Wrotham Park (pronounced
Root-am) is an 18 bedroom house set in a 300 acre estate. It was designed by
Isaac Ware in 1754 and built by Admiral John Byng, and is still owned by the
family. Byng was Court Martialed in 1757 for negligence which provided the occasion for Voltaire's famous
quip: “Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de
truer de temps en temps un admiral pour encourager les autres” which translates as "In this country it pays well, from time to time, to kill an
Admiral to encourage the others". It is one of the largest private houses
within the M25 corridor.
The pleasure grounds are
situated in Hertsmere, a local government district and borough in Hertfordshire, based in Borehamwood.
Hertsfordshire, it cites on
the inward boundary is the ‘County of Opportunity’ and it certainly is
opportune for the NISG to be invited here, as the Institute has not yet experienced sonic eruption
in this district and it is exciting to discover a new and rich area for
investigation.
Wrotham Park lies between Potters
Bar 1.5km to the north and Barnet 1.5km to the south it is bounded by public
roads, with the A1000 Great North Road to the east, Dancers Hill Road to the
north and Kitt's End Road to the west. Two broad, shallow valleys cross the
park, rising from west to north-east and west to south-east respectively, from
a lake on the west boundary. The house stands on a promontory between the two
valleys. We might suggest that this landscape acts as something of a funnel or
channel for rich sonic deposits.
The immediate setting is rural,
with a town development close by to the north, south and south-east. The M25
motorway runs roughly parallel and 500m north of the north boundary. Long views
extend westwards from the house and surrounding grounds across the adjacent
countryside. There are mature oaks
surrounding the sounding space, and a lake at the bottom of the park. The
garden is crossed by a network of paths,
with a serpentine lake at the centre. The area is laid out with sunk flower
gardens, picturesque tree plantings, collections of exotic plants, shrubberies
and ponds. In the environs of this
parkland we have heard conversational, melodic, ambient and proto-historic
sonic phenomena.
We were alerted to the emanations
by Robert Byng a direct descendent of Admiral Byng who lives in the house and
has managed the estate since 1991.
Originally part of an estate
known as Pinchbank (also Birchbank), first recorded in Middlesex in 1310 and owned in the 17th and early 18th
centuries by the Howkins family, the property passed to Thomas
Reynolds, a director of the South Sea Company, who renamed the estate Strangeways. His
son, Francis, sold the property to Admiral John Byng who had the house rebuilt by Isaac Ware in 1754. In 1883 a disastrous fire broke out in the house
and it was gutted, although it burnt slowly enough to remove the valuable
contents of the house as it burnt. The interior was re-built to exactly the
same design.
We are unsure of the reasons
for this forceful eruption event, although some of the NISG team have been
working on a thesis that frequent loud music or parties may trigger or
stimulate sonic venting.
GEOLOGY
The soil is mainly
London Clay and beneath the clay lies a thick layer of chalk, which is exposed
to the west of the Barnet by-pass and also in the valley of Mimmshall brook,
where, resting on it, is a narrow band of Reading Beds. On the highest land are
patches of pebble gravel, rarely more than 10 ft. thick. They cover a narrow
ridge from Barnet to Bentley Heath, a wider area along Potters Bar High Street
to Little Heath, and parts of Mimmshall wood, Dugdale Hill, and Dyrham Park.
Other drift deposits include boulder clay in the north and north-east and
alluvium fill in the valley of Mimmshall brook.
ARCHEOLOGY
Considerable traces of
Roman Road found at the boundary of the estate, and then later Saxon
settlement. It is also near to the site of the Battle of Barnet, a decisive
engagemet in the Wars of the Roses fought in 1471. Historians
regard this battle as one of the most important clashes in the Wars of the
Roses, since it brought about a decisive turn in the fortunes of the two
houses. Edward's victory was followed by fourteen years of Yorkist rule over
England. In our early research phase we perceived sounds of proto-historical
battle emanating from the ground beneath our feet.