Thornham is famous for its magnificent ancient pollarded oak trees. Their age is hotly debated, but some could be around 800 years old. As well as gracing our hedges, footpaths and byways they survive particularly in the the Park and in adjoining woods and fields that were at one time part of the Park. The first picture shows one of the biggest oaks growing by the surfaced footpath, near the Walks car park.
Pollarding is the practice of pruning trees at a high level so they sprout out of the reach of animals. The new branches were cut for fodder, firewood, fencing and so on. It is pollarding that has allowed oaks to survive to a great age. It is very many years since most of our oaks were pollarded and the branches are now the size of trees, but you can see evidence of the pollarding in the branched shape, and in the break in the pattern on the bark where it was cut.
Although Thornham Hall existed in Tudor times the Park was probably created in the 18th century. The fashion was to imitate a medieval royal deer park or royal forest, such as those at Windsor and Epping. These ancient features are rich in magnificent trees, which were seen as symbols of old and powerful families. So when fields were cleared in front of the Hall to open out our new park, the roads, ditches and hedges were swept away, but notable trees were carefully preserved.
Most of these trees had grown in hedgerows, hence their alignments and the traces of ditches and banks still visible between them.
However, around the Folly there is a group of oaks and this is considered to be rare evidence of wood pasture, or of an earlier park.
There is a helpful article you can read at www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba36/ba36feat.html, and an interesting book: 'Suffolk's parks and gardens' by Tom Williamson.
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