Our Community Surveys have yielded some extraordinary results. For example, examination of the cob wall, on Heavitree Stone footings, at the boundary of Heavitree Park and Roseland Avenue has led to speculation that Roseland Avenue, formally known as Middle Butts, may well have been a medieval archery field!
The wall clearly pre-dates the market garden known to be there in the Victorian period and it was named Middle Butts in 1813. This alone is certainly not enough to prove it as, apparently, the term is also commonly used to describe a field that “butts up” against another. But then, it doesn’t really butt up against anything. Plus, according to most sources, fields for practising archery in the 1500s were typically 200m long, which Middle Butts was and Roseland Avenue is – long and narrow. And that extraordinary wall. If it was to keep an area separate for archery practice, it begins to make sense.
If you have any maps, old photographs, observations or researches that you’d like to share, or if you’d just like to work with our Quarry Pod to discuss any other historical evidence thrown up by the surveys then please do contact us. We’d love to meet with you!