ham Arm Canal Society was established to press for its rebuilding.
LANDCSAPE AND SETTLEMENT
The Impact of Whittlewod.
The pattern of settlement and land usage in Wicken has been considerably influenced by the position of the parish at the southern edge of Whittlewood Forest. Although in 1289 a proposal to reinclose the park at Wick Hamon was investigated by a swainmote court presided over by John de Tingewick, keeper of Whittlewood, implying that the township then lay within the forest, (fn. 32) the detailed perambulation made ten years later, which established the boundary of the forest until the 17th century, clearly places both Wick Hamon and Wick Dive outside Whittlewood. (fn. 33) In 1639, as part of Charles I's attempts to enlarge the forest far beyond the traditional limits, Henry Lord Spencer, the rector and two freeholders were fined for a grant of disafforestation relating to 1,800 a. of land in Wicken and Leckhampstead, and 100 a. of wood in the latter parish. (fn. 34) In reality, as an early 17th-century map of Whittlewood makes clear, no part of either parish was properly within the forest, whose south-western boundary at that date, as in 1299, was marked by Kings Brook. (fn. 35)
A good deal of woodland survived at the northern end of Wicken in the early 17th century, extending over the border into Leckhampstead, most of which was still in existence a century later. (fn. 36) By the early 19th century Wicken Wood had been slightly further reduced in size, although there were still 236 a. of woodland in the parish as a whole, including several parcels to the south-west of the village, detached from the main area further north. Even as late as this, Sir Charles Mordaunt, the owner of the Wicken Park estate, successfully claimed an 18 ft. freeboard along much of the parish boundary with Leckhampstead (including some stretches that were no longer wooded on the Wicken side as well as those that were). (fn. 37) The claim was also accepted by the Ordnance Survey in the 1880s, which accounts for the unusual mereing ('18 ft. R.H.') along much of the western boundary of the parish. (fn. 38)
When Whittlewood was disafforested under an Act of 1853 Wicken successfully claimed that it had enjoyed the right, as an out-town of the forest, to pasture cattle there between St. George's Day and Holy Rood Day (4 May-25 September). (fn. 39) The parish accordingly received an allotment of former forest land in Passenham to compensate for the loss of common grazing, amounting to 72 a. 2 r. 35 p., which was divided between the freeholders in 1861, when Sir Charles Mordaunt received 67 a. 3 r. 24 p., the rector 4 a. 2 r. 27 p., and two smallholders 12 perches each. (fn. 40) The parish also received a sum of money to endow a charity to buy coal for the poor, to compensate for the loss of the right to collect firewood in the forest. (fn. 41)
Early and Medieval Settlement.
Well away from Whittlewood, the earliest evidence for settlement in Wicken is a feature identified as a prehistoric ring ditch discovered on the flood plain of the Great Ouse. Also in the southeast of the parish, on river gravel, remains of a Roman building, including 3rd- and 4th-century pottery, were found in 1965. (fn. 42)
Any woodland that once existed in the central and south-eastern parts of Wicken was presumably cleared in the early Middle Ages when the twin villages of Wick Dive and Wick Hamon with their adjoining common fields were established. Both estates are mentioned for the first time in 1086 and have a separate manorial history until 1449. There was a capital messuage belonging to the manor of Wick Dive, but not Wick Hamon. (fn. 43) Although the two settlements had effectively merged into one by the time they were mapped in 1717, it is clear that they had once been largely distinct villages. Most of the houses in Wick Dive were strung out on either side of a main street running west-east, whereas Wick Hamon developed along a north-south axis to the south of the brook, the two roads meeting towards the north-western end of the village. (fn. 44) By the earl