Monument record MNL 485 - Earthwork banks, Mildenhall Warren (Med)

Earthwork bank/s surrounding most of Mildenhall Warren (see MNL 553), running for approximately 4.5km (minimum). Variable preservation and dimensions, from 5m wide x 1m high in the NE, to 1m wide x 80cm high in the SE. Map in parish file detailing areas surveyed. Area formerly warren, now coniferous plantation.
Documents of 1730s in Suffolk Record Office indicate that the bank was created (or strengthened?) to solve a land dispute between the keeper of Mildenhall Warren and the tenant of the Icklingham lands to the north and east. The latter was complaining that rabbits from the warren were destroying crops. Letter of 1732 outlines the agreement to build a bank separating these two lands, bot be kept up for a minimum of five years (S1).
Mildenhall Warren was established by 1323 and the warren lodge (MNL 134) is dated to the C14/C15 (?), when owned by Bury Abbey. It was increased at the end of the C14 to include land which had been arable (S3).
1812 Enclosure map and 1859 tithe map shows western boundary not surveyed, although some lengths of bank may still remain under the coniferous plantation (S4)(S5).
Note internal banks shown on OS 1884 (& other) maps appear to subdivide warren into 2 (or more) parts. The second, smaller area, to the SE surrounds a second warren lodge site (MNL 510).
Note SE area arable on 1859 map (see MNL 484).

2010: The Breckland Society's survey of The Warrens of Breckland identified perimeter banks and warren lodge. Low banks survive along the northern perimeter and there are traces along the southern perimeter parallel to the Bury Road. Those on the eastern boundary have disappeared under later gravel workings and on the western boundary have been obliterated by the modern road systems. Trapping banks are marked on the 1807 Enclosure Map in the north-east corner but are not visible on the ground. The enclosure map shows the warren of 1,066 acres (S6).

Also PMed.