As visitors are taken around they might find in interesting to work out how the land was used in the past and how the pattern of farming in the area has changed. In many parts of the country, the traditional mixed farm is uncommon as farms have specialised as arable or livestock enterprises. The number of people working the land has also decreased with every decade. All over the estate there are clues to older methods of working the land and how people lived in the past. The topic is shown under the headings The built Structures, The wider Landscape and Life in the Past
Please also have a look at some of the specific history items under the History Menu on the top left hand corner of the screen - these show some of the ruins, and mention the history related to previous owners
Although it is not safe to enter the oldest ruins, they can be examined on the outside. The old stone buildings and walls are habitats worth exploring in themselves; the farm sparrow colony still nests inside the walls of the restored Old Barns and bats and tawny owls inhabit the listed ruins of the old mansion. The ruined cottages and other man-made features at the Kennels may have had a use other than as hunting kennels: earlier documents refer to Kiln Quarry and Kiln Meadow rather than the present day name Kennel. Why did someone build such a grand bridge over a trickle of a stream? Were the old tracks through the woods used to remove stone from the quarries to build the mansion? Why was the mansion itself eventually abandoned over a century ago? Some of the features such as the listed bridge and the granite gate piers are eighteenth century. The mansion dates from much earlier, although the original building was largely masked by the later extension. The kennel cottages may be several centuries old, and the stables are probably seventeenth century. Aspects of the Old Barns suggest building work in the early 19th century (which would tie in with the date of the front portion of the farmhouse), but even before recent major changes this courtyard of buildings had been subject to many changes. The date of the ha-ha is unknown. There is much to be discovered about the history of Fowlescombe.
Our ancestors were better at managing land for posterity.
The avenue of trees along the entrance lane is a sad echo of its former grandeur.
The Ordnance Survey map of 1805 already shows an avenue of mature trees,
although few of these remain. Sadly the Christmas Eve storms of 1999 brought
down one ancient holm oak beside the mansion and as it fell it so damaged another
that it too had to be felled about a year later. And in 2005 we lost two more
of these. Old photographs suggest the fields directly in front of the mansion
were parkland with many trees. Only three of these survive, but well in the
future other people should benefit from recent replanting.
Evidence of ancient
management of water and water meadows through the valley can be found in the
line of ponds, old slate-lined drains and leats cut across the steep hillsides
of the valley meadows. Ponds may have played a dual role, in managing pastures
for early grass for livestock in spring and as a source of fresh protein from
fish in winter.
Much of the ancient field structure and
field boundary hedgerows survive, with evidence that these predate other activities
such as quarrying at Kennel Quarry, which cuts through an older field boundary.
Fields that no one would consider cultivating now, too steep, too small, not
suitable for machinery, might have been cultivated for crops.
It is interesting to think what was life like when the manor
house was being used. What staff would have been needed to run the house
and the estate? Where would they have lived; how would they have lived? Did
children of the workers attend school and what was it like? What did they eat
and wear? Where did they get their clothes and food? How did people preserve
and store food before the days of fridges and freezers and supermarkets? What
crops would have been grown, animals kept? Some of the answers may be useful
to us as climate change bites and the oil runs out.
The nearest village is
Ugborough, where most of the workers for the old house would have come from.
Ugborough has a very large church and village square indicating greater economic
importance in earlier times. We have a copy of the Ugborough Tythe map which
shows Fowlescombe as it was in 1842. The lower gate lodge is on a road that
leads to Modbury, which was a significant town in Georgian times.
