Alley's Lane moated site

Reasons for Designation

Around 6,000 moated sites are known in England. They consist of wide ditches, often or seasonally water-filled, partly or completely enclosing one or more islands of dry ground on which stood domestic or religious buildings. In some cases the islands were used for horticulture. The majority of moated sites served as prestigious aristocratic and seigneurial residences with the provision of a moat intended as a status symbol rather than a practical military defence. The peak period during which moated sites were built was between about 1250 and 1350 and by far the greatest concentration lies in central and eastern parts of England. However, moated sites were built throughout the medieval period, are widely scattered throughout England and exhibit a high level of diversity in their forms and sizes. They form a significant class of medieval monument and are important for the understanding of the distribution of wealth and status in the countryside. Many examples provide conditions favourable to the survival of organic remains.

The monument west of Alley's Lane is a good example of a medieval moated site and is unencumbered by modern development. Despite infilling, the ditches will retain important deposits associated with the occupation and desertion of the site and structural and artefactual evidence for the buildings here will be retained on the moated island.

Details

The monument includes a sub-rectangular moated site located 120m east of The Woodlands in Wood Eaton. The moat has been partly infilled but remains distinctly visible as a shallow depression on the ground surface. It measures up to 9m wide and is now 0.4m deep. The eastern arm of the moat includes a narrow causeway across the line of the ditch. There are traces of external banks on the outer edges of all four arms of the moat. The raised moated island measures 92m north-south and 38m west-east. The ground surface of the southern part of the island is slightly lower than that to the north. This forms a subsidiary platform which measures approximately 32m square. Ex situ sandstone blocks are evident in the area of the moated site. The manor of Church Eaton and the vill of Wood Eaton were closely linked and Alley's Lane moated site may be associated with either or both. The manor passed from Hamon de Longford via his daughter to Adam de Brinton in 1216 and remained in that family until 1438. The site is considered to have been infilled at the end of the 19th century using soil taken from the fishpond at Brookhouse Farm, Wood Eaton.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

21527

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
The Victoria History of the County of Staffordshire, (1958), 91-4

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry