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Maps of Cranborne Manor in the Seventeenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Estate maps can tell us many things about a house in a certain period. Although rare, pairs of estate maps can tell us even more. Perhaps the best-known examples are Ralph Treswell’s two maps of Sir Christopher Hatton’s Holdenby, dated 1580 and 1587. Although the house was largely completed by 1580, the courts and gardens were not; so the second map shows how the areas around the house were developed. The main purpose of the second map, however, was to record the creation of the new hunting park, celebrated in a joyous rendering of deer, rabbits and jaunty hunters with their falcons. While maps of parks were primarily executed in order to establish their legal boundaries, they can also be useful to architectural historians, for some include images of very important buildings (like Holdenby). John Thorpe’s view of Theobalds in 1611, often reproduced in connexion with that important house, is only a detail in a much larger map of Cheshunt Park.
- Type
- Section 8: Gardens and Parks
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001
References
Notes
1 Northamptonshire Record Office: Finch Hatton 272. Details are reproduced in Steane, J. M., ‘The Development of Tudor and Stuart Garden Design in Northamptonshire’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, v, no. 5 (1977), p. 393 Google Scholar.
2 British Museum, Cotton MSS, Aug. I, i, 75; Summerson, John, ‘The Building of Theobalds, 1564-1585’, Archaeologia, XCVII (1959), pl. xxx Google Scholar.
3 Hawkins, Desmond, Cranhornc Chase (London, 1980)Google Scholar.
4 Cecil Papers and Maps (hereafter CPM), Supp. 18. The two large coloured maps are on vellum: ‘TOTIUS MANERII DE CRAMBORNE . . . DESCRIPTIO’ (48 × 69 inches); and ‘TOTIUS CHACEÆ DE CRAMBOURNE ... DESCRIPTIO’ (29 × 43 inches). The terrier originally consisted of eighteen numbered and two unnumbered maps: three of these have disappeared, six are still bound with the text, eleven are loose sheets.
5 Newman, John and Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: Dorset (Harmondsworth, 1979), p. 171 Google Scholar.
6 Oswald, Arthur, Country Houses of Dorset, 2nd edn (London, 1959), pp. 123–27 Google Scholar.
7 Binney, Marcus, ‘The Manor House, Cranborne, Dorset — I’, Country Life, CXI (3 May 1973), pp. 1218-22Google Scholar.
8 RCHM(E), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, v, East Dorset (London, 1975), pp. 7-12Google Scholar.
9 Some articles refer to the plan and elevation of the medieval manor by Norden (Terrier, p. 1), as well as to some of the plans for the rebuilding of the house in the 1640s. See for example, RCHM(E), torn, cit., pl. 41. No one, however, has systematically studied all the plans.
10 One of the unique features of Robert Cecil’s country houses is the fact that he had courts on both the front and the back. Equally interesting is that at both Hatfield and Cranborne the entrances were subsequently reversed (from south to north at Hatfield, the other way round at Cranborne).
11 Newman & Pevsner, op. cit., p. 172.
12 Gunton, R. T. (ed.), Cranborne Papers, 11 (1548-1620) (MS, n.d. [c. 1900]), p. 319 Google Scholar (hereafter Cranborne Papers).
13 An excessive number, possibly reduced to two pairs per court. There are numerous, often conflicting, references in the Hatfield accounts to lodges in the courts.
14 Henderson, Paula, ‘A Shared Passion: the Cecils and their Gardens’, in Croft, Pauline (ed.), Patronage, Culture and Power: the early Cecils, 1558–1612 (New Haven & London, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
15 Hills are shown somewhat randomly to indicate rolling terrain; they were not normally meant to represent individual landscape features.
16 These documents include undated bills for work in the garden (Hatfield House, Bills 115/2), ‘A Survey of Trees’ dated 1613 (Cranborne Accounts 1611-59) and payments for ‘surveyinge workes at cramborne drawinge plotts and keepinge weekly accounts’, dated 1611 but for work carried out in the previous nine months (Hatfield House, Bills 61). It has not yet been possible to identify the clerk.
17 CPM, Supp. 24, illustrated in Henderson, art. cit (n. 14 above).
18 For the view of the gardens at Wilton by Isaac de Caus, see Strong, Roy, The Renaissance Garden in England (London, 1979), p. 157 Google Scholar.
19 Cranborne Papers, Supp. Ill (1501–1620), p. 289; Colvin, op. cit., p. 79.
20 Cranborne Papers, Supp. III., loc. cit.
21 Ibid., p. 321.
22 Cf., e.g., the crude treatment of trees in the second map, which is far more typical.
23 DNB; see also Skelton, R. A., Decorated Printed Maps of the 15th to 18th Centuries (London, 1965), pp. 52-54Google Scholar.
24 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of Manuscripts of the most honourable Marquess of Salisbury, preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire; e.g., ix, p. 433; xvi, pp. 237, 451.
25 See Roberts, Jane, Royal Landscape: the Gardens and Parks ofWindsor (New Haven & London, 1997), p. 154 Google Scholar.
26 One of the few differences between the Windsor and Cranborne maps is the use of gold for some inscriptions in the former.
27 HMC, Salisbury Manuscripts (n. 24 above), XXI, p. 249 Google Scholar (6 September 1610).
28 Thurley, Simon, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (New Haven & London, 1993), p. 217 Google Scholar.
29 Waldstein, Baron, The Diary of Baron Waldstein: A Traveller in Elizabethan England, transi, and annotated byGroos, G. W. (London, 1981), p. 47 Google Scholar.
30 Dee, John, The Elements of Geometrie (1570)Google Scholar; quoted in Skelton, R. A. & Summerson, John, A Description of the Maps and Architectural Drawings in the Collection Made by William Cecil, first Baron Burghley, now at Hatfield House (Oxford, 1971), p. 3 Google Scholar.