Broken Ballusters - An Odd Find !

Occasionally group members find an item in the nature reserve that has no bearing on where it has been found. In 2017 whilst cutting back vegetation next to a ditch in the reserve members came across some red bricks and a few odd pieces of masonry. In amongst it all was some broken balusters. Being that the items found were in a ditch well away from the main routes that people would use and that there was no nearby vehicle access the possibilities of a small fly tip were ruled out which meant that the red bricks and other masonry items would have come from the site of the house but which one as there had been three houses built roughly on the same site between 1633 and 1772. The answer came from a print of the house that Samuel Pepys had visited in 1665 for there on the left of the house was a full balustrade made up of balusters such as the ones that the members had found. On top of this the type, style and colouration of the red bricks that were found fitted in with the period that the house was built and the members concluded that these artifacts did indeed come from the 1665 house and had been placed near to the ditch when the house was either remodelled in the 1730’s or demolished between 1772 & 1776 when the Neave family purchased the estate. In 2018 The friends of Dagnam Park showed their finds from the nature reserve as part of an exhibition held at Romford Museum dealing with the history of Dagnam Park. The photograph accompanying this text shows one of the balusters and base found by members set out in a display case at museum.