Lytes Cary
SSARG has joined a group of volunteers from The Charltons Historical Society and local branches of the U3A who have been working with the National Trust since 2007 to research and record the history of the landscape in the estate associated with Lytes Cary manor house.
The 149 hectare estate is likely to have seen activity in a wide range of periods, as it is bounded on one side by the Roman Fosse Way, is cut by an Iron Age trackway and includes a deserted mediaeval settlement.
Our work so far has been to carry out gradiometry surveys of a Deserted Mediaeval Village (DMV) and part of a nearby field to the north, which is now in use as allotments by local residents. Activity on this project was suspended to allow us to make use of the limited time and resources available to investigate Castle Farm (South Cadbury) but work resumed in September 2009 and the gradiometry survey of the DMV was completed in January 2010. The full report was issued in April 2010 and identified at least two phases of activity in addition to the DMV.
Background
A page of the Commonplace Book
Records of Lytes Cary date back to 1255 when it was known as Tuckers Cary (Towkerkary), after the Tucker family who owned it at that time. In 1284, William de Lyte held the manor and the first reference to it as Lytes Cary was in 1333. The Lyte family held the estate until 1748, when it was mortgaged/ let to Thomas Lockyer. By 1810, it was owned by the Dickinsons of Kingweston, as part of a significant holding in the parishes of Charlton Mackrell and Charlton Adam. In 1907, Sir Walter Jenner bought the property and spent considerable time and money restoring it after it had fallen into disrepair. Sir Walter left the estate to the National Trust in 1948.
Since 2007, a group of volunteers from local U3A branches and The Charltons Historical Society have been researching the history of the estate at the request of the National Trust to inform their conservation plans. Significantly, the research included transcription of Thomas Lyte's Commonplace Book, written circa 1610, which describes the family deeds then held at Lytes Cary and includes a record of oral evidence about Tuckers Cary up to 100 years earlier; the book is held in the Somerset Record Office (Catalogue Ref: DD\X\LY/3).
It had been intended that the original volunteers would use NT geophysical instruments to carry out surveys, but this proved impractical. Hence, from May 2009, SSARG carried out geophysical surveys of key parts of the estate, building on the desk-based research to date.