Hall Garths moated site, immediately south of St Mary's Church

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.

Hall Garths is a well preserved example of a small but complex 14th century moated site. Remains of the manor house will survive on the island together with evidence of the medieval life and economy of the site. These will include building foundations, rubbish pits, and features related to small scale industrial activity and gardening. The monument's importance is heightened by the good preservation of organic remains and pollen within the moat ditches. This will provide valuable information about the medieval site's local environment which rarely survives elsewhere. The moat ditches are also expected to retain timbering related to one or more bridges across the moats, wooden and leather items lost or thrown away, animal and fish bones and other discarded food remains.

Details

The monument includes the buried and earthwork remains of a medieval moated manor house site located immediately to the south of the 14th century St Mary's Church. The moated site was leased to Thomas Ughtred in 1402 by St Mary's Abbey in York. In the mid-1970s, foundations, hearths, pottery and wooden stakes were reported as having been found by the owner of the site Test cores taken by the Humber Wetlands Project in 1995-6 revealed that the moat ditches contained surviving organic material with good preservation of pollen grains. The moated site is roughly rectangular in plan, orientated north-south. The moat ditch, which is typically 1.5m to 2m deep and 15m wide, surrounds an island 70m east-west and 90m north-south. The northern moat arm is wider than the other sides, being about 25m across, and is crossed midway by a causeway which is in line with the west end of the church. This causeway has been broadened in recent years, but was reported as the remains of a causeway or pair of bridge abutments in the 1960s by the Ordnance Survey. There is no evidence for an external bank around the moat; instead the upcast from the ditches was used to raise the ground surface of the island. The main island is subdivided with a further moat ditch, 15m wide and up to 2m deep, cut around the south east corner of the island to form a second island approximately 35m square. The ground surface of this smaller island is slightly higher than the rest. Linking the north west corner of this smaller island to the causeway across the northern moat arm there is a slightly sunken trackway. Excluded from the scheduling are the modern pigeon coops just to the south east of the causeway and all fencing, although the ground beneath these features is included.

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:

30129

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Humber Archaeological Partnership, 1321, (1997)

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