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Rabbit Warrens - David Parker (Newsletter No 12 2006)

The term ‘warren’ is frequently found among the field names of the nineteenth century tithe apportionments, as is also the word ‘coney’ in one form or another. Most medieval manors had their ‘coneygar’ and in this coastal area, the ends of promontories such as Baggy Point and Mortehoe were often set aside as warrens. The expression ‘rabbit warren’ would to many people conjure up a picture of a dozen or so holes in a hedge bank but in former times these were usually quite large well- managed enterprises and an important factor in the economy. Probably the earliest documented record is dated 1135 when Drakes Island at Plymouth was granted to Plympton Priory cum cuniculi meaning ‘with the rabbits’. Incidentally, until the eighteenth century, the term ‘rabbit’ was confined to the young, ‘coney’ being the name for the adults. Commercial warrens were in existence by the thirteenth century, the rabbits being valued as much for their fur as for their meat. Over the following centuries, along with fishponds and dovecotes, warrens became widespread across the country, with manors, mansions and monasteries joining in the production.

In some areas with the progress of time alternative sources of meat became available and rabbits lost some of their importance and became the source of meat for the poor. In other regions they retained their value and as late as the 1920’s on an estate in Norfolk, thirty warreners were employed taking 120,000 rabbits each year. Many warrens were quite large in area being enclosed by walls or banks over fifteen kilometres in length to keep the rabbits in and poachers and predators out.

In many warrens the rabbits were provided with mounds of earth to make their burrowing activities easier, these are called ‘pillow mounds’ and could be of considerable size ranging from less than six metres up to a hundred and fifty metres in length, most being four to six metres out of Bideford. There are many ways of spelling ‘burrow’ and it is possible that the many Borough Roads etc were connected with rabbit warrening. Clapper or Clapere is an interesting title and appears to be a nursery where the breeding does and young were kept for extra care and protection.

The warreners who cared for and eventually killed the rabbits were often provided with purpose-built accommodation; sometimes quite up-market. One at Thetford in Norfolk was built in the early fifteenth century and is now in the care of English Heritage. Another at Rushton in Northamptonshire has all the appearances of a folly (see photo). It was in fact built in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Tresham who apparently did not agree with the religious changes of the time and as an act of defiance built his warrener’s lodge with a triangular plan to emphasise his commitment to the Trinity and the Tridentine mass.There appears to have been some rivalry between landowners to provide fancy accommodation for their warreners, which also illustrates the importance of rabbits at the time.

Have a look around at field and street names in your area as they could give clues to past uses. A valuable source of information is the Shire archaeology publication The Archaeology of Rabbit Warrens. I am greatly indebted to the author Dr. Tom Williamson for allowing most of the above information to be extracted from his book.