Reasons for Designation
Moots were open-air meeting places set aside for use by courts and other
bodies who were responsible for the administration and organisation of the
countryside in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England. They were located at
convenient, conspicuous or well-known sites, often centrally placed within the
area under jurisdiction, usually a hundred, wapentake, or shire. The meeting
place could take several forms: a natural feature such as a hilltop, tree or
rock; existing man-made features such as prehistoric standing stones, barrows
or hillforts; or a purpose-built monument such as a mound. Moots appear to
have been first established during the early medieval period between the
seventh and ninth centuries AD. Examples are recorded in the Domesday Book and
other broadly contemporary documents. Initially, moots were situated in open
countryside but, over time, they were relocated in villages or towns. The
construction and use of rural moots declined after the 13th century. The
normal form of purpose-built moot was the moot mound. These take the form of
large, squat, turf-covered mounds with a flat or concave top, usually
surrounded by a ditch. Occasionally, prehistoric barrows were remodelled to
provide suitable sites. It is estimated that there were between 250 and 1000
moots in medieval England, although only a limited number of these were man-
made mounds and only a proportion of these survive today. Moots are generally
a poorly understood class of monument with considerable potential to provide
information on the organisation and administration of land units in the Middle
Ages. They are a comparatively rare and long-lived type of monument and the
earliest examples will be amongst a very small range of sites predating the
Norman Conquest which survive as monumental earthworks and readily appreciable
landscape features. On this basis, all well preserved or historically well
documented moot mounds are identified as nationally important.
Details
The monument includes a small rectangular enclosure set on a gentle east-
facing slope just off the crest of a hill above Cheverton Down.
The enclosure measures 24m north east-south west and 15m north west-south
east, and is defined by a bank and external ditch; the ditch is now only
visible on the north and west sides. Internally the bank is c.1m high and the
external ditch is 5m wide and 0.5m deep. There is an entrance on the north
east side c.4m wide. The interior has a slight rise in its centre measuring
c.7m square. The site lies near the parish boundary and has been interpreted
as the site of the meeting place of the pre-Conquest hundred of Calbourne,
the 'gemot beoth' mentioned in a document called The Bounds on Calbourne,
dated to 826. The enclosure is very similar to the court leet enclosure on
Southampton Common and the 'church-places' of the New Forest and Cranbourne
Chase. The site may later also have functioned as a pastoral enclosure. This
explanation is supported by the presence of a pond for watering stock
adjoining the enclosure on its south side.
The metal signpost at the junction of the two bridleways is excluded from the
scheduling, but the ground beneath is included.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
21990
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals Other
Legal
This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
End of official list entry
