Bodney Warren

Map of Location

Warren Features

Earliest documentary evidence

Register of Thetford Priory entries 1499 and 1500

Other documentary evidence

Deeds of Manors on Hilborough Estate
Conveyance 1610-11
Land Tax Assessments 1787
Map of lands in Hilborough and Bodney 1815
Papers ref Tithes 1840-41
Schedule of landowners and occupiers 1859
Report on Bodney Lodge Farm 1882,
Map 1883
Map 1906 NRO
[NRO MC110/1-22, 574X3, X4,X5, NRO HIL1/12 869X8 and HIL1/13-14, 869X9, HIL 1/12 13-14 NRO, MC1745/1, NRO
NRO NCL (Petre) Box 8, NRO MC1745 NRO PD131/48,
NRO HIL3/66 879X4
NRO MC845/48, 524X4

NRO BAR 98-101, 368X3]

Lodges

In Register of Thetford Priory entries 1499 and 1500 ‘per manus Baxter pro reperac fact apud Bodney logge £6.6s.3d and in 1509/10 7s 4d.
In 1520/21 Johanni Daltun ‘operati ix deibus ad Bodney logge’ 2s 3d

In 1512/22 Willems Turner ‘prole carrying of xiii lodes ley pro reparacione le logge in Bodney’ 5s 0d.  (ley – thatching material)

Rabbit Feeding

Lease allows for lop and top of ash trees, willows and whitethorn to be cut as necessary for feed for rabbits on the warren during snow to a depth of  2 inches. Also allows for tillage of warren not exceeding 10 acres.[NRO 1774 NCC (Petre) Box 8]

Numbers Culled

1818 reference to carts leaving lodge and times of collection of rabbits [NRO WLS/XLIX/3/426×6]

Boundary Banks

The eastern boundary of the warren may have been the straight parish boundary between Bodney and Threxton (now Hilborough/Little Cressingham) to the northeast, called Old Bank on the same map; similarly at the north end of this where a track runs east to west on current mapping, a similar bank is mentioned.
K. Sussams (SAU), 6 December 1995.

Single bank only

Lodges

Site of Bodney Warren Lodge TL 853 972  on edge of the warren – vestiges of masonry of foundations visible on the ground.