Staverton Park

Today we had a return trip to Staverton Park, which we passed through on this walk from Rendlesham in January.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Monday May 19th please support this visit back to the Oak trees at Staverton Park with Gary Battell and join me to learn more about these magnificent trees. Please park at his cottage on the estate for approximately 10am start at (What3Words join.influence.bulge). Nearest Postcode IP12 3PQ. There is no charge and Gary ‘knows his stuff’. Please bring a packed lunch and a morning drink. Finish around midday and then I intend to repark at Wilford Bridge Riverside car park (free), Melton to eat lunch and maybe have a short stroll and/or pub or ice cream visit. The forecast looks lovely. "

Thanks to four generations of the Kemball family, Staverton, with its awesome presence and 3,020 ancient oak trees in Staverton Park and Little Staverton, along with the Thicks, is one of the great wonders of our natural world. Gary gave us a fascinating tour of the park and its trees. 

We met Gary at the Shepherd's Cottage, sometimes used as a wedding venue, which, as Gary told us, is the subject of a book, The Cottage in the Forest by Hugh Farmar.

Gary gave us an introduction to the history. As this Historic England listing says...

"In 1086 the Domesday Book mentions a place called Stauertuna or Stauertona, which was a manor with a church and woodland for 30 pigs, held by Hubert de Montchensy as a tenant of Robert Malet, the Lord of Eye. In 1199 Staverton was granted by Hubert de Montchensy to Hugh Bigod, son of Roger, Earl of Norfolk.

An account roll of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, dated 1268/69, is the first reference to a park at Staverton. Further reference is made in 1304 when Roger Bigod, by then also Marshall of England, received a request from the King ‘…The King needs timber for…. repairing his mills at Orford…, he requests the earl to oblige him with a grant at the earls pleasure of timber… in the earls park of Staverton for the said mills’. An inventory of 1307 records Roger Bigod as having a 'manor, including a park, herbage at Olddemor and Chisfen, a fishery in the pond (stago) and a custom called ‘bedelrye’ at Michaelmas worth 0s’. In 1310 the estate was granted to Thomas of Brotherton, a younger son of King Edward I who was created Earl of Norfolk in 1312 and it stayed with his descendants into the C16.

It is thought that the park may have been affected by the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 when it is recorded that rioters ‘broke the houses of John Staverton of Eyk at Eyk and … tore open and there likewise broke the various boxes of the said John Staverton and feloniously carried away the written letters with other munitions of the said John to the detriment of the said John Staverton….’ . John de Staverton was an unpopular ‘king’s clerk’, who was one of those appointed to oversee the property forfeitures of the rebels in the wake of the uprising. An inventory of William de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk in 1382 records ‘a manor including a park without deer, now greatly broken down, grazing at Oldmore and Chyfen’.

Inheritance passed the park to Margaret, Countess of Norfolk and on her death in 1399 passed to her grandson John de Mowbray and descent continued through the Mowbray and Howard Dukes of Norfolk until 1529 when it was sold to Butley Priory for £240. When the priory was dissolved in 1538 the lands reverted to the Duke of Norfolk until 1572 when it became Crown property.

In September 1528, the park was the setting for a ‘silvan’ when Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife Mary Tudor, the Dowager Queen of France, and their entourage came to Staverton, to hunt foxes and dine beneath the oaks, being entertained with plays, games, and diversions.

A portion of the 21 year Crown lease of the manor of Staverton with its demesne lands and warren was assigned in 1599 by Thomas Havers of Thelverton in Norfolk to Michael Stanhope esq of Sudbourne, groom of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth. By 1600 the park, was in the tenure of John Talbot of Wantisden Hall. The park remained in the ownership of Sir Michael Stanhope’s family until 1669 when George, 9th Lord Berkeley sold to Henry Wood of Loudham Hall, Suffolk. Stanhope commissioned two volumes of maps of his estate in 1600-1601 from the finest cartographer of that time, John Norden. His map of the park gives a detailed impression of the distribution of the trees and open spaces within it. It also indicates that the park was then tenanted by John Talbot of nearby Wantisden Hall.

In 1783 ‘Stavender Park’ is marked on Joseph Hodskinsons Map of Suffolk. By 1800 the park was sold to Edward Lees of Croxton Park, Cambridgeshire and passed in 1803 to his son-in-law Nathaniel Barnardiston of The Ryes, Great Henny, Essex, who commissioned a map of the Wantisden Hall estate, including Staverton Park, from the cartographer Isaac Johnson of Woodbridge in 1805, noting Jonathan Kerr as the occupier. The tithe apportionment and map show Staverton Park, The Thicks and Little Staverton.

Within the northern half of the park is a crescentic earthwork comprising a broad bank, external ditch and a central entrance causeway on the south side, marked by a gap in the centre of the inner bank and a corresponding causeway across the ditch (scheduled monument, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1011346). It was partially excavated in 1910 by H St George Gray which produced evidence of medieval occupation with pottery, chiefly of C12 and C13 century date, found in deposits within the enclosure and underlying the bank and, more recently, by fieldwalking of the interior.

Between 2014 and 2022 Staverton Park was one of the key locations (including the ‘treasure tree’ and Thicks Cottage) of the BBC series ‘The Detectorists’." 

Gary had been closely involved in the management for the last 40 years – a short time in the trees life span but large in a life.

Gary started by showing us his nursery where he has hundreds of little trees growing from acorns harvested from the old oak trees on the park

He switched on the irrigation.

Then it was on into the park. Gary showed us how to observe the trees and see how healthy they were. What I hadn't realised was that these magnificent trees are under stress and subject to Acute Oak Decline driven by climate change (oaks don't like a temperature of more than 25 degrees C) drought, flooding, pests and diseases.

The current decline in the UK has been observed over the last 20 or so years. Trees over 50 seem to be the worst affected and mature trees can die within five years.

Symptoms include:

• General thinning of the crown as leaves are lost. This can be quite sudden, occurring over a two year period.

• Cracks in the bark.

• Dark fluid and extensive weeping patches that seeps through vertical cracks between pieces of bark and runs down the trunk or stem.

• Stem bleeds that can stop and heal as the tree recovers from a stressed state.

• As the tree becomes stressed, secondary pests and diseases begin to take advantage of the weakened tree.

See how the foliage at the top of these is becoming a little straggly.

These ones are doing fine. They are compact with a dense cover of leaves. But we have had such a dry spring that the trees will have been stressed by the lack of water and this may be reflected over the next couple of years even in these ones.

We saw lots of bluebells where the bracken hadn't covered the ground under the trees.

Some of the trees may be up to 1000 years old.

Gary has been planting out his saplings in cages. The fences are to protect them from deer. This one is thriving.

This tree has been bleeding. Not a good sign. Sometimes the Agrilus beetle can be to blame but Gary hasn't seen any evidence of that here.

Gary believes the main problem is Phytophthora, also known as root rot. It attacks the roots making it harder for the tree to get the water it needs from the ground. As Gary says in an article in this issue of SuffolkView magazine...

"Natural England, the body which designated it a Site of Special Scientific Interest, has a risk adverse, minimum intervention approach to its management with a priority for deadwood. However, climate change and pathogen pre-planned mitigation management may be a far better methodology to sustaining this iconic historical and biodiverse site. Management solely by non-intervention in ancient woodland deadwood habitat is unsustainable and will only further accelerate the spiral of tree decline and premature death of the trees in Staverton."

Gary advocates the practice of "retrenchment", which means by origin "cut off, cut down, pare away“. That is exactly what is needed with these oaks. The aim is to lessen the distance the water and nutrient has to travel, to give the oaks a new lease of life despite their impaired root system.

So don't let them get too tall. These ones are looking good.

There is also hawthorn on the site, in flower now.

The OS map shows a single oak which marks the Eyke/Wantisden parish boundary.

We looked in vain for the marker that used to be on this tree - the one singles out on the OS map.

Trees old...

...and new. These were planted in 1995, 1996, and 2001..

There is space here to plant plenty more to keep the woodland thriving.

This tree has several junctions where bracnhes have merged.

Gary invited us to walk underneath to see.

More bluebells. Elsewhere they have already faded, so we were surprised to see them today.

The trees are quite close together in places.

We stopped here to hear the story of Simon the Druid who came to bless the trees. As he was speaking a a lightning trike hit this tree. But look at the amount of growth has come from it since.

At the finish, Gary got his folder out to show us images from a painting.... In 1528, the Butley Priory Chronicle recorded the visit of Mary Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister), Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk. She hunted foxes and had a cheerful picnic lunch with fun and games with laughing gentry under the oaks ‘sub quercubus’, in ‘Parcum de Staverton’. The painting shows a ring and one looking very similar was found on the estate a few years ago.

Thank-you Gary for a great tour and thank-you Joyce for organising it. You can see more of my photos here on Flickr.