Back to Poem

Broadfield, Hertfordshire

The Pulters lived at an estate called Broadfield (or Bradfield) in the parish of Cottered in Hertfordshire. Sir Henry Chauncy’s The historical antiquities of Hertfordshire of 1700 gives the history of the estate, noting that Arthur Pulter retired to Bradfield after the outbreak of the civil war. According to Chauncy, Arthur’s wife Hester urged him to begin building a large brick house, but it remained unfinished, though his grandson James Forester later repaired it. The image of the house from Chauncy’s work most likely represents the house as of 1700, by which time those later repairs had been carried out, and so it may differ from the house as Hester Pulter knew it.

A large house stands in a walled garden.

Sir Henry Chauncy, The Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (London, 1700), plate between p. 72 & p. 73, Folger Shakespeare Library, CC BY-SA 4.0.