Moated site 750m north west of Dairy Farm

Reasons for Designation

The battles and sieges of the English Civil War (1642-52) between King and Parliament were the last major active military campaigns to be undertaken on English soil and have left their mark on the English landscape in a variety of ways. Fieldworks are earthworks which were raised during the military campaigns to provide temporary protection for infantry or to act as gun emplacements. The earthworks, which may have been reinforced with revetting and palisades, consisted of banks and ditches and varied in complexity from simple breastworks to complex systems of banks and interconnecting trenches. They can be recognised today as surviving earthworks or as crop or soil marks on aerial photographs. They are recorded widely throughout England, with concentrations in the main areas of campaigning, and have been recognised to be unique in representing the only evidence on the ground of military campaigns fought in England since the introduction of guns. Newark was a key garrison held by the Royalists from the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 until it surrendered on the orders of the King in 1646. The town was surrounded by a series of offensive and defensive fieldworks, many of which survive to the present day. They are the most impressive surviving collection of such works in England; not only do extensive remains survive, but the whole system is recorded on two nearly contemporary plans, one by a Royalist engineer, the other by a Parliamentarian. They thus provide a unique opportunity for the study of the field engineering of the Civil War. All surviving examples of the Newark siegeworks are identified to be nationally important.

The battles and sieges of the English Civil War (1642-52) between King and Parliament were the last major active military campaigns to be undertaken on English soil and have left their mark on the English landscape in a variety of ways. Fieldworks are earthworks which were raised during the military campaigns to provide temporary protection for infantry or to act as gun emplacements. The earthworks, which may have been reinforced with revetting and palisades, consisted of banks and ditches and varied in complexity from simple breastworks to complex systems of banks and interconnecting trenches. They can be recognised today as surviving earthworks or as crop or soil marks on aerial photographs. They are recorded widely throughout England, with concentrations in the main areas of campaigning, and have been recognised to be unique in representing the only evidence on the ground of military campaigns fought in England since the introduction of guns. Newark was a key garrison held by the Royalists from the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 until it surrendered on the orders of the King in 1646. The town was surrounded by a series of offensive and defensive fieldworks, many of which survive to the present day. They are the most impressive surviving collection of such works in England; not only do extensive remains survive, but the whole system is recorded on two nearly comtemporary plans, one by a Royalist engineer, the other by a Parliamentarian. They thus provide a unique opportunity for the study of the field engineering of the Civil War. All surviving examples of the Newark siegeworks are identified to be nationally important. The remains of the moated site survive reasonably well despite plough degradation will retain significant archaeological potential in the form of buried deposits. They offer a useful insight into a smaller, perhaps less prestigious, but nonetheless functional moated site. As a result of the survival of historical documentation, subsequent archaeological survey and the apparent strategic importance of the house and moat in relation to the Kelham road, a fording point across the Old Trent Dyke and the construction of nearby Civil War forts, the remains will also contribute particularly to understanding of the Civil War sieges of Newark.

Details

The monument includes the site of a house known as the Red or Stoke Lodge and its surrounding moat.

The site lies in the north west corner of a field adjacent to the Newark- Kelham road 750m north west of Dairy Farm. It consists of earthworks defining a sub-rectangular platform approximately 40m by 31m and up to 0.6m in height, the southern and western edges of which are defined by an L-shaped linear depression approximately 4.5m in width. The sub-rectangular platform is interpreted as the site of a house and the L-shaped linear depression abutting it represents the infilled remains of the moat which originally enclosed the site. On the northern side of the site the moat has been disturbed and partly destroyed by a modern field drain, while on the eastern side it has been obscured by an old field boundary and adjacent trackway.

The monument is the site of the Red or Stoke Lodge. A house named the Red Lodge is clearly depicted and named on a contemporary plan recording the fieldworks of the Parliamentarian forces besieging Newark during the Civil War. A second contemporary document of Royalist origins also records the existence of a house, referring to it as Stoke Lodge. Despite the differing names, both sources mention the house in reference to an adjacent Parliamentarian redoubt. Identical map locations and the survival of such a redoubt 50m south east of the monument suggests that the Stoke and Red Lodges were therefore one and the same. Archaeological field survey in the 1960s confirmed the exact location and dimensions of the house, the foundations of which were then clearly visible in the north west corner of the platform. The surrounding moat was also clearly defined. Field survey and aerial photography also revealed the existence of a field track running parallel with and immediately beyond the western side of the moat from the Kelham Road to the Old Trent Dyke. This trackway was also clearly depicted on the contemporary Parliamentarian plan, leading eventually to a large fort described as `a worke of the Scots pallisadoed about'.

References to the monument and its depiction in Civil War plans indicate that it was a prominent landmark in the contemporary landscape, almost certainly extant before the war and possibly of medieval origins. The location of the monument in close proximity to the Kelham road and a fording point across the Old Trent Dyke, in addition to the construction of a Parliamentarian redoubt adjacent to it, is indicative of the tactical importance of the site during the Civil War.

All fences are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5 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:

30208

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
The Seige of Newark by the English and Scotch Armies, (1646)
RCHME, , Newark on Trent - The Civil War Siegeworks, (1964)
Clampe, R, A Description of the Seidge of Newarke upon Trent, (1646)

Other
RCHM, NMR Printout - SK 75 SE 32, (1996)

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.