:scove_chithe_wre.jpg align="left"]]A portion of the area marked in yellow, where the boundaries of Wrentham, Covehithe and South Cove intersect, is shown in the left hand map as it appeared on the 1883 OS map. The same arrangement of fields is found on the earlier Tithe Map. It can be seen that the landscape is characterised by large fields laid out regularly with straight boundaries, which often run uninterrupted across the parish boundaries. This is evidence that it was common land that was enclosed as a unit.

Those fields that cross the parish boundary were owned by Sir Thomas Sherlock Gooch as part of his Benacre estate, which in 1817 ran from Potter's Bridge on the Easton River to Latymer's Dam on the Hundred River, its western boundary being more or less in line with the B1127 and the A12 (see left hand map).

The assumption is that the enclosure award allocated Gooch these fields on the basis of his common rights and since he was virtually the only 'commoner' their boundaries could be set out without reference to the parish boundaries.

Cutler's Green alias Cuckold's Green

Cuckold's Green is a place name on the modern map marking a cluster of fields to the west of Wrentham Church belonging to Field Farm. The same pattern of fields in this area is found on the Tithe Map where Field Farm is called Green Cottage Farm. One of its large fields to the south of the church was named 'Cutler's Green' (marked cg on the left hand map). Cuckold's Green is probably a corruption of Cutler's Green. The lands of Green Cottage Farm are on the parish boundary with Frostenden. It is reasonable to assume that Cutler's Green was shared between the two parishes and was enclosed at the same time as Clay Common, which was shared between Uggeshall and Frostenden. Today, there is a network of rights of way, one of which is named Green Lane, running across and along the shared parish boundary. Foxburrow Covert, a strip of woodland separating Field Farm from Frostenden Hall, may well be a relic of Cutler's Green.

Blackmoor Farm is on Guildhall Lane north of the church. In the Tithe Apportionment the name is Blackmer Farm. It is not marked on Hodskinson's map. Up to 1810 this area was dominated by Wrentham Hall the Tudor mansion of of the Brewsters, who also owned Pye's Hall. The hall was sited just to the south of where Blackmoor Farm is today. It was on a track to the north of a large pond or lake that marked the termination of one of the two branches of the northern tributary of the Easton River. In the following portion of Hodskinson's map the hall is marked in red and the river in blue. It was facing a track from the main Lowestoft Road by the entrance to Benacre Hall to Wrentham West End. This track is also present on an 1803 map of the area.
 * Blackmoor Farm and its surroundings**



The following sketch of the south front of Wrentham Hall, from Copinger's Manors of Suffolk, shows what could be a lake, in front of the road.



Comparing Hodskinson with the OS map shows that the area west of Blackmoor Farm, between Guildhall Lane and Wrentham West End has been considerably changed since the 1780s. The substantial wood to the west of Kitchen Wood has disappeared as has the track from Wrentham Hall, marked in orange at the bottom of the following portion of Hodskinson's map. These changes were probably consequent on the purchase of the Brewster estate by Thomas Gooch in 1810 and the demolition of Wrentham Hall. In this connection, Blackmer Farm could have been developed as a rented property. In the Tithe Apportionment, both Blackmer Farm and Pye Hall were owned by the Gooch family and leased to ?

The following sketch map shows the same area as it is today. There is a deep drainage ditch, marked in blue, which more or less follows the route of the above 18th century track (marked with a dash-dot line). It is part of an extensive drainage system following field boundaries which was probably created along the line of the old track to drain the enclosed claylands of Sotterley Common. At Copper Covert, a right-of-way (solid green and orange dotted line) goes from the road that leads from the church, past Cuckhold's Green and White House Farm, to Westend Farm. This path follows the zig-zag terminal portion of Hodskinson's route from Wrentham Hall, and appears to be all that is left of that old track. The 'spring' belts of woodland may be the remnants of the large wood sited to the west of Guildhall Lane on Hodskinson's map.

East of Guildhall Lane, both Kitchen Wood and Great Wood have been classified as ancient woods in terms of their botanical diversity, particularly in relation to the dominance of Dog's Mercury and Honeysuckle in the ground flora. Although neither wood is a 'bluebell' wood, small patches of Bluebells do occur on the banks of a small clump of trees at the edge of the large claypit north of Priory Farm. From the shapes and positions of Great Wood, Kitchen Wood and the claypit site it is likely that they were originally all part of one massive iregular shaped woodland stretching from the A12 to Sotterley Common which was 'eaten into' by a series of straight field boundaries..

The field system associated with Blackmoor Farm was established by the time the Wrentham Tithe Map was made. There is no documentary evidence for the enclosure. However, there is botanical evidence that the hedgerows are relatively young, compared with Kitchen Wood and Great Wood. The picture on the left shows a view along a section of the hedge alongside the public footpath from Priory Farm to North Hall Cottages. It is composed entirely of maple. This is not a dominant species of Suffolk's old hedgerows and indicates that the hedge was established within the last century with maple saplings.

**Home Croft Common, Toad Row Common, Henstead Green**

These areas of common land are marked in Hodskinson's map of Henstead (above). Again, nothing is known about their enclosure, which probably took place under the Sotterley, Henstead, Wrentham Enclosure Act.