Thicket Path - 1,000 Years of Landscape History
The map and contents below are from a talk to the Civic Society of St Ives by Keith Grimwade, landscape historian, on 20 January 2023. To view maps and guidance to walk this and 3 other ancient routes from St Ives, click Ancient Paths.
Location 1 - Thicket Path
Thicket Path (Thicket Road, Thicket Lane, Meadow Lane) is an ancient routeway. From St Ives to Meadow Lane on the outskirts of Houghton it follows the edge of the higher ground above the flood plain of the River Great Ouse. This is the boundary between the Oxford Clay and the river gravels, which follows the five-metre contour line. From Meadow Lane it continues westwards into Houghton following the slightly higher, drier ‘second terrace’ river gravels. In the past, anyone travelling on foot along this section of the Great Ouse Valley would have followed this route to avoid the slopes of How Hill and the heavily wooded area to the north. Archaeological finds tell us that people have been living here and using this route since at least the Iron Age.
Thicket Path’s heyday was from the early 12th to the early 14th centuries. In 1110 King Henry 1 granted ‘St Benedict of Ramsey and St Ivo of Slepe’ the right to hold a fair at Slepe (the small Anglo-Saxon village that became St Ives) for eight days, starting on the Wednesday after Easter. It became one of the most important fairs in the country. Anyone travelling from the west through Huntingdon would have used this route. Anyone travelling from the north would also have used this route, leaving the Great North Road at Great Stukely to drop down into the Ouse Valley to avoid the heavily wooded plateau, which, at that time, would still have been inhabited by wolves. The importance of the fair declined in the early 14th century because competition from foreign weavers in the Low Countries led to a decline in the wool trade, there was competition from Stourbridge Fair in Cambridge and there was significant economic disruption caused by the Black Death from 1348 onwards.
However, Thicket Path retained its importance with St Ives continuing as a focus for sub-regional markets. The Greenwoods’ map of 1831, created well after the opening of the turnpike road between Huntingdon and St Ives in 1765, now the A1123, shows Thicket Path as a significant route; and even today, the confused and/or inattentive can find their satnav taking them along it… as far as the bollards, anyway. There are many places along Thicket Path where you can see deep ditches on either side, a characteristic of medieval routeways in areas liable to flood.
Location 2 - Ridge and Furrow, Berman Park
Some faint traces of medieval ridge and furrow ploughing survive in the north of the park. It dates from the 11th century, and it was probably given over to pasture when the population declined in the second half of the 14th century following the Black Death.
Location 3 - How Brick Works, Berman Park
In the late 17th century a brickworks was set up, using the underlying Oxford Clay. Over the next 200 years this extended across all the southern part of the park. Richard Harradan’s engraving shows what the site looked like in 1802 and we know that in 1822 it produced 1.25 million bricks for the construction of the New Bridges Causeway from the old bridge in St Ives to London Road. John Skeeles, a local builder, wrote ‘Naturally the working of the yard by carting, wheeling silt, coals, bricks etc. to and from the barges detracted from the pleasure of walks to The Thicket. Also the dense clouds of sulphurous smoke from the open kilns were a nuisance to the “How” House’. The brickworks closed in 1888 but you can still see where some of the kilns were built and some of the pits where the clay was dug survive as ponds or depressions in the landscape. The hollow opposite the western end of Noble’s Field is the site of one of the kilns, shown on Pettis’ 1728 map. For more about the history of brickworks, click How Brickworks.
Location 4 The Double Drowning
The railings, a short distance on from the western end of Berman Park, are at the site of a tragedy that happened in February 1915.
… a group of boys from St Ives Grammar School were walking along the Thicket Path under the supervision of one of their masters, Arthur Watson. They met 18-year-old Violet Watson (no relation of the schoolmaster), a servant from Houghton cycling towards St Ives for a job interview. She tried to ride past the boys on the narrow path but skidded sideways and fell into the river. Mr Watson went into the water to try to save her, wading in until the water was up to his shoulders and holding out his walking stick for the girl to hold on to. Then he stepped into a hole in the river bed and both he and the girls were sept away and drowned. The railings were put up at the spot where the tragedy occurred.
(from 20th Century St Ives, by Bob Burn-Murdoch, The Friends of the Norris Museum, 2001). To read the full Hunts Post newspaper article from 1915, click Hunts Post 19 Feb 1915.
Location 5 - The Thicket
The slopes that rise to the north of Thicket Path form How Hill; ‘how’ is an Old Norse word for hill. At the top of the hill is a deposit of poorly consolidated boulder clay, which is liable to slump down the hillside making the slopes too unstable for farming, so in the past they were used for woodland.
The Thicket, now owned by the District Council and maintained by volunteers, is an area of this woodland that has been conserved. The presence of spurge laurel indicates that it has been there a long time, and it is shown on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1835. It almost certainly meets the definition of an ‘ancient woodland’, i.e. one that is at least 400 years old. However, being an ancient woodland and being managed for domestic or commercial use are not mutually exclusive, e.g. there are old ash coppice stools on the northern boundary of the site, which show that timber was regularly harvested.
Location 6 - Houghton Meadows Nature Reserve
There is so much to see at Houghton Meadows Nature Reserve that you really need to take a short detour and walk the perimeter of the site. In brief, you will see:
- Medieval ridge and furrow
- Medieval drainage ditches
- 17th century field boundaries marking ‘enclosure by agreement’, i.e. enclosure that happened before the parliamentary enclosure movement of the 18th / 19th centuries
- 19th century hedge removal
- 19th century railway construction, causing stream diversion (Houghton’s Back Brook now runs along the northern boundary of the Reserve, having been diverted by the railway embankment)
- 20th century conservation and management
If you are there at the end of April, through to May / June, you will also see the most beautiful species-rich grassland, including the Green winged orchid.
Location 7 - Clay Pitt Close
The 1773 Parliamentary Enclosure Map for Houghton lists Field 26, a short distance on from the Reserve, as ‘Clay Pitt Close… on old, inclosed ground’. Today, it looks like any other part of this wooded section of Thicket Path, so it is only its old name that gives a clue as to its origin. This may have been the site of one of the old clay workings that John Skeeles mentions, and it is possible that the hollow directly opposite the field on the north side of the Thicket Path was the site of a kiln – either an early timber clamp kiln, or a brick-built kiln.
Location 8 - Old Gravel Pit
At the junction of Thicket Path and Meadow Lane is a deep pond with a high bank. This first appears on the 1888 OS map and is marked ‘Old Gravel Pit’. It is not shown on the 1773 Enclosure Map (the Enclosure Maps usually listed assets such as gravel pits), so it is likely that it was dug, and became disused, no later than the third quarter of the 19th century. Perhaps it provided material for the flood bank that also first appears in the 1888 OS map and/or the ‘houses and gardens’ that were built in the 1840s, 50s and 60s?
Location 9 - Flood Embankment
The western end is first shown on the 1888 OS map. The right-angled return aligns with the boundary of The Cedars, which was built in 1855, so it may have been constructed to provide flood protection for this property. The eastern end does not appear on the OS maps until the beginning of the 20th century, so perhaps this was an extension to protect Thicket Lodge, which was built in 1911.
Location 10 - Houses and Gardens
Writing in ‘A Commanding View: The Houses and Gardens of Houghton Hill’ Bridget Flanagan says,
For 150 years wealth maintained the exclusivity of this hillside and a sequence of just eight houses and their gardens was built here. These are distinctive houses: most are architecturally notable. Of the eight houses built, seven remain. Six and listed, and seven are recorded by Pevsner…’. (2019, Great Ouse Valley Trust).
Not all these houses can be seen from Thicket Path, but their gardens can. Knowing a little about their history enhances the enjoyment of any walk along the Thicket Path – I would recommend reading Bridget’s book:
- Houghton Hill House – this occupies the site of the first house to be built on Houghton Hill, Houghton Hill Cottage. The latter was built by John Ansley, who was the Mayor of the City of London from 1807-08. The former was built by his second son, Gilbert.
- The Cedars – built by Potto Brown, the successful miller, non-conformist and philanthropist.
- The Elms – built by George Brown, Potto’s second son.
- The How – built by Gilbert Ansley, John Ansley’s eldest grandson
- Houghton Grange – built by Harold Coote, whose father had made the family’s fortune through transporting coal by rail, based here in St Ives.
- Thicket Lodge – built by James and Sarah Fraser, who had bought The Elms, as a wedding present for Sarah’s half-sister. A rather nice wedding present!
- Houghton Bury – built by Mervyn Coote, the only son of Harold and Edith Coote, it was originally known as The Dingle.
Location 11 - Houghton Clock Tower
The clock tower was built in 1902 in memory of George Brown, Potto’s second son, who lived at The Elms. £150 was raised through public subscription. The design was based on a sketch by George’s son-in-law, Charles Whymper. Of course, what the good citizens of Houghton are most keen to tell you is that the clock tower in Tobermory, on Mull, is a copy of Houghton’s clock tower. It was endowed by Isabella Bird in memory of her sister who died of typhoid in Tobermory – they had lived in Houghton in the 1840s and Charles Whymper was a friend – and built in 1905.
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