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The presentation survey of Escrick Park Estate is one of the largest to be funded by English Heritage. The estate, which is situated to the south of York, covers an area of approximately 8005 acres, and comprises arable, pasture, and woodland. The survey involved a number of different elements which included aerial reconnaissance, earthwork survey, recording standing buildings, and researching the history of the villages of Escrick and Skipwith, both of which lie within its area.
Aerial photographic evidence for the land around Skipwith and Escrick was fairly well documented, but further reconnaissance over the past three years, which has been included in the survey report, has extended our understanding of land use. An interesting factor to emerge was the importance of the Commons. The use of the Commons for grazing, peat extraction, and exploitation of timber during the medieval period is well attested in documentary sources, but aerial photographic evidence shows that around the edges of the Commons there are dense concentrations of settlement which range in date from the Bronze Age through to the Roman period. This suggests that the role of the Commons in the economy was established at a very early date.
The survey of field monuments produced a catalogue of over 430 sites. Information derived from past archaeological work within the Estate, which was dominated by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarian activity at the large number of round and square barrows still to be found on the Front and Back Commons of Skipwith village, was also included. Of the sites recorded, over 50% can be classed as new discoveries and this information had been made available to the North Yorkshire Sites and Monuments Record. During the course of work over 112 buildings were surveyed. The type of buildings varied greatly from seventeenth-century farm dwellings to their twentieth-century replacements, agricultural buildings of multi-period date, architectural gems associated with the laying out of Escrick Park in the eighteenth century, and a wide selection of domestic dwellings. This component of the survey provided interesting information on the growth and remodelling of both agricultural and domestic architecture in this part of North Yorkshire. Remnants of horse engines were recorded at a number of farms and it was possible to trace the changes in building styles which finally crystallised in the characteristic Estate building programmes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
During World War II land around the villages of Skipwith and Escrick was extensively used by the RAF. A training base was established on Skipwith Common and the nearby Hollicarr woods were used for the storage of mustard gas. Surveys of both these areas had provided useful information on the layout and form of buildings associated with this period of history, and the data collected are to be made available to the Defence of Britain Project.
The objectives of public presentation of the Estate have to be balanced with the fact that it is still a working entity, and that many of the buildings which provide information on its history are people's homes. The report is currently being used as a valuable management tool; for example, the timber clearance of Skipwith Common, a programme essential to ensure that the delicate balance of the ecology of the Common is maintained, also threatens a number of scheduled ancient monuments and World War II features. The survey allows this programme to be successfully monitored. Limited presentation occurs within Skipwith Common and the wooded areas of the Estate where controlled public access is permitted, and the degree of presentation is always under review.