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HER 2614 - The Lost Manor of Hextalls Little Pickle, Bletchingley

Medieval buildings: Little Pickle, Bletchingley. Investigated by trial trenches and open area excavation between 1983 and 1989. The site probably began as the hall and chamber residence of the keeper of the north and south deer parks in Bletchingley parish in the later 13th century. A new, larger, chamber was built in the early 14th century and this became one component of a range of buildings that included a new winged hall-house and a detached kitchen. It is possible that these changes reflect a change in status of the occupants of Little Pickle. Henry Hextall, who was one of the leading courtiers to the Duke of Buckingham, followed a royal lead in carrying out the next phase of development to the house. The site was transformed into a modest example of a Tudor country house, which retained the earlier buildings but added walls and ranges to create a privy court and a front court equipped with a substantial gatehouse. After Hextall's death in 1492 the house was owned and tenanted by a variety of people. It was closely linked with Place Farm, the manor house only some 400m distant from where the Duke of Buckingham built a double courtyard house in the early 16th century, and when both properties were in the possession of Sir Thomas Cawarden, the decision was taken to demolish Hextalls in the period 1550-9. Associated features included a fish pond and a tile kiln, as well as a fine assemblage of bone dumped into a pit in the 16th Century. This contained 21 species of fish, a large variety of wild birds and the more usual animals of domestic consumption.

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Related Records

• SHHER_1222
• SHHER_3094
• SHHER_3095

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