In 2001 West Essex Archaeological Group (WEAG) was invited to Copped Hall, an 18th century mansion which can be seen overlooking the M25 in Essex, high on a ridge between Upshire and Epping.  This grand country house, dating from the 1750s, suffered a devastating fire in 1917;  for the rest of the century it stood as a shell until, with the arrival of the motorway nearby, the site came under increasing pressure from developers.  Local people fought to save it, however, and it was bought by the Copped Hall Trust (CHT) in 1995.  Since then volunteers have worked to restore both the Hall and its gardens to bring them back into use as a community and educational resource.

The story of Copped Hall goes back much further than the 18th century, and our investigation is centred on the medieval and Elizabethan predecessors of the standing building, located a short distance away at the north end of the gardens.  Documentary sources suggest that occupation of the site dates back at least to the 13th century.  From 1350 it was held by the Abbots of Waltham until 1534 when it passed to the Crown.  In 1564 the manor was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Thomas Heneage and his wife Anne and it seems likely that the already substantial residence was rebuilt in a style befitting a favoured courtier.  Unfortunately we have no clear record of what it looked like until 1735, when M. J. Farmer published a history of Waltham Abbey, which included a drawing of Copped Hall seen from the north.  This shows a grand house arranged around a courtyard, the north side being a single storey loggia or covered colonnade.  In 1742 the estate passed to John Conyers, who commissioned two paintings of the Hall and surrounding park, which can now be seen in the Tate Britain gallery.  Detailed drawings were made of the exterior elevations and some of the interior features, along with scale plans of the interior.  By this time the Hall may have been in poor repair, and perhaps Conyers intended to refurbish it, but in 1748 it was demolished, and construction of the 'new' Hall began shortly afterwards.

Little of 'old ' Copped Hall now remains above ground.  A brick and stone pillar and a short section of wall - possibly the original west end of the loggia - survive, along with brick walls likely to have been part of the cellars of the south range, now forming a retaining wall for the edge of a sunken rock garden.  In 1984 these walls were recorded in detail by the Archaeology Section of Essex County Council, along with small sections of masonry associated with the east wing, and in the area of the loggia pillar (Andrews 1986).  In 1996-7 building works revealed a ditch-like feature apparently running east-west which it was thought could mark the line of a former moat (Andrews 1998).

CHT was keen to find out more about the old Hall as a feature of the restoration of the gardens, and so WEAG was asked to investigate the archaeology further.  Our first step in 2001 was to test various areas in the gardens with geophysical equipment which can detect walls, ditches or other features not visible on the surface.  Then, in 2002, WEAG dug its first three trenches at Copped Hall, near the loggia pillar.  We uncovered drains, constructed from brick and tile, two narrow brick walls - possibly sleeper walls to support a timber floor - and a more substantial section of wall, the position of which appears to be consistent with that of a fireplace on an internal wall shown on John Conyers’s plan.  Areas of brick rubble and mortar were also found, possibly demolition debris or the remnants of the robbed-out external walls of the Hall.

The 18th century plan (drawn with south at top) has proved invaluable, as we have been able to scale-up its measurements to give us the approximate dimensions of the old Hall on the ground.  In 2003 we started to locate the ends of the south range, which is thought to have incorporated parts of the late-medieval house.  The trenches were dug initially by WEAG during the early summer; then in September we were joined by students on a week-long training excavation.  Our trench over the south-western corner of the old Hall was extended to expose a polygonal brick feature with a curved interior face bearing traces of render, which appears to have been the base of a spiral stair.  The trench is in an open level area where a rose garden was created in the late-19th century, and was further enlarged to accommodate the training excavation in subsequent years, revealing more of the foundations of the west end of the south range.  Differences in fabric and construction suggest more than one phase of building; and it is a fascinating exercise to compare the plan of what was above ground in 1748 with the below-ground remains, which show evidence of alterations and rebuilding over the preceding years.  In addition to the excavation in the rose garden, the work carried out by WEAG each year has revealed more surviving walls in the west wing, a surprisingly substantial foundation for the loggia, and parts of outbuildings to the east of the old Hall.

The archaeology does not stop with the demolition of old Copped Hall.  How were the gardens redesigned afterwards?  The natural slope of the ground was terraced, but when?  In the 19th century two systems of land drains were installed, the second probably at the same time as the rose garden was laid out:  we have also uncovered the formal rose beds and the base of a central sundial.  All these are part of the history of the site and of the people who lived and worked there, and they can tell us much about the process of creating the garden, so they need to be recorded in detail as we proceed to investigate the masonry beneath.